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Described by Cecil Day-Lewis as 'a great lark, full of preposterous situations and pokerfaced wit' Coffin Scarcely Used is Colin Watson's first Flaxborough novel and was originally published in 1958. The small town of Flaxborough is taken aback when one of the mourners at Councillor Carobelat's funeral dies just six months later. Not only was he Councillor Carobelat's neighbour but the circumstances of his death are rather unusual, even for Flaxborough standards. Marcus Gwill, proprietor of the Flaxborough Citizen has been found electrocuted at the foot of an electricity pylon with a mouth full of marshmallows. Local gossip rules it as either an accident or a suicide but Inspector Purbright remains unconvinced. After all he's never encountered a suicide who has been in the mood for confectionery at the last moment ...

Right at the bottom of the column, it was. Something for which she had not dared to hope. Not in remote, prosperous, hard-headed Flaxborough. A matrimonial bureau. Two women have disappeared in the small market town of Flaxborough. They are about the same age, both quite shy and both unmarried. As Inspector Purbright discovers the only connection between them appears to be the Handclasp House Marriage Bureau, but what begins as a seemingly straightforward missing persons case soon spirals out of control as Purbright encounters deceit, blackmail and murder. Lonelyheart 4122 is the fourth in Colin Watson's Flaxborough series and was first published in 1967.

'Flaxborough, that olde-worlde town with Dada trimmings.' Sunday Times

'Watson's Flaxborough begins to take on the solidity of Bennett's Five Towns, with murder, murky past and much acidic comment added.' H. R. F. Keating

Within the quiet respectable market town of Flaxborough lurks a dangerous criminal; someone who has no compunction in committing horrific crimes. A secret agent has been murdered in unsavoury circumstances connected to an acid bath and it is up to Inspector Purbright to investigate, but it does not take long for two more operatives to arrive in Flaxborough looking for the same answers. How can one of their colleagues have been murdered in such a bland, provincial town? As ever Purbright must use all his skills as an investigator to get to the truth. Described by the "Literary Review" as 'wickedly funny,' "Hopjoy was Here", the third in the Flaxborough series, was first published in 1962.

The Flaxborough Crab was first published in 1969, although its title in the US was Just What the Doctor Ordered, and is the sixth novel in the Flaxborough series. H. R. F. Keating, in his critical study Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books, praised the 'solidity of Watson's Flaxborough saga.' Watson, Keating said, 'created in his imaginary Flaxborough a place it is not preposterous to compare with the creation of Arnold Bennett in his classic Five Towns novels, or even perhaps with William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County'. All twelve of Colin Watson's 'Flaxborough Chronicles' were set in this fictional town that could be found somewhere in the East of England and it is home to 15,000 inhabitants that appear, on the surface at least, to be bland and conservative, but as the novels show appearances can be deceiving...

. . . Raising another flower - a lank, brownish-yellow affair - Miss Pollock deliberately avoided the leading contestant's eye and looked appealingly to the further part of her audience. 'Now, what about some of you other ladies? Wouldn't you like to have a try? ''Old Man's Vomit,' snapped the omniscient Mrs. Crunkinghorn. 'You don't want to hold that too near your dress, me dear.'

Detective Inspector Purbright of the Flaxborough police force is used to a life of quietude in a small market town, yet he knows that behind the outward respectability of typical English communities a darker underbelly of greed, crime and corruption lurks. Chalmsbury, a neighbouring town to Flaxborough, has been experiencing a series of explosions that have destroyed many of the town's monuments. Explosives have even gone missing from the Flaxborough civil defence centre and Purbright is seconded to the baffled Chalmsbury police force to help them discover the culprit. When one of the locals is killed Purbright is forced to delve into the community of eccentric residents in a desperate hunt for the killer and finds that, like Flaxborough, Chalmsbury is every bit as rich in genteel assassination. First published in 1960 Bump in the Night is Colin Watson's second book in the Flaxborough series. 'He has all the virtues one looks for in a crime novel: a gift for writing dialogue, a sense of character, a style which moves from easy flippancy to positive grace.' Julian Symons

About the Author

Colin Watson was born in 1920. He worked as a journalist but was most famous for his twelve 'Flaxborough' novels, set in a small fictional town in England. Four of the 'Flaxborough' novels were adapted for television by the BBC under the series title Murder Most English and Watson's Detective Inspector Purbright remains one of the most intellectual detectives in the crime genre. Colin Watson died in 1983.