Cold in the Earth

A deadly outbreak of foot and mouth disease has erupted in the Scottish countryside, with authorities forcing farmers to slaughter their stock, whether they were infected or not. The effect on farmers is such that it brings a number of them to the point of suicide and others to a state of severe depression. Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming is married to one of these farmers and is being driven to distraction, trying to coax him out of this dangerous mood. At the same time, she is involved in her first murder investigation when the decayed body of a woman is uncovered while the slaughtered animals are being buried. In New York, a woman decides to visit Scotland to search for any clues to the disappearance of her sister , many years before. The family who like to think of themselves as the upper crust of the town, were the last to see the missing woman, and consists of the owner of the property who has suffered a stroke and is unable to speak, his elder son, a police detective with an unpredictably violent temper, the owner's sister, an hysterical woman given to violent screaming fits and their nephew, a slimy, thoroughly unpleasant man, who is also given to the family's code of rages. D.I.Fleming has this ghastly family to deal with as well as trying to solve the murder and cope with her husband's depression. It's a very good read and I look forward to any others in this series.

This review is for "Cold in the Earth." Even though I suspected the killer, it didn't diminish my enjoyment in the reading. The characters are dimensional and so well drawn. The dialogue is excellent, even with the Scottish terms I didn't quite understand. She descriptions paint visual pictures of the people and the area which build tension and suspense in the plot. Her writing is described as atmospheric, and it is. This is the first book I've read by Templeton, but it only took a few pages to decide it won't be the last.