When Castle Caldbeck Wildlife Park gamekeeper Henry Fowler and the secretary to the park's veterinarian are found murdered, their bodies entwined with each other, Detective Superintendent George Rogers is called in to find the killer."
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Here's a rarity: a mystery that succeeds even though readers can guess the identity of the villain very early in the story. What keeps us turning the pages is not whodunit but why. A man and a woman are found locked together in an embrace, their clothes in disarray. The man was shot; the woman, bludgeoned to death. But was this double homicide a crime of passion, or is the sexual context covering up an altogether different motive? Ross, a former detective chief superintendent of police, sticks to the standard British mystery format--leisurely pace, plenty of time for character development, a fairly linear plot--but his characters (especially Detective Superintendent George Rogers, the protagonist of several previous novels) are engaging, and the mystery is just tantalizing enough to keep readers interested, even though they are likely to finger the killer long before Rogers does. In less competent hands, the novel might have been a failure, but with Ross in command, it's a modest success and will no doubt please his fans. David Pitt
From Kirkus Reviews
Delictos don't get any more flagrante than in Castle Caldbeck Wildlife Park, where animal keeper Henry Fowler and veterinary secretary Harriet Stoner have been discovered in the boot of Fowler's car, partly undressed, tangled in each other's limbs, and very, very dead. Cherchez l'homme, think Supt. George Rogers (None the Worse for a Hanging, 1995, etc.) and his foppish second-in-command, Chief Inspector David Lingard. But that's where things get complicated, since the obvious suspect, Harriet's husband Laurence Stoner, is serving a three-year hitch in Hardenhuish Open Prison for building fraud, and his hulking stepbrother William, with whom Harriet's been demurely living, disclaims the slightest sexual interest in her or her possible lovers. That leaves the lovers themselves--Harriet's tearful boss, veterinary surgeon Jacques Latouche; trainee animal keeper Quentin Coope; and, it could be, every other red-blooded Caldbeck man enterprising Harriet set her cap for--even though most of them get only a single scene apiece to make an impression. Under the circumstances, it's only natural that both Rogers (temporarily bereft of the favors of an attractive naval widow) and Lingard (never one to resist a likely beauty) should fall under the amorous spell of the park's chief security officer, Lesley Wing. Birds do it, bees do it, but maybe a few too many human predators stand revealed by the final fadeout in Rogers's 20th outing. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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