Jan Lee enjoys a well-written good old-fashioned murder mystery set in the Cotswolds

Who would have thought that a flower show in a quiet Cotswold village run on ‘tried and true, good old-fashioned lines’ could become a scene of murder?

In this stand-alone story we meet again characters who appeared in Joyce Cato’s An Unholy Mess. We have Monica, a natural detective, mother of a rebellious teenage daughter, her devoted husband Graham Noble, vicar of the nearby Heyford Basset and the steely-eyed Chief Inspector James Dury.

When Graham’s oldest friend, the bereaved Reverend James Davies, who recently lost his young son, asks Monica to be a judge, she reluctantly agrees, horticulture not being her strong suit, only to find herself at a murder scene.

Poor James is discovered dead beneath the rose display. If that is not enough there is another body outside the flower tent, Dr Gordon Trenning, a top chemical and computer engineer specialising in miniature mechanics. Chief Inspector Dury, overwhelmed by a host of likely suspects many of whom bear a grudge of one sort or another, reluctantly admits that Monica, with her empathy and enquiring mind, might, just might, like last time, ‘come up with the answer’.

Joyce Cato has always lived in Oxfordshire. She began with romantic novels then police procedurals. Now, with murder mysteries, she plays with her readers, sustaining the tension and uncertainty until the end.

Like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, her crimes are more inventive than gory: poor James is killed neither with a shotgun nor a knife but with a Bond-like gizmo, a tiny exploding capsule containing poisonous gas.

Despite the tragic events there is humour and kindness in her writing; with a glance or a touch she suggests the mutual devotion of Monica and her husband and the unspoken spark between her and the cool, world-weary Chief Inspector.

An Unholy Whiff of Death, Joyce Cato, Robert Hale, £19.99 hardback