Fay Sampson: The Wounded Snake
A mystery doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to be enjoyable – that’s certainly proven by the scores of cozy mysteries published each month. Another formula beloved by readers (and viewers of Acorn TV and similar networks) is the British village mystery, a slightly rarer commodity. Much of contemporary British crime writing is of the extremely dark variety. And while I’m certainly a fan of writers like Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Stuart MacBride, sometimes I yearn for something a little more in the Marple and Poirot mode.