Country Life — Jonathan Gregory

Miss Marple would be turning in her grave. From outrageous Sun headlines to a gay lord of the manor, we're certainly not in St Mary Mead any longer! In this modern take on the classic English countryside mystery, a midsummer murder meets some very queer country folk. After a series of family tragedies, twenty-five-year-old Mike Ash is left alone, raising his two young nephews and trying to save one of the oldest country estates in England. Tom Flowers, thrown out of the Metropolitan police for striking a superior officer, comes to Rilton Castle to stay with his sister Lucy and lick his wounds. Bob Kettle, the publican, wants to get laid. Ramjap Shastri just wants to get away from reporting local news. And Dax? Well, Dax just wants to have fun. When a modern-day highwayman destroys the calm of Rilton Castle village, all these characters and more try to cope with murder and suspicion. And an ex-policeman finds himself facing his hardest case â€" solving the mystery of his own future. With a cast that includes a naughty vicar, telepathic twins and a very expressive garden gnome, life, and death, in the countryside will never be the same again. This is the first book of the ‘Gemini and Flowers' mysteries. The next, ‘Family Life', came out in the summer of 2013.