Dr Patrick Grant, an Oxford don, is visiting his sisterin the village of Winterswick, and his curious mind turns to the Ludlow family. Living in a grand country house at the end of the village, their lives revolve around Mrs Ludlow, the bed-ridden grand matriarch of the family. But when her son Gerald returns with a new wife, Helen, things are about the change.

Not everyone is convinced by Helen’s charms, and when the housekeeper drops dead, poisoned by a pudding intended for Mrs Ludlow, it seems that someone has had enough of the old woman’s manipulations. Everyone in the house has a secret – but who had a secret so important that they needed to resort to murder?

A few weeks ago, I spotted that my 1900^th review was imminent and decided to do something special for it. And then promptly lost count and so this fairly random selection will have to do. Actually, it’s not a bad pick, as Margaret Yorke was fairly well known as a silver age writer. I don’t know what her general style was – one of the blurbs on this edition has Andrew Taylor referring to her as a modern Miss Marple which is a bit confusing – but this series, her only recurring sleuth I believe, is certainly a properly clued mystery.

It’s well-written, with Grant being a congenial amateur sleuth. The family is fairly well done, but some of the less important characters are fairly bland and kept swapping places in my mind. There are even clues for the armchair sleuth to spot. But, unfortunately, there’s a more important character to talk about. Yes, it’s my old friend Captain Obvious.

You know this is a spoiler-free blog, and mentioning the good Captain being part of this book probably does come close to spoiling things. Maybe he’s a just in my copy and when you read it, you won’t notice his presence – I hope so, because this is worth the 39p I paid for it as part of a complete set of Dr Grant mysteries from Joffe Books – but if you do want to give this a go…

…, well, even the blurb was enough to give it away to me. Luckily I read it after reading the book… and I hope that the next one is a bit cleverer, because there’s certainly enough here to make me come back to the series.