A Fatal Obsession - Faith Martin

Set in Oxford in 1960, this book follows young WPC Trudy Loveday as she starts to find her feet in a world which still considers that women should only be in the Police to make tea and take notes. Bright and eager, Trudy is a bit of a frustrating conundrum for her senior officer DI Jennings, who is relieved to palm her off to help local Coroner Clement Ryder  (also a severe thorn in DI Jennings' side) who has opened a cold case around a young woman's mysterious death.

I'm not sure why I found this book a bit slow. It starts energetically (literally) and Trudy's character is engaging. Ex-surgeon Coroner Clement Ryder is an interesting one too, and of the two he is probably the one I find most appealing. The pair, to me, felt a little bit 'Holmes and Watson', with Trudy being the Watson, with Clement putting things together faster, but Trudy by no means being there simply to use her shorthand skills.

There are two stories (at least!) here, interwoven with some unexpected direction changes as the reader progresses. Perhaps the reason I found it a little hard going is because I never really connected with the victims or their situations, even though the story is well constructed, plotted and written.

On the other hand, the sense of place is fantastic. I worked in Oxford for decades, so perhaps that meant there was a connection of sorts, but you can really 'feel' the environment in which this story is set.

Overall, I enjoyed it enough to make a further foray into Loveday and Ryder's world at some point, but it wasn't one which made me immediately look for others in the series.