Secrets won''t stay buried...
Only now, twelve years after the mysterious disappearance of a teenage girl, will Mitchell & Markby begin to unravel the mystery in Candle for a Corpse, Ann Granger''s eighth cosy Cotwolds crime novel in the Mitchell & Markby series. The perfect read for fans of Hamish McBeth, Agatha Christie and ITV''s Midsomer Murders.
''Enjoyable crime featuring credible characters in a recognisably real world'' - Belfast Telegraph
On an unseasonably chilly summer''s day a macabre discovery is made in Bamford''s ancient churchyard. A body, dead some twelve years, is unearthed in the Gresham family plot, too shallowly buried to be a legitimate interment, too recent to be the last Gresham officially laid to rest.
Superintendent Alan Markby cannot resist the challenge to solve this twelve-year-old crime and suddenly his long-planned canal-barge holiday with Meredith Mitchell is in serious jeopardy. When the remains are identified as those of a local teenager, Kimberley Oates, reported missing at the time of the mysterious burial, his mind is made up.
Her holiday postponed, to her secret relief, Meredith finds herself with more time than usual for village chat - and for a dinner party with the local MP that reveals more than either he or his formidable mother would like about his connection with the dead girl...
What readers are saying about Candle for a Corpse:
''If you like low key crime with plenty of humour and interesting characters and plot then you will enjoy this series!''
''Brilliant writer and a brilliant book''
''I feel like I know the heroine personally''
Industry Reviews
It's the eighth chaotic case for the recently promoted Superintendent Alan Markby (Flowers for His Funeral, 1995, etc.), now back in Bamford and close to longtime girlfriend/amateur sleuth Meredith Mitchell, of the Foreign Service. Markby is immediately confronted with an old murder, uncovered when gravediggers Densil and Gordon Lowe, in the process of readying a grave, unearth the remains or a young woman. The body is soon identified as that of Kimberley Oates, who disappeared 12 years ago and, according to the autopsy, was four months pregnant. Kimberley, the illegitimate daughter of long-gone Susan Oates, lived with her grandmother and worked for a caterer, waitressing in some of the town's richer houses, like that of Margaret and the late Richard Holden, whose son Lars had an affair with the promiscuous Kimberley. Now a stuffy politician, Lars and his arrogant fiancee are petrified at the thought of the tabloids picking up the story. As Alan and Meredith peek and prod, others in town are unhappy, too, including aged ex-gravedigger Kat Dullen, still seething at being replaced by the Lowe brothers; butcher Derek Archibald, with his soft-porn magazines and ailing wife; and Major Walcott, a neighbor and close friend of the Holdens. There are other suspects as well, but not until the body of Densil Lowe is found hanging from the rafter of a storage shed does the light begin to dawn, just in time to save Meredith from becoming one more victim of a case of bygone passions. With its oversupply of red herrings, quirky village characters, chirpy conversations over cups of tea, the pace is soporific and the solution from left field. Strictly for the most ardent, and patient, fans of the British traditional. (Kirkus Reviews)
