Synopsis: For its own very good reasons, Scotland Yard sends Dover off to remote Creedshire to investigate the disappearance of a young housemaid, Juliet Rugg. Though there's every cause to assume that she has been murdered - she gave her favours freely and may even have stooped to a bit of blackmail - no body is to be found. Weighing in at sixteen stone, she couldn't be hard to overlook. But where is she? And why should Dover, of all people, be called upon to find her? Or, for that matter, even bother to solve the damned case?
DCI Wilfred Dover is not your usual Scotland Yard detective - he is not exactly likeable; he is described as tall, fat, unkempt, lewd, obnoxious; and never without his trademark bowler hat. His Sergeant, Charles MacGregor, is the total opposite - and like Nero Wolfe's Archie Goodwin, does all the leg work for Dover.
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| Kenneth Cranham as Dover |
Dover was obese, lazy, unhygienic (the only man in the Metropolitan Police Service with underarm dandruff) and bordering on corrupt. MacGregor was keen, clean and ferociously ambitious. However, on the rare occasions he was able to put aside plate, pint-glass and cigarettes long enough to concentrate, Dover usually saw the answer first.
For reasons known only to the Scotland Yard hierarchy, Dover & MacGregor are sent to the investigate the seemingly innocuous disappearance of a local girl, Juliet Rigg, from Creedshire. Upon arriving in the village, Dover finds the eccentric inhabitants all had good reason to do away with the victim - for as Dover announces, murder it is.
I am really enjoying discovering some of these lost gems of British crime. This title originally was published back in the early 1960s - so to the modern senses, it may appear to be slightly un-PC - but get over it, afterall what is PC today may not be in 40 years time!
I am certainly interested in following up with the rest of the books in the 15 book series, and look forward to listening to those Inspector Dover books that were adapted for BBC Radio 4 by Paul Mendelson, and star Kenneth Cranham as Dover and Stuart McQuarrie as Sgt MacGregor (I found a few links on youtube)
side note: I love the fact that the author was born in ... Marple!
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