Back to the good old whodunnit

Long before the age of irony the novel meted out just punishment, or at least linked effect to cause. These functions have long since devolved to the murder mystery, which combines gruesome reality with superior logic, leaving logic the upper hand. The rules may have changed, but the stereotypes — the small town with its confected name, the aristocratic sleuth, the unloved victim — are all present in Susan Hill’s strikingly old-fashioned debut novel as a writer of detective stories.