In the Mayor's Parlour by J.S. Fletcher

As I have long enjoyed the British mystery genre, I find my Kindle a marvelous tool for freely procuring many books from the Golden Age of detective fiction through sources like Project Gutenberg.  In the Mayor's Parlour by J.S. Fletcher was published prior to 1923 and is thus solidly in the public domain.  Set in the imaginary ancient English village of Hathelsborough, I found it a delightful and easy read.  The main character, known only to us as 'Mr. Brent' comes to the village to meet his uncle only to find that he has just been murdered in his office.  Brent sets to trying to find his uncle's killer and ends up buying a home in the village, falling in love with the niece of the shadowy and powerful Simon Crood, and running for town council.  The plot twists and turns were many, but also quite well thought out.  The two main points of complaint were the not entirely clear motives of the person who was ultimately revealed to be the murderer and that much of the investigative action happened outside of the purview of our main character.  We instead, gain second hand knowledge of the police superintendent's long and thorough investigations during several inquests and conversations with Mr. Brent.  All in all, a satisfying read, perhaps because I loved the setting so much.
291 p.