The Clockmaker of Ashbury Square: And Other Cases Richard Fairchild

Commander Richard Fairchild didn't ask to become the town's unofficial detective. It simply keeps happening. In this second collection of cases from Havelock Landing, seven small mysteries turn out to be considerably larger than they first appear: - A clockmaker found dead beside forty clocks, all stopped at the same impossible minute.- A misdirected letter that leaves three respectable families quietly terrified.- A visiting historian whose interview questions carry far more weight than they should.- A church poor box that counts its coins a little too precisely.- An old professor who has, without explanation, stopped taking his afternoon tea.- A "haunted" house that has the local schoolchildren utterly convinced.- A single missing page, in a file Fairchild never thought to question at all. Joined once again by his sharp-eyed sister Margaret, the ever-capable Dr. Alice Merriweather, and the long-suffering Inspector Pritchard, Fairchild finds that Havelock Landing keeps its secrets not out of malice, but out of care - old kindnesses so carefully maintained that even the people they protect have forgotten they were ever anything but ordinary life. Seven fair-play mysteries. One quiet town. And one loose thread, in the very last pages, that isn't quite ready to be tied off. Perfect for readers who love their mysteries thoughtful rather than violent, their detectives observant rather than reckless, and their small towns considerably stranger than they first appear.