Crime novels these days are often served to readers in conveyor-belt style, with parts assembled on a tried and tested framework. However, Andrew Taylor's Naked to the Hangman, the eighth in the series, has a quality that lifts it above competitors in the genre. Part of the book's charm is the setting - a fictional Anglo-Welsh town in the 1950s - and the characters, including Richard Thornhill. The Lydmouth detective, it turns out, has a past not even his wife knows about. The skeletons in his closet date from 1948, when Thornhill was posted to Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. There, he fell in with a dodgy policeman called Jock and witnessed crimes that sent him over the edge and back home. When Jock is found dead in Lydmouth, Thornhill becomes a suspect. Despite this being the hook, much else takes place to fasten readers' attention: Thornhill's daughter plays detective; the town prepares for a dance that underscores the fickle yearnings of adolescence; and a purse goes missing, highlighting the prejudices of established residents. So rich are the Lydmouth incidents that the chapters on Palestine seem undeveloped by comparison. But still they tempt readers on, making fans of first-timers to the series and maintaining the brand for others.
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