Bump in the Night

A Flaxborough Mystery, Book 2

By: Colin Watson

Narrated by: Simon Shepherd

Tuesday nights have suddenly turned quite ridiculously noisy in the country town of Chalmsbury, where the good folk are outraged at having their rest disturbed.

It begins with a drinking fountain being blown to smithereens - next the statue of a local worthy loses his head, and the following week a giant glass eye is exploded. Despite the soft-soled sleuthing of cub reporter Len Leaper, the crime spate grows alarming.

Sheer vandalism is bad enough, but when a life is lost, the amiable Inspector Purbright, called in from nearby Flaxborough to assist in enquiries, finds he must delve deep into the seamier side of this quiet town's goings-on. Witty and a little wicked, Colin Watson's tales offer a mordantly entertaining cast of characters and laugh-out-loud wordplay.

©2018 Colin Watson (P)2019 Audible, Ltd

Not as good as the first book (which was great)!

The first book in the series was full of colorful characters and interesting settings and great narration. I had been excited to get into this second in the series. The ending is very clever. But the story did not have interesting settings and the characters were not very interesting. The book started off so promising. But then it kind of dragged on. Inspector Pirbright did not come in to the story till too far into the book for my tastes. He is the character i like best. It is possible that people who are more into intellectual mysteries might like this. But I prefer more color and mystery and interesting characters than this book had. The narrator is still very, very good. And the author writes very well. It's just that this story was a bit of a dud in my opinion.

Good fun intelligent writing

This is a great series. Witty well plotted interesting characters and very well narrated. Definitely recommended.

Highly recommend for fans of Catherine Aird

This novel is filled with classical, tongue in cheek British wit … fans of exquisite intellectual puzzles made substantial by excellent character development and fine plotting will enjoy this … I'd place the time frame somewhere in the 1950's - 1970's in a small village in England … not so saccharine as a "cozy", but, not violently blood soaked, although quite a few folks get murdered along the way. But, for me, it is the wit, the language, the clear sense of a refined, educated intellect writing a very fine mystery. There's nothing lightweight about this novel, it ranks with Agatha Christie's finest, and the characters rank with Catherine Aird's Crosby and Sloan. In other words, top marks all around if you like classic British mysteries.

Ending unsatisfying.

Enjoy the Prubeck character and interesting plot but I had to listen to the ending several times Still can’t put it together.

Narrator issues

I usually enjoy these slow burners. And the narrator is quite talented. However, he’s forgotten that this is an audio book, which means we are listening and actually need to hear the book. He’s assigned perpetual whispering as the voice of one of the main characters. Sigh…another waste of my money, even if on sale. I’m stopping half way because I’m tired of rewinding, turning it up, then turning it back down. Then repeating that over and over. And I certainly can’t follow these inconsistent volumes while doing something else.