Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist

From Amazon:

On the peaceful and secluded estate of Lord and Lady Bottrel, the body of amateur flautist Tony Mills has been found, shot by his own gun. It appears to be suicide—but a closer inspection reveals some sinister inconsistencies, and Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is called in to investigate. As Wycliffe begins to unravel the last days of the dead man, another mystery is revealed—the disappearance of Lizzie Biddick, a pretty young girl who worked for the Bottrell family as a maid. Gradually, bitter family feuds and illicit relationships are uncovered—and then another body shatters the pastoral serenity of the Cornish estate for ever.

My Thoughts:

This is the second of these little books that I have read and this one didn't show more disappoint either. In this very British murder mystery, clues pile upon clues, and many of them are red herrings, dragged across the trail for Mr Wycliffe's benefit. Actually, the author engages in a bit of misdirection himself with the reader. For all that "Flautist" has to do with either the murdered man or the plot, he might as well be a cellist, a trumpeter or a kazoo player. The plot is complex and convoluted, certainly as much as the mind of the murderer. Inspector Wycliffe is a very likable and engaging character...asking all the right questions and feeding the sleuth-minded reader enough information to play along. Great little who-done its. show less

Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is called to a village near Truro when a dead man, at first thought to have died by suicide, is determined to have been murdered instead. Wycliffe comes into contact with Lord and Bottrell, the local aristocrats for whom the dead man had worked, and the Landers who have served the Bottrells as lawyers for generations. But all these families have secrets to conceal, and Wycliffe must somehow figure out the truth of it all…. I quite enjoyed this novel, the 17th in the long-running series; it was definitely more entertaining and solid than its immediate predecessor. I did figure out the culprit fairly early on, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story. I am not as enamoured of this series as show more I was at the beginning, but as I’m getting close to the end of the series, I expect I’ll finish it all; this one gets a slight recommendation from me. show less