I liked that the opening couple of chapters only featured Sefton with Morely absent. Morely can become very tiresome with his arcane trivia so it's just as well Miriam provides some colour and movement. I do admire Sansom's writing though. ( )

Delightful. ( )

With trouble for him brewing in London, Stephen Sefton is rather glad to leave London for his next assignment with his employer Swanton Morley on The County Guides, even if it is only to travel to Colchester, Essex, where they are guests at the annual Oyster Feast. Once arrived, it is only a short time into the feast that the mayor, Arthur Marden, is found dead, presumably after having consumed a bad oyster. While mass hysteria rages around him, Morley remains his usual calm self and states with conviction that it can't possibly have been the oysters, but even he eventually admits defeat in coming up with a credible alternative explanation. Can Morley and Sefton solve the mystery before they leave the town?

The fourth volume in The County Guides series of detective stories based in 1930s England, it features the by now familiar characters of Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, his assistant Stephen Sefton, a Spanish Civil War veteran, and Morley's spirited daughter Miriam, this time focusing their gaze on Essex in preparation for their next book. Beneath the light-hearted surface of the novel lies a dark centre, and while the mystery once again takes somewhat of a back step in the plot, the author allows the reader a glimpse into the inner workings of two of our protagonists, Sefton and Miriam – Morley remains as inscrutable as always – and those of several Colchester citizens as suspicion falls on them. At the same time the reader becomes aware of the old ways being replaced by modernity, and the effect on ordinary people.

The series is an affectionate nod to the whodunit stories of the 1930s by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham, while also managing to send up the genre at the same time. While Morley regularly irritates both his daughter and his assistant (and the reader), the real strength of the series is the narrator, Stephen Sefton, relating to the audience his adventures travelling with Morley and Miriam while working on the Guides: he is a tortured soul, haunted by his experiences in Spain, and going through personal problems at the same time.

I'm already looking forward to the next volume in the series, this time taking Morley & Co. to Sussex. ( )