Jill Francis returns to Lydmouth after an absence of three years, to take over as acting editor of the Gazette, whilst the owner and editor Philip Wemyss-Brown is recuperating from a recent heart attack. To Jill the small coastal town of Lydmouth looks as drab as she remembered it, but then it is December. But there are, as she discovers changes - old Doctor Bayswater has retired and been replaced by young Doctor Leddon, who Jill meets on her first port of call to Philip’s wife Charlotte. The Gazette once the soul local newspaper is now in the grip of a circulation war with the new newspaper, The Post.
The editor of the Post Ivor Fuggle wastes no time in making Jill aware that this is a fight to the death.. Indeed before long there is a death and Jill finds herself face to face with Detective Chief Inspector Thornhill her former lover.
There are dark forces at work in the normally quiet town of Lydmouth in the 1950’s, but are they directed at the Gazeette or Jill herself ? Is the death connected to the missing man?
Although I have read and enjoyed all the of the Lydmouth series, this one struck a chord, I think it was the advent of television in the Thornhill home. When Richard returned home there was no supper prepared, just a circle of heads staring with rapt attention at the television. Like I suspect many people when I arrive home I switch on the television in the kitchen to get the news, and it stays on I prepare dinner, write my Christmas cards and do dozens of other daily things, but when we had our first television in the early 1950’s, when the television was switched on it got all our attention, and we all sat around in a circle with the light off and watched. This passage really invoked memories for me.
The narration by Michael Tudor Barns is excellent. I particularly enjoyed his
range of voices when Genevieve Fuggle is visiting with the sick Doreen, and
Amy Gwyn-Thomas.
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Lizzie Hayes