1971 A yacht belonging to Dame Jocasta Upcott has been abandoned on the Essex coast and her dog and the Captain are missing. A PhD American student, Mason Powell Clay, is trying to trace the descendants of the members of the Billericay Coventers who left in 1692, and then returned to Wicken on the Essex coast. Campion is asked to find the dog as a favour but then a body is discovered.
An entertaining and well-written mystery story with its cast of likeable and interesting characters.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Mr Campion—always a pleasure!

Fascinating British murder mystery with a twist. Alfred Campion starring of course, having not lost any of his panache and policely intuition with retirement.
A story that leads from an island off from the North Carolina coast. Harkers Island had been settled by a group of religious dissidents who left England during the 1692/3, only to land in Salem, Massachusetts, and from thence sailed to Harkers Island. It seems some of their number returned to Essex.
Into this background comes Mason Lowell Clay writing a PhD thesis about the genealogy of the inhabitants of Harkers Island in relation to those who returned to Wicken-juxta-Mare. A place featuring dangerous mudflats. A place frequented by few except for bird watchers.
When Alfred obliges a famous actress to search for her dog lost in the area. When her yacht is found stuck on the mudflats, and the Captain facedown in the treacherous ooze, the story takes on more severe overtones.
This is one of those novels featuring that wonderful British understated sense of humor and conversation. Just so enjoyable! I loved Campion’s ruminations when talking to the local doctor who’d just carried out a brief look at the dead Captain’s body. He noted that the Doctor sported a “bow tie, which was obligatory, in Campions experience, for professions where a dangling tie might be an inconvenience if not a hazard: doctors, surgeons and snooker players, to name but three.” Now I think this is rather a wonderful segue worthy of Ratty and Mole, if not Winnie the Pooh.
How can one not enjoy a murder mystery peppered with such sublimely satisfying observations?

A Severn House ARC via NetGalley
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change ( )