Hardcastle's Collector

December 14, 2015
Set in August, 1917, Ison’s solid 13th historical (after 2014’s Hardcastle’s Quartet) takes irascible Det. Insp. Ernest Hardcastle and his long-suffering assistant, Det. Sgt. Charles Marriott, to Hampshire, where 16-year-old Daisy Salter’s strangled corpse has been found in a field by farmer Joshua Blunden. The London policemen soon learn that Daisy was suspected of being light-fingered and consequently had trouble holding on to a job. She was also sexually active, and the autopsy reveals that she was pregnant. As the investigation follows predictable lines, the pair probe those who may have gotten her with child, including students at a local boarding school and a suspicious itinerant whom Blunden once caught in flagrante with the dead girl. En route to the fairly clued solution, Ison makes the most of the contrast between Marriott’s cynical responses to Hardcastle’s magisterial pronouncements on the art of detection as well as the wide-eyed awe of a young and callow local constable.

July 2, 2012
Set in March and April 1918, Ison’s workmanlike 10th procedural featuring London Divisional Det. Insp. Ernest Hardcastle and Det. Sgt. Charles Marriott (after 2011’s Hardcastle’s Obsession) centers on the murder of Ronald Parker, a missing gas company employee, whose body is fished from the Thames with a bullet wound in the head. When Parker’s widow, Mavis, hears the sad news, she asks whether his death occurred in Holland, claiming, unconvincingly, that he was heading there to avoid military conscription, despite his being medically exempt from service. A letter found on the corpse leads the police to Daisy Benson, the dead man’s mistress, but before too long they realize Mavis had a possible motive for doing away with her spouse since she may have also strayed. Several plot twists make up in part for the somewhat plodding story line. Readers should be prepared for a lead who’s less developed than similar irascible fictional Scotland Yarders.

January 1, 2016
Ernie Hardcastle, Scotland Yard's CID head, knows everything there is to know about crime-solving on his home turf of London. But when he's assigned to solve the murder of a young woman in a small Hampshire village, he feels out of his depth. Things move at a much slower pace, local gossip is the main source of clues, and the big-city ways of London policing just don't translate. Still, Hardcastle has never met a case he can't solve, and he's determined that these Hampshire hicks won't get in his way. The murder victim, Daisy Salter, reputed to be a loose woman, was found dead in a field, having been raped before she died. Not only that, the autopsy shows she was pregnant. As usual, this British procedural has plenty to offer: a vividly evoked early twentieth-century setting, a meaty plot, plenty of twists, a surprise ending, andpresiding over it allthe cantankerous Hardcastle. Inspector Morse fans might find Hardcastle to be a kindred spirit, if less pompous.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)