The Coffin Trail: A Lake District Mystery

Daniel Kind is an Oxford historian and also hosts a TV show. His girlfriend, Miranda, is a writer and they have decided they need a change. Totally on impulse, they purchase a cottage in a very small village in the Lake District that Daniel visited as a boy. They want to "get away from it all". The cottage is near a coffin trail, a track used to carry the dead over the mountains from one remote location to another. Their cottage was once the home of a man who the local residents consider a murderer, even though he died before he could be charged with the crime. A woman had been found laid out on the Sacrifice Stone and Daniel's father, Ben Kind, was the police officer who investigated the death many years ago. Hannah Scarlett, now a Detective Chief Inspector but once Ben Kind's sergeant, is heading up a new squad that will look into cold cases. Hannah and her team start asking questions about this unsolved case. Coincidentally, Daniel is asking some of the same questions, for the man who locals assumed was the murderer was a childhood friend and Daniel cannot believe that he could have caused any living creature harm, much less have brutally murdered a young woman. People in this small village are not pleased to have such an unpleasant affair dredged up again. I found the mystery intriguing and the area depicted quite interesting. I'm also very partial to cold case mysteries. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Cannot do any better than timely delivery of what was advertised and ordered.

Miranda persuades her lover Oxford historian and TV host Daniel Kind to leave the school that she insists is stifling him and she would quit her detestable job so that they can relocate and move in together. She further convinces Daniel to buy notorious Tarn Cottage in a relatively isolated Lake District Valley. Daniel is familiar with Tarn Cottage once home to Asperger's syndrome sufferer Barrie Gilpin, whom he knew. Barrie was suspected by the police led by Daniel's father of a violent ritual murder, but before he was questioned he fell to his death. Daniel has solved mysteries on his TV show using Holmesian logic and always felt that Barrie was innocent. Additionally, Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett has reopened this cold case because of a recent anonymous tip. Although Hannah and her team do not want Daniel interfering, he also makes inquiries as he plans to prove Barrie was innocent. The two adjoining investigations upset several residents of Brackdale, who want their dirty laundry left hidden from view. Although coincidence is over-killed to bring the son and the protégé in competition, readers will appreciate this fine amateur sleuth police procedural rivalry in which the who-done-it is cleverly devised. The story line is fun to follow as Daniel and Hannah employ similar methods as both learned from his dad. They also share in common the fear that their teacher bungled this case when he bet on Barrie exclusively. Miranda adds just the right additional touch so that the audience obtains a strong mystery that tracks THE COFFIN TRAIL, the path the dead are taken on to leave the isolated valley for burial. Harriet Klausner