I might have started this in a bad mood, because I ended up losing patience with it. It takes a long time to get to the murder, and by the time it happened I didn’t particularly care who murdered him because his death was nothing but positive. The detective protagonist, Macdonald, is fine, and the view of homefront WW2 in England is good, but this wasn’t my favourite Lorac novel. ( )

Alas, a disappointment. Lorac tries to imitate the Lancashire farmers' deliberation in speech and thought, and succeeds a little too well. City slicker that I man, I got impatient and skipped to the end.

reminded me of harvest in Sasketchewan - and a few things that followed
Macdonald solves the case - this one set in Lancashire ( )

The Garths of Garthmere have been farmers for generations. The head of the family Robert, is a hard man, but in his eighties still a working man. But after twenty-five years Richard, the eldest son has returned but not to visit his family just the land. When Robert is discovered murdered, Chief Inspector Macdonald is called in to investigate.
An enjoyable and well-written though slow-paced mystery, with its delightful description of the locale, and its characters.
Originally written in 1944
A NetGalley Book

( )

This is a well plotted murder mystery set on a fell farm in Lancashire, just south of the Lake District. An elderly curmudgeonly farmer is killed with a shotgun on his own farm and the local police call in Inspector Macdonald from CID. Although an outsider, his Scottish background and understanding of farming enable him to penetrate the locals' reticence. I liked the author's writing style and, while inevitably feeling slightly dated as it was published in 1944, came across to me as quite fresh in the hands of this author compared to some other golden age crime writers, helped by the timeless farming setting. I will seek out more by this author. (The book also includes a short story Live Wire, about a criminal whose cunning robbery backfires on him). ( )