The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards

Published by Poisoned Pen Press on April 5, 2011 

Orla Payne, seemingly a bit whacky (or at least a tad drunk) jumps into a silo in the apparent belief that it will help her solve a mystery. Her body is later found buried in grain. The day before she jumped, Orla begged Hannah Scarlett to investigate the disappearance of Orla's brother, Callum Hinds, twenty years earlier, when Orla was seven and Calum was fourteen. Scarlett works with the Cold Case Review Team at Cumbria Constabulary. Soon after Calum's disappearance (and the simultaneous disappearance of his uncle's pig), his uncle, Philip Hinds, hung himself in the Hanging Wood, an act widely viewed as an admission of responsibility for Calum's death. Although Philip was the last person who saw Calum, no evidence of Philip's role in Calum's disappearance was ever found. Scarlett tackles the mystery with the help of historian Daniel Kind. As the story progresses, another person dies and someone turns up who appears to have a long-lost connection to the Hinds family.

Martin Edwards sets up the usual range of diversionary suspects, giving Scarlett and one of her detectives a chance to muck around in the lives of the upper crust Lake District residents. Some of the people they interview repeat information provided by others; the redundancy tends to slow the narrative flow. In fact, much of the story is carried by exposition and dialog; in the absence of action or significant conflict, the pace lags. If the lives and relationships of the wealthy family members fail to generate much interest, neither does Scarlett's life, despite her continual fretting about her failed marriage and her critical assessment of the men who happen into her gaze. Again, the redundancy is irksome: how many times do we need to hear that the macho womanizing detective she's working with isn't her type, despite her admiration of his "powerful forearms"?

Perhaps readers who have read the previous Lake District novels will feel an attachment to the characters that I lacked and will have more interest in the mundane details of their faltering relationships. My interest lay not in the characters but in the story, which takes some interesting twists before arriving at a satisfying conclusion. Despite the uneven pace and lackluster characters, Edwards' capable prose style and plotting skills make The Hanging Wood a reasonably good yarn that dedicated mystery fans should enjoy.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS