An April Shroud (Dalziel and Pascoe Series #4)

The phrase 'a country-house mystery' evokes an image of 1930s fops in dinner jackets, starched family retainers, slinky femme fatales. It does not evoke an image of the belching Andy Dalziel, and yet there he is, on an enforced holiday, fetched up to a crumbling country manor, and sticking his bulbous nose into the late owner's unusual demise. As this is in fact the 1970s, the fops are sporting t-shirts and unfortunate facial hair, and the family retainer is knocking ash into the microwaved stew. But there is a femme, and while she may or may not be fatale, she's fabulous enough to waken even Dalziel's long dormant romantic dreams.