Dover Strikes Again — Joyce Porter (1)

Sully Martin had probably been a picturesque English village before the earthquake nearly destroyed it. And construction tycoon Walter Chantry might have been taken for another of the many casualties if it hadn't come out that he had been strangled.This time Dover is in for much more than his usual share of the bother. For a start, the town's only hotel is unlicensed, and there's not a drop of booze to be had. But almost as alarming are the unmistakable signs that someone is actually out to kill Dover. Unless, that is, against all odds Dover strikes again.'Joyce Porter kept alive the flame of the comic crime novel in a time that was inimical to mere entertainment, even in a popular literary form. Not for her the pseudo-realism of the mean streets or the hard slog of the police procedural. her books occupy a territory somewhere between satire and farce, and this gives them a flavour quite unique in the history of crime writing.' Robert Barnard