Feast Into Mourning — Pauline Bell

The parishioners of St Oswald's have turned out in force to support relatives and friends in the annual cricket match, happily relaxing in the August heat. Only sixteen-year-old Zoe Morgan is bored, and decides to walk to the nearby spinney to search for an earring she lost the night before; she finds instead a charred and decaying corpse. As Chief Inspector Browne and Sergeant Hunter delve into church politics and the victim's family history in order to uncover a motive, they find the local community is swiftly closing ranks. Does it harbour a killer in its midst?... "Comfortably old-fashioned first-timer asking traditional whodunit questions" - THE TIMES