The Sleeping Policeman

William Dougal #7

by Andrew Taylor

When William Dougal is invited to the cottage of a young doctor to look into a case of blackmail, he soon discovers that the village community is not as quaint as it seems. For hostility and deception brew beneath the surface . . . As a network of corruption is gradually exposed, the village is shaken by a series of chilling from a sweep of thefts to a ruthless hit-and-run. And when tensions escalate into murder, it's up to Dougal to piece the puzzle together - before another body turns up.

Genres: Mystery

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 1992

About the author

Andrew Taylor (b. 1951) is a British author of mysteries. Born in East Anglia, he attended university at Cambridge before getting an MA in library sciences from University College London. His first novel, Caroline Miniscule (1982), a modern-day treasure hunt starring history student William Dougal, began an eight-book series and won Taylor wide critical acclaim. He has written several other thriller series, most notably the eight Lydmouthbooks, which begin with An Air That Kills (1994).

His other novels include The Office of the Dead (2000) and The American Boy (2003), both of which won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, making Taylor the only author to receive the prize twice. His Roth trilogy, which has been published in omnibus form as Requiem for an Angel (2002), was adapted by the UK’s ITV for its television show Fallen Angel. Taylor’s most recent novel is the historical thriller The Scent of Death (2013).

Reviews

[Woutervangysel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Competently written but plot and characters are unconvincing

[Kirsty Darbyshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less of Dougal than you'd expect which made it drag rather at the beginning, not one of my favourites really. Think I'm near the end of this series, wonder if the author was bored of the character (I'm not).