This book wins some kind of award for taking me the longest time to read. Not that I can blame that on the book. I read the first half of the book in September 2000 before real life got in my way. When I got back to it recently I didn’t really reread the beginning. I skimmed the first part to pick up the thread of the story again and this may be why I was disappointed in the book.

The main character didn’t really come to life for me and I think that finding the protagonist interesting is almost essential for an ongoing series. This is a modern English village murder and whilst most of what goes on in Badger’s Drift is believable (perhaps not simultaneously but it is fiction after all) it just didn’t work for me.

I can see how I came to abandon this book even though I’d previously enjoyed a standalone by the same author. I have another book in this series on my bookshelf and I’ll try it out some time as I don’t really think i gave this one a fair chance but I suspect I’ll give the rest of the series a miss.