I read a couple of Catherine Aird’s books a few years back and seemed to remember liking them so I picked this up off the library shelf. I love having my archives to look back through though - they are so much better than my memory! I had liked the first one I read: “Short and sweet, but really pretty well executed.” but the second one seemed a bit too similar.

This one contained the same compact storytelling but with a gap of several years since the last book I enjoyed it for much the same reasons. Economical with words but full of plot. This one is about a fire in a dilapidated stately home at the centre of a new housing development. It might be the only crime novel I’ve read in years without a murder. I had a good idea where the story was going and was mostly right. The quick ending meant that I felt that at least one thread of the story was left swinging in the air.

Mostly good.