I believe that Murder in the Afternoon by Frances Brody is the third Kate Shackleton mystery. It was published in 2011 and I enjoyed it although I really wish I had held off and waited until I got my hands on the first one, Dying in the Wool. But you know what it’s like when you’re in the library, this one just jumped out at me and as neither of the previous ones had been in any of the many libraries that I’ve been frequenting, I just nabbed this one.

The setting is Yorkshire and post World War 1 so it has that vintage feel about it which I prefer. Kate Shackleton is a war widow who has never been able to accept the loss of her husband, she still harbours the hope that he has lost his memory and is languishing in a hospital somewhere.

Meanwhile she has to earn a living and she does so by working as an investigator. Another woman’s husband has gone missing. Ethan Armstrong works in a local quarry and he hasn’t come home from work. His children had gone to the quarry earlier in the day and the eldest, his daughter, claims that she saw her father and he was dead, nobody believes her and there is no sign of his body, or his tools. Did he just take off in high dudgeon, looking for work elsewhere or has something sinister happened to him?

This is an entertaining mystery. It reminded me of Catriona McPherson’s books, without the humour. Kate Shackleton is a likeable character, which always helps but the mystery was good too.

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