The ‘Constable’ series are the inspiration of the television series entitled ‘Heartbeat’ and I guess I expected something like an episode of Heartbeat, but although many of the familiar characters are in evidence, there is none of the crime that we watch on a Sunday night. Indeed the book is Constable Rhea reminiscing on his encounters through the years with farming folk and many of the instances are
illustrations of the differences between country and city folk.
So if you are looking for thrills and spills this is not for you, but I was fascinated by the many things I learnt about the countryside and the origins of many saying that we take for granted without knowing from whence they originated. There was also a fair amount of law relating to the rights of the farmer and the farmer’s responsibility in law, so very ably demonstrated by the ‘mud on the road’ episode.
It was good to meet up again with the old rogue Claude Jeremiah Greengrass, who has been gone from the television series for some time. Christopher Scott did a marvellous Greengrass, I could actually see him blinking his eyes as he was won’t to do on screen . A really excellent portrayal. And he was jolly good on Oscar Blaketon. Although there was little real crime - well stealing a truck is real crime, but mainly there were mysteries, and I did get drawn in by the many situations Constable Rhea was called into attend, and overall I enjoyed the book.
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Lizzie Hayes