Learning Curve

Readers have had to wait years for English author Catherine Aird to release yet another novel, Learning Curve. How delighted I was that she finally has! I had feared that the title of her 2014 book, Last Writes, had telegraphed that it would be her last. But, no, Aird, now 88, has given us at least one more, and it was definitely worth the wait!

Learning Curve, the 25th in the cozy mystery series that features Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan and his dim-witted young sidekick, Detective Constable William Crosby, has not yet been released in the United States, but I couldn’t wait. I bought a copy from England. In the novel, Derek Tridgell, a man dying of cancer utters as his dying words: “He did it, you know. Killed him, of show more course.”

So who killed whom? Sloan eventually narrows down the possibilities to three: a man killed by falling into a vat at a factory owned by a pharmaceutical firm competing with Tridgell’s own, a spelunker who died in a cave-in seven years ago, or a young man killed in a car accident due to drunken driving. I never, ever predicted the ending, and I loved every single page.

I only hope that Aird won’t make us wait so long for the next novel. show less