When Death Comes to Stay, RMT689E

There is something peculiarly satisfying about murder in a beautiful place. These four novels find their crimes in a Dordogne village, a falconer's grounds, a lamp-lit English parish and the seafront streets of 1960s Brighton. And in every case the murder reaches into the lives of people who thought they knew their neighbours well. A detective, a superintendent, a village canon and an ornithologist: four investigators who are all too personally involved to let the case go. Country lanes and coastal cliffs have rarely felt so unsettling.

Richard Coles, Murder Before Evensong (Canon Clement 1) - When Canon Daniel Clement proposes a lavatory for his Champton St Mary church, the parish is divided. Still, it takes a body in the back pew to reveal just how many grudges a sleepy English village can nurse.

Martin Walker, Enemy in the Village - When Bruno Courrèges finds a dead woman and a suicide note in a parked car above the Vézère valley, the case looks closed, but Bruno's instinct that something is wrong soon sets the whole village against him.

Ann Cleeves, A Prey to Murder - Hotelier Eleanor Masefield is found dead among a falconer's tethered hawks, just as peregrine chicks vanish from nearby cliffs. Ornithologist George Palmer-Jones helps police, but Molly suspects the charming widow hides darker secrets.

Elly Griffiths, Now You See Them (The Brighton Mysteries 5) - 1963, and Superintendent Edgar Stephens is pulled from a funeral to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl, only to discover her disappearance is one of three, all linked in ways nobody yet understands.