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Titles to Look Out For:
The Flaxborough Novels:
[date given is purely that of the first edition. Each listing includes later editions where applicable]
1967. Lonelyheart 4122
1968. Charity Ends at Home
1969. The Flaxborough Chronicle. Containing: Hopjoy Was Here; Bump In The Night; and Coffin Scarcely Used
1969. The Flaxborough Crab
1972. Broomsticks over Flaxborough
1975. The Naked Nuns
1977-Apr-07. One Man's Meat
1979-Oct-04. Blue Murder
1980-Sep-25. Plaster Sinners
1981. 'Whatever's Been Going on at Mumblesby?'

General Fiction:
The Puritan

Non Fiction:
Snobbery With Violence: crime stories and their audience

• Blue Murder [top]
  First published on 4th October, 1979 in Great Britain by Eyre Methuen, in hardback with dustjacket, 200pp, ISBN 0413461300

Storyline: When Police Constable Basil Cowdrey is nearly flattened by a Rolls-Royce Motor Car in Flaxborough market, the unwary might be forgiven for suspecting no more than a case of careless driving. But the car is the first indication of the presence in Flaxborough of fearless crusading journalist Clive Grail of the Sunday Herald bent on uncovering scandal in that town's quiet and overtly respectable back streets. Published intimations of revelations to come cause the mayor of Flaxborough, Alderman Charles Hockley, to issue a challenge of a blood-curdling and (as Inspector Purbright patiently explains), illegal nature. But the war of threats between journalist and outraged civic dignitary is not the worst of it and soon Purbright finds himself striving to solve (and to explain to his Chief Constable) a much graver and more sinister crime. Those who play with blue films and blackmail often find themselves involved in more than they bargained for. This is certainly one of the lessons of this story. Like its predecessors, (several of which have been adapted for BBC television such as Murder Most English, Blue Murder is described as being at times chillingly ghoulish, always adroitly witty.

• 'Whatever's Been Going On At Mumblesby?' [top]
  First published in 1981 in Great Britain by Methuen in hardback with dustjacket, 172pp, ISBN 0413489507. Original UK retail price: £7.50 net

Storyline: The question taxing Detective Inspector Purbright's brain was whether anything untoward had been going on in the tiny village of Mumblesby. Certainly the circumstances surrounding the death of 'Rich Dick' Loughbury, the solicitor, seemed generally beyond suspicion. And although his widow (if that was what she was) left a certain amount to be desired socially in local eyes, and his house was stuffed to the brim full of antiquities acquired without bills of sale from neighbouring Mumblesbury residents, there was nothing Purbright could actually put his finger on. That was, until the day of the funeral...

Characters:
[in order of appearance]
Mr. Richard Daspard Loughbury (deceased)
Mr. Brian Lewcock, auctioneer's clerk
Sandra Lewcock, Brian's wife
Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime, proprietress of The House of Yesteryear, Northgate
Edgar Harrington, manager of Miss Teatime's Gallery Ganby enterprise at Mumblesby
Mr. Harcourt Chubb, chief constable of Flaxborough
Mr. N.A. Bradlaw
Melville Bradlaw, son of N. A. Bradlaw
Alf Blossom, owner of the village garage
Farmer Benjamin Croll
Arthur Pritty
The Gash Brothers
Mrs. Zoe Loughbury
Detective Walter Purbright
Mr. Ernest Hideaway, estate agent and town councillor
The Vicar of Mumblesbury: the reverend Alan Kiverton
Mrs Claypole