Having really enjoyed book 1 of this series I was looking forward to an enjoyable read and, to begin with, it was such. It is obvious that the writer really knows her subject on a practical level and I found the details of farming life, with the tedious yet essential paperwork and recording of milk yields etc, interesting. And the murder of the herdsman almost under the noses of the farmer and the milk recorder set up the mystery to be solved.

The problem I found as the story went on was that a lot of ground was gone over repeatedly and eventually a bit boringly, yet the police investigation left promising areas completely unexamined. For example, the victim's participation and possible organising of badger baiting and other cruel pasttimes should at least have put his partner in such activities into the frame, yet although mentioned, this person was not even interviewed.

A lot of the story revolves around the relationship of Lilah, who was a main character of book 1, with the chief suspect, the farmer on whose premises the murder occurred. I found the sexual details a bit unnecessary especially the scene near the end where the particular turn they take seemed to resolve that relationship rather drastically in a way I found unconvincing. And it remained a mystery to me how the farmer was such a stud in the district especially since he came across as a rather creepy controlling character, particularly so in that scene. So by the end it balanced out at an OK 2 star read for me. ( )

When a herdsman is found dead in a barn, the most reasonable suspect is the man who DS Den Cooper's girlfriend jilted him for just a month before the wedding. Unfortunately there is not a lot of evidence to say he or anybody else actually did it.

An interesting take not on whodunnit but on did he really do it. ( )