…every year for decades there had been great excitement over the Largest Vegetable competition (“That would be my husband”, was the standard comment).

Oh please tell me we’re not doing the Poirot thing again — the suspects in the library with the candlestick or whatever’.Max looked at him [DCI Cotton]. ‘Fruitcake in this case. And what would you...

Vanity might be a “sin” according to some lights, but he thought in measured doses it was one of life’s allowable simple pleasures. It helped everyone get through their days.

For it was a truth universally acknowledged that a single vicar must be in want of a wife.