[sufue]

And while I was checking my "wish-they-were-in-ebook" list, which I clearly haven't done in a few years, I found all eight of the Dan Mallett books by Frank Parrish (pen name for Roger Erskine Longrigg) have been available since 2020. My warm but somewhat indistinct memories of this series remind me a bit of a rural version of Simon Brett's Charles Paris, but I wouldn't put a lot of weight on that since I read these in DTB a few decades ago. However, the first one in the series, Fire in the Barley, is available for $0.99/£0.99, so I'm going to snag it and read it sometime (fairly) soon, and see if memory matches reality. And if I still like the series, the rest are not-too-badly priced either, which is nice.

Fire in the Barley
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087WJNDCJ
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087WJNDCJ

Spoiler:

The best person to catch a criminal is a criminal himself…

1977, West Country of England

Reclusive poacher Dan Mallett spends his evenings prowling the local countryside for his latest catch.

And one night he is almost caught by the police.

But they weren’t looking for him – someone else has been committing crimes in the local area.

With his night-time hobby at imminent risk, Dan decides to try and catch the offender himself.

He uses methods that are by turn ingenious, crooked, and sensationally successful, but as he gets closer to solving the mystery, it seems the police could be about to pin the crimes on him…

Will Dan catch the perpetrator before the police catch up with him…?

Fire in the Barley is the first cosy village mystery in the Dan Mallett Investigation series: private investigation murder mysteries set in rural England.