Tom Dod's Aunt Hetty has approached him because she is concerned. Apparently there have been three accidently deaths in her home village of Durley Dean and she is worried that they may not have been accidents. So Tom with his sleuthing friend Mrs Frances Black visit her for the weekend.
With the local feuds, especially concerning the church and its new vicar, there does seem to be plenty of motives. Tom and Frances must sift through their interviews to find the guilty party.
A slow paced well-written cozy mystery set in the late 1920's.
A NetGalley Book ( )

Thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for providing an advance reading copy of the eBook for this novel. The views expressed below are my own:
This is a whodunit puzzle mystery story set in post WW1 England around 1929. Amateur sleuths Francis Black and Tom Dod are enticed into investigating three suspicious deaths in a rural English town with the quaint name of Durley Dean. Tom's great aunt lives there and asks them to look into these deaths. She believes they are connected to a squabble amongst the parishioners of her local Church of England. Two of the three are deemed to be accidents, and . the third one, a natural death. Things change dramatically, when the natural death is found to be a poisoning.
Almost as intriguing as the mystery is the relationship between Fran (as she calls herself) and Tom. There is an obvious attraction between them, but they cannot act on it. He is in a marriage of convenience, having married his brother's fiance in order to legitimize the brother's child that she is carrying. Fran is separated from her husband Michael who has left her for another woman, and the adulterers are now expecting a child. Fran initially refused Michael's request for a divorce. The intricacies of Britain's divorce laws are part of the story, as is the social stigma which is attached to divorced women.

The story is set in the interwar years and the post war changes are slowly taking root. Middle class people still have their domestic staff, but those days are numbered. Car travel is replacing train travel too; Fran and Tm scoot about in Tom's Hudson car.
Fran's mother is a character to see in terms of the social mores. She is scandalized by any hint of Fran considering divorce. She represents the Victorian pre-WW1 past.
Interestingly, the police play little role in the story, even though they are in the background. Unlike many stories with amateur detectives, they do not interfere with Fran and Tom investigating.
This is a clever mystery story with a satisfying resolution. There's a cast of interesting characters populating the small town and in the end most get their just desserts. The stage is set for more Fran and Tom sleuthing.
Recommended. ( )