I have been a fan of George Bellairs novels for several years, ever since I discovered Inspector Littlejohn. This novel doesn’t feature Littlejohn, but rather the equally talented Superintendent Nankivell. I really enjoyed this novel, although initially I was a little put off by the change from first person/present to the more familiar third person narrative that characterized the first chapter or two. Once I got used to that, I found this an easy to read novel, that held my attention.

I’ve come to expect interesting characters and witty observations about everyday life from this author and this novel didn’t disappoint in that regard. It begins by picturing much of the village population at a celebration of Zion Chapels anniversary. We are introduced to the main characters and soon learn something about their lives, their relationships, and their secrets. The party ends on a sour note, with a very unexpected murder. Superintendent Nankivell takes on the case and ends up solving more than just the murder.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Agora Books and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review.

Who Killed The Alderman?.....
An early Bellairs (first published as ‘Turmoil In Zion’). No Inspector Littlejohn here but rather the equally empathetic Superintendent Nankivell. Superbly written and perfectly observed, a larger than life cast of characters and laced with dry wit. Excellent reading.

My thanks to the publishers for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Mr Harbuttle, self made grocer, property speculator and town dignitary, reaches his personal Pisgah through the upper storey trap door of the Zion Chapel with a bread knife through his heart. His demise brings another murder in its wake in a new edition of this George Bellairs charmer set in wartime Britain in the improbably industrial yet religious town of Swarebridge. It's a good read for a winter evening by the fire.

Bellairs' cinematic eye and gentle parodies of small town life and its people entertain. Unusually, we are not with Littlejohn this time but with the equable Superintendent Nankivell. Urgency is not in his nature but then the joy of Bellairs is not in a clever, paced plot or in the unravelling of a precisely involved and carefully clued puzzle. He is not a giant of literature either. But his portraits of people stay with you and, while some, mainly wealthy and corrupt, are caricatures, most are sympathetically drawn. Consider the exiled Swiss baker in this story or the diminutive Miss Sleaford with her framed portrait of the soldier who passed through and provided her once in a lifetime romance before, we are told, surviving the war and growing fat and abusive to a wife elsewhere.

Of course and as usual, the avuncular Bellairs misses no opportunity to lament 'the gracious old and the hideous new', although today, in our turn, we might view the chromium and imitation tailors with nostalgia.

I enjoyed this book and was pleased to see it also contains a tantaliser for 'He'd Rather Be Dead' about the murder of another self made petty potentate and I look forward to reading the rest of that one too.

2.5 stars

Quite a short story,that had some charm.
A typical small village ,rocked by a murder in the church.
Good to be kept wondering.