Sallie's Reviews > The Norfolk Mystery

After the first chapter I really thought this book was going to be good. Sadly, for me, this was not to be so; it promised much but simply didn't deliver. What it did produce however was something akin to the bastard child of Poirot & Marple in the People's Professor with his overblown eccentricity and constant drifting off into paroxysms of Latin bon mots or airy classical references. His sidekick inhabited the dual dimensions of darkly morose when dwelling on his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War and the somewhat limp when faced with Morley's incessant test questions but then he turned out to have something of an unexpected (if a little unconvincing) way with the ladies-even so it didn't add the much needed third dimension to the character.

There seemed to be a lot of dialogue and factoids that did little to advance the story and it felt very much as though it never really got into top gear.
Frankly all that kept me going past 100 pages was the fact that it was set in the village I took my vacation last year so it held some interest for me in that respect. I found the denouement to be a bit of a leap and also the apparent change in the attitude of the Deputy Detective Chief Inspector for the Norfolk Constabulary when allowing Morley centre stage in pronouncing his big reveal.

Overall I think it tried way too hard on the eccentricity front at the expense of real character development. It would make fine fodder for a TV series but I certainly won't rush to read the next in the series.