ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

The Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher can’t escape involvement in murder no matter how good her intentions.

  DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard is called in when three bodies are found buried in the heart of Epping Forest in the spring of 1926. The local police officer, DI Gant, is so annoyed that he walks off, leaving Alec and his crew with no help. The first order of business is to identify the three men and find a connection between them. It is Alec’s wife Daisy who comes up with the idea that they may have had a World War I service connection. Colonel Pelham, a retired soldier, was a brute and a bully whose wife is delighted with his demise; the other two victims were young enough to have served under his command. While Alec continues to search for clues, Daisy and her friends Melanie and Sakari attend a sports day at their daughters’ school. There they encounter another bully—Harriman, the boys’ games teacher—along with several teachers who suffered greatly during the war. When Melanie’s daughter finds Harriman’s dead body in a maze they’re visiting, Daisy does her best to protect the girls from the inquiry, which is being run by the choleric and incompetent DI Gant.   The latest edition to Daisy’s long string of investigations (Sheer Folly, 2009, etc.) is amusing and sprightly, and as evocative of the period as ever.