Murder in the Cotswolds

In the latest in his series of light-hearted stories, A. B. Guthrie transplants Midbury, Montana, sleuth Chick Charleston to a brand-new setting, a quiet English village in the Cotswolds. Chick and his wife, Geeta, are vacationing at the Ram’s Head Inn, a quaint hotel in beautiful Upper Beechwood, where Geeta plans to trace her ancestors, but when an unpopular guest checks out early with a knife in his back, Chick gets involved in the search for the killer. Accustomed to the authority of a badge, Chick unfortunately can only assist with the investigation being run by Detective Chief Inspector Fred Perkins and his vindictive supervisor, Superintendent Hawley, whose style of police work doesn’t always agree with Chick’s. But Chick’s Montana experience and good common sense serve him well as he unravels more than one English mystery. Full of the quirky characters and dry wit for which Guthrie is famous, Murder in the Cotswolds is a welcome addition to the series that the Cleveland Plain Dealer has called ＂just about perfect of its kind.＂

A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1901-91) was a historian and novelist whose 1949 book The Way West won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Murder in the Cotswolds is the fifth and final book in his Chick Charleston series, which includes Wild Pitch, The Genuine Article, No Second Wind, and Playing Catch-Up, all available in Bison Books editions.