The Bunburry series is a typical cosy mystery series: It is set in a small, picturesque village in the Cotswolds, most of the characters have known each other for ages, there are two lovely elderly ladies who like to solve crimes, and everyone has secrets.
The main character is Alfie McAlister, a man in his forties who moved to Bunburry three months earlier because he inherited a cottage there from an aunt he barely knew. In the meantime, he has made friends with a few of the villagers, mainly his late aunt's two best friends, Marge and Liz. In the beginning of this story he discovers that in addition to the cottage, he has inherited a vintage car, and he takes it to a garage in order to be inspected. Unfortunately, the car is soon used as a murder weapon, and of course Alfie is the prime suspect...

I enjoyed this installment much more than the first one. The scene was set, I knew all the important characters, and so it was much more straight forward. The reader learns more about Alfie's past life, and in fact the case only gets going until a substantial part of the story has already been told. There is only very little actual case solving involved. But I did not mind because I like Alfie as a character so much, and I was just fond of the story. The actions of the police are totally unrealistic in this one, and the plot is thin, but it is all good fun and that was what I wanted. ( )

Like most second installments of a series, it is nowhere as good as the first. Again, is this is a better listen than read? The narrator, Nathaniel Parker does a wide assortment of accents and characters quite realistically. This volume reveals what had happened to Alfie's girlfriend, but doesn't tell all. A decent hook to the next one in the series. Will be interesting (should I hand in there that long...) to see if each book ends with a hook to the next. ( )