Mud, Muck and Dead Things. Ann Granger

When wheeler-dealer Lucas Barton arrives at the deserted Cricket Cottage to hold a meeting with a mysterious contact, he's less than happy about where he finds himself. The countryside, he muses, is full of mud (that spoils his shoes), muck and dead things -- which turn out to include a very dead young woman in the cowshed. Barton races out of there at top speed -- but his car has been spotted, the police are called, the body discovered and a police investigation begins. Granger is a proficient and experienced author of British crime fiction; few of her novels transcend the genre in the way that those of some of the best mystery writers can, nor do they delve deeply into the psyche of her characters. While they aren't "cozy" crimes, they also aren't gritty or terrifically suspenseful, full of twists and turns. They contain puzzles, which the police unravel. That doesn't mean that those puzzles aren't good -- in this case, it wasn't until close to the end that I figured out which of the potential suspects was the guilty party. They are solid, unspectacular but ultimately satisfying detective novel set in Gloucestershire, a stone's throw away from the setting of her Cotswold mysteries (the Meredith & Markby series, which has now wrapped up.) This series isn't quite as strong as the previous rural one, but I think that's because her characters aren't yet as developed. The new superintendent arrives after the body is discovered, and remains as much of an enigma at the end of the book as he was at the beginning -- it's Inspector Jess Campbell who is the main character here. Since this is billed as the first Campbell and Carter novel, it's a safe bet that will change in the years to come. I still think Granger's best novels are The Companion (Lizzie Martin Mysteries), the first of two Victorian mysteries, and the early novels in her Fran Varady series, Asking for Trouble (Paragon Softcover Large Print Books) and Keeping Bad Company (A Fran Varady Crime Novel). Still, if you like novels set in rural England, and a solid mystery that is at heart a police procedural, this is a good option -- recommended to readers with those tastes.