Plaster Sinners

First Edition.
The appreciation of antique objets d’art was perhaps not Detective Sergeant Sidney Love’s forte, and yet it was his critical appraisal of lot 34 at Flaxborough’s auction of valuable antiques that set events in motion. The ensuing violent physical attack on his person acted like a magnet to the attention of Detective Inspector Purbright, whose perplexity over the incident was only deepened when the lot
– comprising two golf balls, an LMS railway tumbler, an old meat mincer, two decanter stoppers, a soap dish and a moulded relief of a cottage entitled At the End of Life’s Lane’ – was sold for almost £400.
Further developments link such diverse establishments as Twilight Close, council home for the aged, and Moldham Hall, seat of the impoverished but still immaculately upper-class Moldham family. But Inspector Purbright is not one to be unsettled by social diversity, and soon he and his London colleague, Detective Inspector Bradley, are at the heart of a chilling but decidedly genteel murder mystery.
Witty and wickedly observed, Plaster Sinners is a delightful Flaxborough novel and sees Colin Watson on peak form.