Lying Dead

First Line: The wind had dropped with the sunrise. When "Big Marge"-- Detective Inspector Marjorie Fleming-- of the Galloway Constabulary Headquarters in Kirkluce walks onto the scene, the only sound to be heard is the ringing of the murdered girl's cell phone. When confirming the victim's identity proves to be trickier than expected, and when another body turns up, DI Fleming knows that the task of finding the murderer in the well-heeled village of Drumbeck is going to take plenty of patience and diplomacy. I've been a fan of Aline Templeton's Marjory Fleming series from book one. I feel as though I'm getting to know an area of Scotland that I keep bypassing on the way to Glasgow (and on to the Highlands). Wigtown, the horrors of foot and mouth, sheep herding trials... Templeton describes the area with knowledge and affection. But there's more to the series than its setting. Big Marge and her detectives are multi-faceted and don't always do what you expect of them. We also get to see how they are when they're at home, which I always think leads to characters that are well "fleshed out". This time around, Marjory is saddled with a detective who's on the fast track to promotion. As a result, he's much more interested in finding a suspect that fits his pet theories than he is in finding the actual murderer. Nothing like a detective making a difficult investigation even tougher! Add to that the fact that Marjory and her detectives are teasing one thread at a time loose from a tapestry of money and privilege in a small village that's been turned into weekend homes for the wealthy, and it's easy to see that this case is a nightmare. Templeton always has an excellent plot and setting populated with some of my favorite characters in crime fiction. Lying Dead is no exception. If you haven't made the acquaintance of "Big Marge", I sincerely hope you do.