“Heir to Murder” is book five in Tony Bassett’s ‘Detective’s Roy and Roscoe’ series set in the West Midlands. Having read book four I was interested in reading this one but it can be easily read as a stand-alone too. 

 

I felt this story read like a traditional ‘whodunnit’ -  cosy but with guts (brain guts to be exact) and with characters of the murdered victim’s family typical of nobility, this gave the investigation a few swerve balls and red herrings. DS Sunita Roy used her usual determined mindset, refusing to let her suspicions go and it was when she travelled to Spain in a connected thread to the murder, that we saw her real detecting skills come in play. This was the best part of the investigation for me and I enjoyed the contrast to the policing  back home. 

 

With a mixture of cosy dialogue and setting, brutal murders, interesting characters and a dogged detective, “Heir to Murder” is a classic English police procedural and I’d be keen to continue reading this series.