PASTURES NEW
by J.M. Gregson
A lonely Lancashire businessman who advertises for romance finds more than he bargained for.
Widowed Geoffrey Aspin couldn’t be more pleased that his modest three-line entry in DATING POINT put him in touch with Pam Williams, a lively divorcee two years younger. But his grown children, Carol (backed by darkly handsome husband Jemal Bilic, a man not to be trifled with) and Louise (whose gentle husband Steve Hawksworth thinks family should come first), clearly see Pam as a threat. Steve’s family concerns don’t keep him from offering a laudatory toast at Geoff’s sumptuous 60th birthday bash, just as Denis Oakley’s financial concerns don’t stop him from applauding his longtime business partner’s announcement that Pam is to be the next Mrs. Aspin. Still, someone must be more than mildly miffed at Geoff’s planned nuptials. Why else would he be throttled to death in the restaurant’s parking lot hours after the gala affair? DCI Percy Peach wants to know whodunit and why. He even takes time off from his two favorite pastimes—twitting his pompous boss, Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, and importuning his girl, sergeant Lucy Blake (Remains to Be Seen, 2007), to please set a date for their wedding—to put the fear of God into guilty and innocent alike until someone makes the fatal error that reveals the truth.
Gregson’s well-wrought if routine procedural has enough bursts of humor to keep the pages turning.