This comforting little winner is the fourth in Cleeves’ series featuring the formidable Vera Stanhope, whose sandals and terrible sense of dress hide a keen intelligence and understanding of humankind. The story is intriguing enough: Vera finds a social worker strangled in a steam room, but the story is less interesting that witnessing Vera cajole her way through the front doors and into the lives of the unsuspecting. She’s such a character that one can only stand back and marvel at her steel trap mind and intriguing eating habits; bacon roll for breakfast, chocolate cake for lunch, half a bottle of whiskey in front of the fire for dinner. Her professional relationship with offsider Joe Ashworth defies conventional description and is all the more interesting for it. The Vera books never disappoint, and that is due is no small part to Cleeves’ skill in making a complex story digestible through its characters. Well worth a read.
