is this the one where the widow announces in court that she is bearing the child of the corpse in question ? ( )

Francis Pettigrew finds a dead body on the moor while he and his wife are on holiday at Exmoor. However, the body is gone by the time he gets back with help. Another dead body is discovered on the moor two days later, but this person had died just that morning.

The mystery of just exactly when did the deceased die is linked to a inheritance of a nearby estate. ( )

I am sure that I have read this before (say 25-30 years ago) but I had no inkling of a memory during this reread. I was glad to see Inspector Mallett, now retired, in this final book. ( )

Hare's lawyer detective and his young wife return to stay in a farmhouse on the edge of Exmoor where he had stayed as a boy. While out riding a pony, he sees what appears to be a corpse; his pony bolts, when he returns the corpse is gone --but he recalls having seen a body in the same place many years before. Meanwhile other mysterious events are happening --a man is paying a late night visit to the daughter of the couple who run the farm. Note this story is dedicated to Michael Gilbert, another skilled writer of British legal mysteries I like. ( )

An excellent "cosy" murder story, once again featuring self-effacing barrister Francis Pettigrew. This time Frank ventures out on holiday to Exmoor with his wife Eleanor, and finds himself staying at the same boarding house thwat he visited as a child some 50 years previously. This awakens long-forgottens memories of a horrific incident from his childhood which has unfortuante and disquieting resonances with the present. While out on a stroll Frank dicovers a dead body but, by the time he has summoned help in the shape of the local stag-hunting pack the corpse has disappeared. It reappears two days later and a murder enquiry ensues.
Little more is heard of the matter until some months later when Frank is subpoenaed to appear in a chancery case to determine the appropriate apportionment of the estate of a local luminary whose family abounded. It transpires that the precise time and date of the death of the corpse will determine the settlement of the estate as the deceased was a potential beneficiary in a complicated tontoine-style will.
As ever, Hare handles his material with a deft touch, paying due reverence to the legal niceties without ever letting the reader become bogged down in technicalities. And, as one has come to expect from his novels, the denouement still catches the reader out, though all the clues were clearly shown! ( )