I only started reading the Inspector Bill Slider police procedurals in the last couple years, but I’m always eager to pick up the latest one. I’ll admit though, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ Dying Fall was a little slow to get going. While Slider’s team, including Atherton, his growing family, and those wonderful chapter headings with literary humor and puns, are all present, the crime itself dragged.

PC D’Arblay doesn’t expect to see Chief Inspector Bill Slider show up when he calls in a suspicious crime scene. He had responded to an anonymous phone call saying there was a dead woman at the foot of the stairs in the shabby Dunkirk House. It looked to him, though, as if someone had tried to set a scene to show the woman fell down the stairs. D’Arblay was right.

It doesn’t take the responding officers long to find the woman had been hit in the head, and probably dragged from the kitchen. But, who was this well-dressed woman without a purse? Why was she in Dunkirk House?

Politically, the resources of Slider’s team should have been devoted to Operation Foxglove, a case the department was working on that dealt with underage boys and drug running. But, Slider claims his victim was murdered, and murder trumps drugs. He’s given just a short time to identify the victim and investigate. But, one of the desk sergeants has an interesting story of a death in Dunkirk House, one that wasn’t properly investigated twenty years earlier.

It seems the victim has changed her name. Her brother is missing. And, her father claims he hasn’t seen her in twenty years. To complicate the case, a number of people involved in this case have changed their names over the years. Dunkirk House has its share of secrets, and it’s up to Slider’s team to reveal them and find a killer.

While I love a good police procedural, it’s Harrod-Eagles sly humor and fun chapter headings that are so entertaining. There are sentences such as, “Paxman was a mighty man, six foot two and built by the same firm that did Stonehenge.” Can’t you just picture him? Slider and his second-in-command, Jim Atherton, have a relationship based on friendship, trust, and humor, and their conversations are delightful. Chapter headings relate directly to the chapters, but have to be read; “The Fault Is in Our Stairs”, “Jason the Argue-Not”, “You Can’t Have Your Kate and Edith Too.”

As I’ve said before, police procedurals are more engaging when the reader gets to know the characters personally. In the course of this series, Bill Slider has divorced, remarried, and had two more children. His relationship with his wife is always evolving. It adds to the enjoyment of the series. Slider has also evolved over the course of the series, and you can see his change in attitude toward a bag lady and other street people. You can also observe his careful treatment of a man with mental health issues.

Harrod-Eagles builds up the suspense in Dying Fall, until there are dramatic details revealed. However, she also contrasts Slider’s family life with other situations, the victim’s, Atherton’s, and others. It’s obvious how much Slider cares for the people involved in his life and his cases. That’s what makes police procedurals most appealing to me.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ website is https://www.cynthiaharrodeagles.com/

Dying Fall by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Severn House. 2022. ISBN 9780727850188 (hardcover), 256p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley to review for a journal.