The Habit of Loving

Inspector Rudd #6

by June Thomson

Book by June Thomson

Genres: Mystery

Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

June Thomson, a former teacher, has published 24 crime novels, 18 of which feature Detective Chief Inspector Jack Finch and his sergeant, Tom Boyce. She has also written six short story collections of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Her books have been translated into many languages. She lives in St Albans in Hertfordshire.

Reviews

[Kate]

"Inspector Rudd has a most baffling case: a bizarre triangle at the bottom of which lies murder. The triangle involves a shy young man passing through a quiet village on a summer holiday, another solitary soul, Maggie Hearn, a local maiden lady who sees him as the son she never had, and Jess, a lovely girl who has a date with death.

"Detective Inspector Rudd, Chelmsford CID
"His detective instincts are tempered by psychological insight. A most satisfactory master of British police procedure, the Inspector welcomes the challenge of a murder investigation now and again. Just as, when winter cold invades the lonely Essex countryside, even a sober, courageous man appreciates a beer at the local pub."
~~back cover

"A very nicely done mystery. A grand cast of characters and suspects with wonderful in depth characterization, a plot that loops and swirls and deftly hides the murderer until almost the last page. All that in amongst a brilliant picture of a stereotypical small English village in the 1950s. "

[Eugene]

This is a fine, if somewhat dated, English village mystery. As such it depicts the English villagers as they were in those days, insular and provincial perhaps but always depicted with even-handedness and respect.
A young woman in a quiet Suffolk village is found murdered; a single mother living with her widowed father who’d all moved to town only a year ago and weren’t really yet accepted by the locals. Then a young “traveller” stops by for a few days, and quickly takes up residence in the barn of a single woman farmer…it’s easy for tongues to wag when the two youngsters are seen chatting each other up in a farmer’s currant field where they had obtained some day labor work doing the berry harvesting. And when she’s quickly found dead, well…
But is it all so simple as that? It will be up to Inspector Rudd to find out. A well written and enjoyable book to read.

[Margaret Meyer]

I began to question the idea that the father was to blame before I found out it was him.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: there are three people involved in this baffling Inspector Rudd case and a murder at the bottom of it.