MR CADMUS

A very quirky and playful black comedy which begins with two apparently harmless women residing in cottages one building apart in the idyllic English village of Little Camborne. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow are cousins who have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when a mysterious foreigner Theodore Cadmus from a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered. Soon, long-hidden secrets and long-held grudges threaten to surface, drawing all into a vortex of subterfuge, theft, violence, mayhem and murder. The book has been criticised for unexplained characters coming in, strange birds on islands which are sometimes green then purple, and some rather curious amethysts. Leave behind Midsomer Murders and move into the realm of the truly weird. A quick read, 186pp. Paperback.