Cleaver Square by Sean Campbell is a good enough read. Good enough you will want to know how it ends; not good enough you will immediately want to read more by this author. This British mystery starts off strong with a solid premise and an interesting D.I. Unfortunately, Cleaver Square gets bogged down in secondary stories relevant to the plot but not necessary to it.
D.I. David Morton is given the case of a twelve-or-so year-old found dead in a field. When forensics come through, he discovers the dead boy is also alive and well and living in a foster home. Who is who and why becomes the central mystery. Tie-in a wife who becomes jealous on a dime and a plot line involving someone impersonating Morton to wipe him out financially. More, it seems the dead or alive boy has really bad luck as his parents and first foster parents died violently.
I enjoyed Cleaver Square at the beginning and thought it would make for a great Midsomer Murders type BBC mystery. Morton is an interesting character. His handling of his officers is interesting and not quite what you normally read or watch. The secondary officers themselves are solid characters on their own.
The problem is the overall plot is a bit thin on plausibility and though the ending wraps things up, it does so with a bit too much sugar coating to my taste.
Cleaver Square is available on Amazon Kindle at a price that makes it hard to resist. Don’t. I would not buy the harcover version though.
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