Murder, Mr Mosley - John Greenwood

After seventeen years, Brenda Cryer returns to the tiny Lancashire village of Parson's Fold with a shadowy past and a mysterious fortune. Shortly afterwards she is shot dead, and the one possible witness - her invalid mother - is missing . . .

The only man available for the job is the notoriously slow and old-fashioned Inspector Mosley, but this case is a radical departure for a man more used to locating missing geese than tracking down a coldblooded killer. And it doesn't help that Mosley refuses to use forensics or computers, preferring to trust 'intuition' and a network of gossips, busybodies and village idlers to get to the bottom of things.

Luckily, high-flying Sergeant Beamish - fresh out of the police academy and nursing a penchant for technology - has been tasked to keep an eye on the unpredictable Mosley. Keen to establish the superiority of his methods, Beamish sets out to solve the mystery by himself but somehow the grubby, balding and rumpled Mosley is always two steps ahead.

Gentle, eccentric and an utter joy to read, Murder, Mr Mosley by John Greenwood brings together the wit and wordplay of P. G. Wodehouse with the classic character-led storytelling of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown.