A bit like Morley, these books can be both amusing and overwhelming with trivia. I do admire Samsom keeping me interested even though none of his main characters are likeable. ( )

Professor Swanton Morley, his daughter Miriam and his assistant Stephen Sefton are on the way to Westmorland for the latest volume in The County Guides series, with Sefton making his way north not in the Lagonda, as usual, but by train. Shortly before the train arrives at Appleby station, it derails and crashes into a creamery that's lying connected to a siding, with the result that one person is killed. With no trains arriving in or leaving from Appleby, Sefton and the two others are put up at the Tufton Arms, from where they proceed to gather material for the new book while also investigating the cause of the crash and the discovery of a body at an archaeological dig.

This series is really growing on me, with the tone appearing to get darker with each succeeding volume; there is a lot going on under the surface, and it will be interesting to see where the author will take individual plot strands. The mystery at the centre of the novel also shapes up a lot better than the one in the preceding volume, Death in Devon, and I had no idea as to the identity of the culprit until very close to the end. Maybe the author is now also hitting his stride with his characters, all of them being particularly complex in their own way. Readers will either learn to tolerate Morley with his many idiosyncrasies or they won't; I'm very much in the tolerance camp, as it is Sefton's voice and personality that are the real attraction. I still feel that Ian Sansom has set himself quite a target: to devote one book to each of the 40+ English counties - that should see him through to old age. In any case, I'm already looking forward to book no. 4, set in Essex. ( )