What strange passions seethe beneath the prosperous surface of Flaxborough town? Affable but diligent Detective Inspector Purbright is tasked with uncovering the darker underbelly of greed, corruption and crime. A classic British series of police mysteries, laced with wry humour. "Watson has an unforgivably sharp eye for the ridiculous." - New York Times "Flaxborough is Colin Watson's quiet English town whose outward respectability masks a seething pottage of greed, crime and vice ... Mr Watson wields a delightfully witty pen dripped in acid." - Daily Telegraph With old-world charm and a military air, Mortimer Rothermere makes a most convincing conman. Just now he is employed by the Cultox corporation, to ensure that no breath of scandal taints the reputation of their successful pet food company near Flaxborough, as the acrimonious marriage of its unsavoury MD, David Harton and his wife Julia, threatens to boil over. But even Mortimer's habitual sang-froid deserts him in the face of ruthless villainy and actual murder ? what a relief that an old friend lives nearby, the incomparable Miss Lucy Teatime, and she is willing to dig out the dark secrets of canned WOOF (with turkey), "the caviar of the canine world'. Witty and a little wicked, Colin Watson's tales offer a mordantly entertaining cast of characters and laugh-out-loud wordplay.
