Date With Danger is probably not the place to start reading this crime series by Julia Chapman. I hadn’t read the previous four books, set in the Yorkshire Dales, and that meant that I didn’t understand some of what happened in the story because the characters’ past interactions affected how they behaved to one another. Despite this I finished the book and found that the story in this volume was enjoyable – it’s the overarching story of the series that I didn’t quite get. I shall maybe find earlier books to fill in the holes in my understanding.
The story features the Dales Detective Agency which is run by two individuals improbably called Samson and Delilah. They also appear to run a dating agency as well although that wasn’t a major part of this story. The Agency is called in after the death of a worker at a livestock auction which may or may not be murder. There is also a sheep rustling gang who are creating problems and who may be violent, a group of travelling people who may or may not be involved and a blackmailing attempt.
The story is very much on the cosy end of the crime spectrum but the issues in the novel are real enough and the author spells them out clearly. The scenes in the livestock auction are particularly well done, as far as I can tell, and I felt that the setting of a farming community in rural Yorkshire was nicely depicted. The book moves along at a good pace and the author changes the point of view regularly so sometimes the reader knows more than the characters do which adds to the tension. The various different threads of the story are well combined.
I enjoyed this well enough but if you haven’t read any books by this author I suggest that you don’t start here.
Anne Is Reading 