DEATH'S HEAD

by Jonathan Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 1983

When Dominic Lockersbie, the town's genteel drunk, reports a body on the porch of the local church, the police aren't too surprised to find not a trace of it. But dogged, introspective Det. Supt. George Rogers (A Rattling of Old Bones, etc.) soon finds the corpse in a freshly dug grave--and ties it to the disappearance of lepidopterist Richard Knostig, gone missing from the dusty, unkempt manor house he shared with his forbidding common-law scientist/wife and her sexy assistant Helen Blanford. Moreover, Knostig's legal wife Dorothy then surfaces--and some routine sleuthing also turns up Knostig's pregnant mistress, 40-ish Charlotte, the only one of his women who seems to be upset by his demise. Eventually, then, while the quasi-widows fight over property rights, Rogers' pathologist/girlfriend Dr. Bridget Hunter declares that the cause of death is poison. And it takes some imaginative work before the Super and Inspector Lingard (a snuff-using dandy) come up with the rather complex solution. Despite Superintendent Rogers' terribly sluggish inner-struggles with his flourishing libido: a good specimen of the solidly readable British police-procedural.

Pub Date: May 16, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION