Pascal Passion — Andrea Frazer

Pascal Passion is the fourth installment of Andrea Frazer's Falconer Files, a detective series chock-full of picture-postcard villages, dastardly deeds, and a delightful slice of humour. Shepford Stacey is an unassuming little village, its greatest asset being its small but excellent Church of England Primary School. This delightfully old-fashioned establishment of only two classes, one of infants, the other of juniors, has been run by the same pair of ladies for decades. It is in the year that the headmistress, Audrey Finch-Matthews, is to retire, that the smooth running of this long-established educational establishment is interrupted by murder. When Detective Inspector Harry Falconer and Detective Sergeant Davey Carmichael of the Market Darley Police arrive to investigate, they discover a host of motives, both past and present, and grudges that reach right back through the years. As the Easter weekend grinds inexorably on its way, Death stalks the village again, and it suddenly becomes imperative that the murderer is caught before there are more fatalities. Falconer soon realises that this is not the work of an opportunistic psychopath passing through, but of someone within the small community itself, taking lives at will, and there is no indication that the slaughter will stop here.