To commemorate St. David’s day this year I read a Welsh mystery! You have just got to love Rhys Bowen. Fun characters, good stories and enchanting scenery. Evan Evans is our local copper who has been recruited to join a special unit focusing on homicide. He is not delighted as he usually works locally with officers he knows and trusts but he is not going to complain or rock the boat. The first day they are placed in their new division a call comes in reporting the murder of a local university professor. Upon initial investigation the man sounds like a brilliant if not quite boring teacher. His wife found the body after walking their dog and reported no enemies or recent arguments with anyone faculty or otherwise.
Meanwhile Evan and his new wife, Bronwen, are settling in to their cottage and a shop on the high street is reopening with Pakistani proprietors. The town is a little befuddled but Bronwen takes immediately to their daughter who is suddenly visiting with them more and more often especially after hearing about an arranged marriage her parents are organizing. Things go from bad to worse pretty quickly with another murder in a completely different part of town with the same modus operandi and the daughter of the shop keepers disappearing.
Evan is torn as he wants to help the local fuzz find the girl and yet he is being pulled in three different directions by his new inspector on the murders. Add insult to injury and there is a third murder again with the same method used. They have to be connected but no one can figure out how. Great stuff.