The peace of a Midlands village is upset when local businessman Harry Bowers doesn't return from choir practise.
More concerned than the manās one wife, it would seem, investigating officer Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy becomes convinced he has been done away with.
But there is no trace of the man, just a litany of evidence of an ailing marriage and a nosediving business venture.
in charge of her first serious case, DS Roy will struggle to win the respect of her colleagues -in particular, her Brummie boss, DCI Gavin Roscoe. All that while fighting off the intentions over an increasingly desperate suitor.
Who had it in for the chorister? And is Roy tough enough to break down the defences and prejudices of Middle England?
ā
The peace of a Midlands village is upset when local businessman Harry Bowers doesn't return from choir practise.
More concerned than the manās one wife, it would seem, investigating officer Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy becomes convinced he has been done away with.
But there is no trace of the man, just a litany of evidence of an ailing marriage and a nosediving business venture.
in charge of her first serious case, DS Roy will struggle to win the respect of her colleagues -in particular, her Brummie boss, DCI Gavin Roscoe. All that while fighting off the intentions over an increasingly desperate suitor.
Who had it in for the chorister? And is Roy tough enough to break down the defences and prejudices of Middle England?
ā
It had been no surprise to Harry Bowers to learn that someone was sleeping with his wife. He had known about it for several weeks. He even knew who the man was.
But it had come as a great shock to discover that the shameless creep had been bold enough to pay occasional visits to his wife at their family home. Heād learnt this through a chance remark made by his young daughter.
Tonight, for the first time since he learned of these visits, the two men were due to meet again. They could hardly avoid it. They sang beside each other in the church choir.
As he travelled home in his car from the railway station, Harry vowed to remain calm and see how the evening developed. For the present, he would say nothing to his wife. After twenty minutes following country roads, their imposing Georgian mansion loomed up before him in the twilight.
The black, two-metre-high gates to the estate, just outside the village of Norton Prior in Warwickshire, swung open. He put his white Audi into gear and the car swept up the driveway, past the tennis court and the pink rhododendron bushes. The neatly trimmed conifers stood like sentinels, casting eerie shadows across the gravel.
At last, he came to a halt by the stone steps that led to the red, colonial-style front door. The property tycoon, who was thirty-nine, strode past the two white gothic pillars standing on either side and turned the key.
āMust get a move on,ā he muttered to himself. āChoir practice starts at seven fifteen and I was late last week.ā
The house seemed quiet as he pushed open the door and walked in.
āMaggie, are you here?ā he asked, his deep voice echoing round the vaulted reception hall.
āOf course, Iām here. Iām always here,ā came the reply. Margaret Bowers strolled from the kitchen, looking as stern as a sultanās mother.
āI saw the credit card statement this morning,ā he announced.
āI wondered when you were going to bring that up.ā
āYouāve gone a bit mad at the sales, havenāt you? Weāve hardly got Christmas out of the way.ā
She rolled her eyes and adjusted the long blonde hair sheād tied behind her head. āI donāt have to account for my spending. I needed some new clothes.ā
āWe shouldāve discussed it first,ā he insisted.
She scowled. āYouāve never got time to talk about anything.ā She then climbed the oak stairs and disappeared from view.
Harry hurriedly cooked himself a microwave meal. The days of cosy family meals round the table had long since passed.
After bolting down his pasta, he raced upstairs and took off his grey suit. He pulled on his blue jeans before returning downstairs and snatching his hymn lyrics from the writing bureau in the living room. He looked at his watch. It was nearly a quarter to seven.
āIād better get moving,ā he told himself, glancing in the mirror to comb his short, dark hair. After slipping into his dark-blue trainers and pulling on his black overcoat, he rushed out into the bitterly cold January air.
It was a clear night with a slender crescent moon and stars visible in the sky. Leaves, brittle with frost, crunched beneath his feet as he made his way along the Worcester Road towards the church.
He passed two black-and-white cottages and then a row of trees, tall and thickly clumped together. He darted in and out of their shadows on the pavement as he walked. Above the rumble of the traffic, he heard the church bell in the distance toll seven times. He quickened his pace.
In his mind, he rehearsed the hymn they were due to perform at Candlemas in just over three weeksā time: āOf the Fatherās love begotten, Ere the worlds began to be, He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending he, of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!ā
Within ten minutes, he had reached the churchyard, which stood on the corner of Oxford Lane, enclosed by a solid stone wall. Behind the monuments to the dead stood the floodlit Norman church of St John the Martyr, rising like a beacon in an ocean of darkness.
Harry turned into the lane, passing the pair of terraced cottages on his right, and was pleased to see the lights were still glowing at the village newsagentās, Norton News, housed on the ground floor of an Edwardian villa.
āAnother cold one, isnāt it?ā he muttered to the shopkeeper as he climbed the three steps into the shop. Harry undid some of his coat buttons, reached into an inside pocket and handed over a pound coin.
Smiling, the proprietor passed him a packet of mints and his change. āCold enough for snow,ā came the reply as Harry refastened his coat and left.
He had only gone a few steps when he noticed the very man who was sleeping with his wife, James Hockley, walking slowly up the pavement towards him.
Harry crossed the lane and waited by the dark, timber lychgate. Taller than Harry and with dark, ginger hair, Hockley glared when he noticed his fellow-tenor.
Harry had never intended to be confrontational. He had wanted his rival to admit to the affair and promise to end it. But now face-to-face with him, his anger erupted and dominated his emotions. There was something about his rivalās swagger that antagonised Harry.
āYou can wipe that smirk off your face!ā he bellowed.
Hockley, a PE teacher who kept himself extremely fit, quickened his pace as he approached, his face incandescent with rage. He was cursing Harry, calling him āan old drunkā.
āAre you going to wipe it off for me?ā he hollered. āCome on then.ā
He lunged at Harry, his punch engaging with his face. The blow sent him flying backwards so that he struck his head on the churchyard wall. He lay almost motionless on the frosty ground, moaning.
The teacher looked around to make sure there were no witnesses to the assault. Then he regained his composure and proceeded along the lane towards the church hall, acting as though the event had never happened. He hadnāt thought of the consequences of his actions until that moment. Now it occurred to him that Harry might recover and stumble into the hall, battered, bruised and berating him. What would happen then?
While the choir began rehearsing their fifth century hymn inside the small, brick-built hall, Hockley remained uneasy. He tried hard not to worry about Harry making a sudden appearance and concentrated on the lyrics. Nearly half an hour passed. Surely his fellow-tenor should have recovered by now and joined them?
He continued feeling unsettled and, when the practice was over at a quarter past eight, he didnāt linger to exchange gossip with other choristers. He was keen to return to the scene in Oxford Lane.
He was relieved to find the businessman was no longer lying by the lychgate. There was no blood by the wall or on the leaf-strewn ground. There was no sign that any skirmish had disturbed the peace of the night.
So where was Harry? Had he slunk off home? Had a passer-by attended to his wounded head? Had he been rushed to hospital? There was no clue and no one to ask.
He pulled out his mobile phone and dialled a familiar number. Within a minute, Margaret Bowers answered.
āJames. Is everything all right?ā she asked. She had not been expecting him to call.
āI know this might sound strange but is your husband there?ā he wondered.
āNo. He goes to the church hall on a Tuesday.ā
āI know,ā said James. āI saw him in Oxford Lane before the choir practice started, but he didnāt show up at the hall. Iām just wondering whatās happened.ā
āNot like you to worry over Harry,ā she muttered.
āI know, but this is a real mystery. Look, I may as well tell you. We had an argumentā¦ā
āOh, here we goā¦ā
āWe had an argument just a few yards from the hall. Iām sorry to say I lost my temper and hit him.ā
āIām sure heās survived worst.ā
āI hit him probably a bit harder than I shouldāve done. I left him on the ground.ā A sudden urgency crept into his voice. āHe was all right. He was still moving. Just a little dazed. Thatās all.ā He paused for breath before adding, āI canāt understand why he failed to show up for choir practice and thereās no sign of him in the lane. Iām wondering if heās gone to hospital.ā
āUnlikely. Theyād have phoned me if heād been taken in. Look, donāt worry, James. Heāll turn up. He always does, moreās the pity. But I expect, when he does, heāll be baying for your blood.ā
Ā
If you looked at Murder On Oxford Lane from the snapshot view of both beginning and end, the novel would be a near-perfect mystery or thriller. While it does get a bit bogged down in the middle, where it ultimately ends up is what pushed this from a lower rating to a higher one for me. Along with the rather neat tying up of loose ends, Tony Bassett has created a cast of characters making up the local law enforcement that very much deserve the series heās built on them.
The novel opens from the point of view of the man who ends up being the catalyst for the rest of the plot, our soon-to-be-missing real estate mogul: Harry Bowers. We do learn more about the man over the rest of the novel, both the good and the bad, the character established in that first scene made me actually care about them going missing. And as every good mystery or thriller novel must have, there are plenty of twists and turns following that first chapter. Though some of the breadcrumbs and red herrings are given more of a spotlight than they perhaps should have been, the great majority of them are more cleverly handled and folded into the rest of the story.
Timing and how it affected the story from a readerās standpoint is the main reason I almost gave this novel a lower rating. Understanding where everything fits into place was sometimes a struggle for me, even starting from almost the very beginning. We are told outright multiple times that January 8th was the day of the disappearance, but it isnāt until Chapter 24 that we are given a definitive idea of how long after that disappearance was Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy first brought in to interview the family.Ā
The concept of how long certain actions or tests take during the investigation also donāt seem to match up. A week passes for a body to be identified as not the missing person despite visibly glaring differences such as tattoos whereas fibers from multiple coats are tested within the span of a few hours. I think it was more a typo than anything else, but the years that both Bowers were in a relationship together changes from 18 to 14. Most frustrating for me as a reader though involves the side plot of a stalker one of the detectives must deal with. The two were involved in college only for the stalker to show up more than three years later with rapidly accelerating issues. But thereās nothing to address why here and why now as opposed to the time between.
Despite those issues though, the eventual payoff is what ultimately led me to believe Murder On Oxford Lane deserves that higher rating. The fact the author has created a quirky enough team of detectives I already want to read about them in book two doesnāt hurt either.