The Norfolk Mystery

By Ian Sansom

Love Miss Marple? Adore Holmes and Watson? Professor Morley’s guide to Norfolk is a story of bygone England; quaint villages, eccentric locals – and murder!

It is 1937 and disillusioned Spanish Civil War veteran Stephen Sefton is stony broke. So when he sees a mysterious advertisement for a job where ‘intelligence is essential’, he applies.

Thus begins Sefton’s association with Professor Swanton Morley, an omnivorous intellect. Morley’s latest project is a history of traditional England, with a guide to every county.

They start in Norfolk, but when the vicar of Blakeney is found hanging from his church’s bellrope, Morley and Sefton find themselves drawn into a rather more fiendish plot. Did the Reverend really take his own life, or was it – murder?

Beginning a thrilling new detective series, ‘The Norfolk Mystery’ is the first of The County Guides. A must-read for fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, every county is a crime scene and no-one is above suspicion!

Author: Ian Sansom
Format: Paperback
Release Date: 12 Jan 2017
Pages: 336
ISBN: 978-0-00-736048-2
Ian Sansom writes for the ‘Guardian’ and the ‘London Review of Books’. He is the author of nine books including, ‘Paper: An Elegy’, ‘Mr Dixon Disappears’, ‘The delegates Choice’ and ‘The Bad Book Affair’, some of the instalments of The Mobile Library series. He lives in Northern Ireland.

Praise for ‘The Norfolk Mystery’: -

”'A delightful, idiosyncratic mystery set in the Thirties … There is a touch of Sherlock Holmes and a dash of Lord Peter Wimsey, but the total is put together with a charm that is teasingly precious … Beautifully crafted by Sansom, Professor Morely promises to become a little gem of English crime writing; sample him now” - Daily Mail

”'Sansom is both celebrating and sending up the golden age of detective novels when, in the 1930s, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie were the queens of crime … A brilliant first outing that leaves you looking forward to the next maniacal mystery tour” - Mark Sanderson, Evening Standard