Rainbow’s End

No case is too strange or too baffling for the policeman George Felse and his son, Dominic. Over 13 instalments and two decades, the Felse Investigations will take them from their home on the Welsh Borders to the southernmost tip of India. The sleepy village of Middlehope is suddenly jerked into life by nouveau riche antiques magnate Arthur Rainbow. In a whirlwind of activity, he extravagantly refurbishes the manor house, joins the golf club, angling society and arts council – and, in a ruthless coup, dislodges the old church organist to take over the position himself. But for all his reforming zeal, the Middlehope community rejects him. And when Rainbow’s crushed body is found in the graveyard of St Eata’s church, there is very little surprise or sorrow – but much speculation as to who the murderer could be. After all, there are so many candidates – from his young, beautiful, flirtatious wife to the usurped organist and his mutinous choir. It falls upon Superintendent George Felse, newly promoted head of the Midshire CID, to solve this most perplexing murder.’Highly recommended to those who still like a proper five-course whodunnit with all the trimmings’ Sunday Times’A cult figure of crime fiction’ Financial Times’Charm is not usual in murder mysteries, but Ellis Peters’ stories are full of it’ Mail on Sunday