Book description
In this splendid turn-of-the-century English whodunit, Police Inspector
Thomas Brunt, of Rescue from the Rose and Gamekeeper's Gallows, is at it
again. This time, a newcomer to a Derbyshire village has been brutally
murdered on the moors, and the obvious suspect is Lomas the miner who
took her off to his remote Dead-Nettle mine workings. Brunt, however,
does not trust the obvious. Sooner or later everybody tells him
everything - or nearly everything. All he has to do is guess the rest
and patiently await his moment. Hilton evokes a special mood as he
paints the countryside, details traditional lead-mining lore, village
custom and community loyalties, and scenes from the Boer War that
illuminate the central character. In this way he portrays Edwardian
England at its best, and sometimes worst, as the grisly plot unfolds.
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.
