Elizabeth LeMarchand's Unhappy Returns

 

Unhappy Returns / Elizabeth LeMarchand
NY: Walker & Co, 1983, c1977.
175 p.

After reading the first three installments of the Pollard & Toye mysteries, I said that I'd take a break. But then I found volume 9 in the series at a thrift store so just had to read it! 

I think that LeMarchand improved as she went along; this volume has much less of Pollard sitting down and going over the facts of the case, a technique I found a bit plodding in the first few. But like the first few, this is set in the countryside and a small community is drawn sharply and fully. 

Two small parishes in Pyrford and Abercombe are amalgamating, and a new vicar is installed. The housekeeper to the former eccentric vicar, Ethel Ridd, accuses the locals of theft when she says that a jewelled medieval chalice is missing from the smaller church. Shortly after, she's found dead in the vicarage. 

Scotland Yard is called in, and Pollard & Toye find themselves in the midst of a muddle, with red herrings everywhere and no clear motive in sight. Plus, is the medieval chalice real or was it imagined by the strange Mrs. Ridd? With a shifty shopkeeper, a petrified teenager, more murders/attempted suicides, and church drama, there is a lot going on here. The story twists and turns and the ending is a bit abrupt and bonkers. There is a bang of a conclusion but no real denouement to follow - a couple more pages to the story might have tied it up more neatly. 

However, I really enjoyed reading this one. I found it lively and entertaining, puzzling with hints of humour at times and skullduggery at others. I would read more of the series now if I come across any copies!