Book description
An eminent Lutheran pastor comes to England to take part in an
investigative TV documentary called Crucible and is caught shop-lifting
in the West End. He tries to demand that his case be handled by
Superintendent Kenworthy, but Kenworthy has retired and it is decided
not to bother him - until Pastor Pagendarm is found murdered on the edge
of a Hertfordshire wood. Kenworthy is puzzled, until a meeting with the
pastor's widow brings back memories of his days in wartime Intelligence.
But this is not a spy story, nor does it repeat the usual clichés about
Nazi Germany. It is a patient and sensitive search for the long
tap-roots of evil. The scenes in the ruins of immediate post-war Berlin
are among the most atmospheric that John Buxton Hilton wrote and, as
expected with this author, there are characters to remember: the
foolish, honourable British brigadier, his shrewd and down-to-earth
servant - and the charming, intelligent, ruthlessly amoral Anna-Maria.
In the tense denouement, Kenworthy uses the shooting script of Crucible
to break the case, and after all the surprises there is another one
still to come . . . John Buxton Hilton was born in 1921 in Buxton,
Derbyshire. After his war service in the army he became an Inspector of
schools, before retiring in 1970 to take up full-time writing. Hilton
wrote two books on language teaching as well as being a prolific crime
writer - his works include the Superintendent Simon Kenworthy series and
the Inspector Thomas Brunt series, as well as the Inspector Mosley
series as John Greenwood.
