Over and Under by
Mat Coward
hbk out July 04
Published by Five Star
Mat Coward leads a double life as a crime writer. In the UK, he is well known as a
specialist in the short story; his extremely diverse work has been published in many
anthologies and magazines and has earned Dagger and Edgar nominations. In the
USA, in contrast, he is now well-established as author of a series of novels featuring
police detectives Don Packham and Frank Mitchell; enterprising US publishers have
also brought out a book-length collection of his tales of mystery and imagination and
a novella is in the works. The third entry in the Packham-Mitchell series is a typically
breezy mystery, opening with the death of Bruce Lester at a cricket match involving
teams of comedians and writers. The immediate puzzle is not just whodunit - but
why, in such a quintessentially English setting, the culprit chose to commit the crime
with a baseball bat. This is an enjoyable book and one hopes that it will not be too
long before Coward's novels are taken up by a UK publisher who recognises that his
skills are far from being confined to the smaller-scale mystery.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
Over and Under by
Mat Coward
