A Talent for Destruction

Swaddled in snow, the town of Breckham Market looks like a tourist's dream of the Little English Village—the sort of place where the worst that can happen is a spot of teenage vandalism at the church hall, and where old-fashioned values are upheld (and enforced, if necessary) by those pillars of British virtue, the police chief and the local vicar. Ah, the vicar. He, too, might have come from Central Casting, with his saintly blue eyes and his cozily pudgy, bun-baking wife. But when the snow starts to melt, so too does the vicar's facade. And what comes to the surface has Breckham Market looking less like a tourist haven and more like fodder for the tabloids. The third Inspector Quantrill mystery once again delves into the dark side of the pretty picture to uncover the secrets that lie there.