How the weather has changed. Pouring rain a couple of days ago and today it's bright sunshine and mild. Just lovely. The puppies and I had a nice walk before lunchtime.
Here is your Advent Calendar book for today.
"One of my aims in 2023 is to finish some series I've been enjoying. The first one completed is the John Madden mystery series created by South African mystery author Rennie Airth with the sixth book in the series, The Decent Inn of Death. Funny factoid; I actually thought I'd finished the series in 2020 when I read The Death of Kings, but then I discovered that Airth had published Inn that same year.
OK enough rambling preambling. 😎 It this is the final book in the series, it was a satisfying story with which to conclude the series. Retired Chief Inspector Sinclair takes a trip to visit an old friend from Scotland Yard and becomes involved in a possible mystery, that being the death of Greta Hartman. Hartman had lived in a community near Winchester, a German who'd moved there before WWII had settled in. Her husband had been executed in a concentration camp and she had escaped to England and gradually become accepted in the community.
Greta had been found dead, after seemingly slipping on a stone crossing a creek and bashing her skull. While the death is deemed an accident by local police, her best friend, Vera, can't believe it. Sinclair arriving for his visit, listens, does a little investigation and thinks there are enough questions to keep investigating on his own. He plans to make a brief visit to Oxford to check on a mysterious man who was seen the day Greta died. Sinclair is struggling with a weak heart and hopes to return to his home, in Sussex before the Madden's, vacationing in Italy, return as Helen Madden, his doctor and friend, wants to keep an eye on him.
Unfortunately for Sinclair, his visit to Oxford and then onward the isolated manor of cripple Julia Lesage will result in him being snowed in and isolated, possibly in a dangerous situation for them all, as he tries to discover if a cold-blooded psychopath might be threatening Julia's life, and all those at the manor. John Madden, arriving home also heads to Oxford to find out what the heck Sinclair is up to and, more importantly, where the heck he is! The phone lines are down, dontcha know.
The story is a slow build, introducing characters, nicely developing the plot and mystery; kind of cozy but threatening at the same time. The list of suspects is small but there are nice little twists and turns as Sinclair and Madden, with the help of Scotland mates, Billy Styles and Lily Poole, try to discover if there is a mystery, and if so, who is this murderer who seems to have left a series of murders, from Argentina, through Mexico to Germany in his wake. It's an entertaining mystery people with interesting characters and finishes with a tense, satisfying conclusion. Will John Madden possibly come out of retirement one last time? We'll see. But if not, The Decent Inn is an excellent way to close down the series. (4.0 stars)"
Check out this series. They seemed to get better and better. Have a great weekend.
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