Last Orders at the Swan – Paperback

Frank Ashby has kept the Black Swan going for twenty-two years, and the whole of Little Marshford has drunk, argued and celebrated under its low beams. On the night he has promised to announce a rescue deal, with the bunting up and the whole village crowded into the bar, he goes down to the cellar to fetch something for the toast and does not come back up.

He has been poisoned. The pub was full of people who knew him, and every one of them had a reason to be near the cellar door.

Flossie Fairweather did not come to the Swan to investigate. She comes to look at Frank’s books, at Inspector Croft’s request. The figures do not add up, and the more she reads, the more she wonders whether Frank was killed for what he had found, or for what someone else wanted to keep hidden.

With Inspector Tom Croft following the police line and Dr Julian Rhys asking her to be careful, Flossie works through a pub full of regulars and a ledger full of lies, from the beer cellar to a rival landlord’s quiz night.

A warm English village mystery with a pie recipe at the back, a rooster who has the run of the green, and a very good reason to call time on someone.