Three, Three, the Rivals

What exactly had Sheila Fairchild seen in the middle of the night forty years ago, and what bearing could it possibly have on a recent murder?
This is only one of the problems facing DCI David Webb when, against his will, he is assigned to investigate the death of a man in the town where he grew up. Smoldering resentments and old hostilities impede his inquiries as he tries to sort out facts from fancies and the truth from an intricate tissue of lies.
Only after he has faced up to a traumatic incident in his own boyhood does the solution become apparent, and by the end of the case not only Webb but several prominent residents of Erlesborough have been forced to take a long, hard look at themselves.
In her finest novel to date, Anthea Fraser digs deep into the wellsprings of human conduct and the confused, often conflicting feelings a man may have about people long since dead whose true relationships he is only now beginning to understand.

The latest in the series whose titles come from the English folksong, "Green Grow the Rushes-O," requires Detective Chief Inspector David Webb to face troubling aspects in his past while investigating a murder. When old Billy Makepeace is murdered in Webb's hometown, Webb is caught in the remnants of a feud involving the victim; his own father, who is deceased; and Dick Vernon, a former friend who mysteriously vanished long ago. Webb learns from his sister Sheila that, on the night of his death, Makepeace had phoned her, an unprecedented act. Although she wasn't home to speak with him, she thinks his call might have been sparked by her childhood story of having seen a ghost, an experience that he overheard her telling some friends earlier during that day. Determined to clear up bygone mysteries as well as Makepeace's murder, Webb reintroduces himself to small-town life, reconciles with a girlfriend, whom he abruptly left many years before, and finds the missing Vernon. Family relationships, ancient feuds and childhood memories converge in this satisfying, reflective mystery.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this tenth case, Detective Chief Inspector David Webb unwillingly investigates a murder in his hometown, where long-held grudges and personal nightmares make his task more difficult. Dependable work from a popular British writer (Symbols at Your Door, Doubleday, 1991).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.