What Me, Mr Mosley?

Ever since television's "Antiques Road Show" passed by that way, the inhabitants of Mr Mosley's patchthe hill country of the Yorkshire-Lancashire borderhave become avid collectors of bric-a-brac. And Dickie Holgate, with a junk-cum-antique stall in the market-place of the little town of Bagshawe Broome, is doing very well as a result. That is, until Mosley spots one or two items of doubtful provenance among the chromium-plated teapots and bone-handled cutlery.

Reducing his superiorsespecially Detective-Superintendent Tom Grimshawto a state of nervous prostration, and accompanied by an admiring, if uncomprehending, Sergeant Beamish, Mosley, in his black homburg and overcoat, strolls through scenes of ever-increasing comic confusion to a final satisfying denouement.

What, Me, Mr Mosley? is the sixth, and sadly, the last, of John Greenwood's Inspector Mosley novels. In its humour, wit, and nicely judged North-of-England...