Inspector Ramsay #1
This welcome re-release of the first book in Ann Cleeves’ Inspector Ramsay series, originally published in 1990, is a pure delight. Our bookstore (open 1992-2018) was lucky enough to have many of these now collectible volumes on our shelves. Before breaking out with her Vera books in 1999, the hardworking writer produced two now completed series, one centering on birdwatching, and this debut in the Ramsay series, a real, golden age gem.
Of course, the golden age of mystery ended many decades before this series began, but Cleeves follows many of the plotting and set up tropes familiar to any fan of the classics. Set in a small village, the book begins when the much hated school headmaster of the insular community is done away with at a combination Halloween/Guy Fawkes party for the school kids. To the natives, all of whom are more than familiar with each other, Inspector Ramsey seems like a exotic creature who appears from above to swoop in to solve the crime.
There are children underfoot, of course, but they don’t really figure into the story, which takes a deep dive into the inner lives of the school’s teachers and parents. The dead man’s wife is speedily arrested, but Jack Robson, the school custodian and local councilor who has carried a torch for the accused woman since high school, is convinced she’s not guilty. He teams up with his friendly and somewhat directionless daughter Patty, to investigate, finding much needed purpose and closeness along the way.
Inspector Ramsay lurks at the edges of the story, as they keep him updated on their discoveries. Patty lurches like a friendly puppy from one home to another, offering comfort where she can, while her father’s wheels turn a bit more efficiently, allowing him to be the one who actually cracks the case.
Cleeves’ genius is already apparent here. If it’s slightly more traditional and less amped up than some of her later works, her characteristic evocative setting and presentation of the characters as complex human beings with flaws and saving graces are all present, as is a plot both obvious and unexpected. And Cleeves, like her golden age forerunners, lays a fair groundwork for her complex solution.
Unlike those golden agers, however, there’s quite a bit more fleshing out of her characters and an emphasis on their psychological underpinnings. The tone is darker than an Agatha Christie book, but not that much darker, really, as Christie was no stranger to the horror show life can become, but Cleeves, as a modern writer, is able to be more frank in her depictions of those horrors.
This is also a propulsive plotted book which, like its classic predecessors, is hard to put down, quite liable to be picked up one evening at sunset and finished….well, perhaps at sunrise next morning. Ann Cleeves is a modern treasure. as rich as any from mystery’s golden past. — Robin Agnew