DEAR LITTLE CORPSES

Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey mysteries are a class above the usual crime section, shimmering with love for their pre-war setting and the artistic circles. Beautifully written, this is a charming and engrossing novel because the detail in the social commentary of the time is delivered with acupuncture-like precision, there are powerful emotions from the characters and an equally powerful evocation of rural Suffolk as the arrival of evacuees heralds the outbreak of war in Europe, all handled with sensitivity and great skill and with a multi-faceted plot that keeps you guessing. 1st September 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the safety of the countryside, but when a little girl vanishes, it's clear that danger can lurk in the quietest village. In the chaos of war, crime novelist Josephine Tey arrives to help her friend DCI Penrose to investigate the girl's disappearance. When a cloud of mistrust falls across the small community she has come to love, events take a sinister turn. Superbly plotted, 341 page paperback.