Jules Jones

Fifth in the Wycliffe series, first published in 1974. A prostitute is found murdered in her flat, in circumstances that suggest a sex crime. But it's obvious to Wycliffe's team that the suggestion is deliberate, and they need to consider other motives. The only clue they have initially is that the young woman was clearly well educated and intelligent, with a clientele willing to pay a premium for that. With that, they soon trace her real name and background -- the daughter of a well-to-do man, but both parents dead some years earlier, leaving only her and her brother.

As Wycliffe and his team trace the woman's professional and personal contacts, they find more than one motive for murder. But nothing seems to quite fit the normal patterns. Lily was exploiting pillow talk to make money, but not in a way likely to provoke murder. She had some dubious connections with a record of violence, but they seem well-satisfied with the relationship. There has to be something else the team aren't seeing, but it takes an arson attack and another death before Wycliffe has enough pieces of the puzzle to start to see a pattern. And even then, he's not sure if it's another pattern deliberately created for him to see -- and if so, what it's meant to hide.

Another well-constructed police procedural from Burley, with the clues laid out just clearly enough for the reader to stay slightly ahead of Wycliffe. As ever, much of the pleasure in the book is in the characterisations, giving it a good re-readability factor. However, I'd note that this is another title in the series which features a gay stereotype character and the normally tolerant Wycliffe's homophobia as a significant element.

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Fifteen years ago, the son of a prominent MP disappeared whilst on a coastal walking holiday after his release from a psychiatric hospital. The police had assumed suicide. Now his body has been found buried in the sand dunes, and it's clear his father was right all along -- the young man had been murdered.

A flashback prologue makes it clear to the reader from the start that a group of six teenagers having an illicit weekend were the last people to see Cochrane Wilder alive. The fun in the first half of the book is watching Wycliffe's team slowly piece together the clues that lead them to first one member, then the whole group. But knowing that one or more of the group was almost certainly responsible for Cochran Wilder's death and burial isn't the same thing as being able to prove who did it and why -- not when all six also have relatively innocent reasons for hiding their involvement in that weekend. And then a second murder is committed, making this more than just a cold case to be patiently unravelled...

As usual, a nicely constructed police procedural where the emphasis is on the characters and how they behave. Much of the appeal in this one is in initially knowing a little more information than Wycliffe does, and so being anticipating how the plot will develop -- the amount of extra information you get is nicely played to provide a good balance between the enjoyment of working it out and the enjoyment of being surprised by other developments. I enjoy that style of procedural, so I liked this one a lot.


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