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Wednesday 3 February 2021

Guest Review: A Fatal Obsession by Faith Martin

Oxford, 1960. There's a murderer on the loose and two unlikely heroes are poised to solve the case.

Meet Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday – smart, enthusiastic and always underestimated.

In the hope of getting her out of the way, Trudy’s senior officer assigns her to help coroner Clement Ryder as he re-opens the case of a young woman's death. She can't believe her luck – she is actually going to be working on a real murder case.

Meanwhile, the rest of the police force are busy investigating a series of threats and murders in the local community, and Clement can't help but feel it's all linked.

As Trudy and Clement form an unlikely partnership, are they going to be the ones to solve these crimes before the murderer strikes again?


Review:This is the first book in the Ryder and Loveday series from Faith Martin. I have read some of this author’s other books and was interested to follow this series, which is new to me, concerning the collaboration of coroner Clement Ryder with probationary WPC Trudy Loveday in murder investigations.


This story, which is set in Oxford, begins with a series of mysterious poison pen letters being sent to a successful businessman and the subsequent murder of his son. At the ensuing inquest, the coroner, Dr Ryder, recognises links with the murder of a young girl many years previously. Having been given permission to reopen the old case and make further investigations, Ryder enlists the help of young WPC Loveday. Their enquiries lead them to a string of connections between the cases and make Trudy Loveday’s superiors begin to see her in a new light.

I can recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a mystery. The investigation carried out by Ryder and Loveday is full of twists and turns, cleverly written to keep the reader guessing, as indeed it did me; I had no idea who the murderer was until the end. I actually found the identity and attitude of the murderer quite shocking. The story is set in 1960, when the role of women in the police force was very different from what it is in the present day. It was unusual for a young female PC to be involved in such a high profile case, and some of the problems faced by female officers in the police force at that time are highlighted in the story.

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