MURDER IN SCHOOL by Bruce Beckham

As a palate cleanser, if you will, we have another British police procedural, this one set in Cumbria County of Great Britain, waaaaaay up at the border of Scotland.   The action takes place in what is known as the Lake District, where lies Derwentwater, a lovely town.    I love fiction where I learn something.

It stars Detective Inspector Daniel Skelgill (don’t you just love the name?) and his partner DS Leyton, chubby but lovable.  DI Skelgill is an avid fisherman, and a hill runner.

The story takes place around a large, expensive public school (that’s a private school for you Yanks.  See what I did there?  This American ex-pat living in Mexico aligned herself with our forebearers across the Pond.), where a long-time, mostly unloved, member of the faculty is found drowned in the lake, an apparent suicide.  But the DI’s boss has a son attending the school, and sends him there to nose around.

While nosing, the DI and DS find that the Headmaster seems to be a bit dodgy, and the assistant head isn’t all that much more less dodgy.   As the low key investigation continues, another death occurs, that of the groundskeeper, who shot himself while sitting in the former cottage of the guy who drowned.

THEN, one of the students goes missing.  Turns out he is the son of the boss of Skelgill and Leyton, so now the hunt is really on!

Pretty good mystery, one I ALMOST solved.  I rather liked the principle characters, too.  Apparently there are a number of Inspector Skelgill mysteries.  (P.S.  I think he has a ‘thing’ for the lady DS who is assigned elsewhere in this book.)

Derwentwater, Cumbria, Great Britain