‘The Winter Ground’ by Catriona McPhersonPublished by Hodder & Stoughton. October 2008. ISBN 978-0-340-93534-7

This series reaches its fourth instalment with this book and it shows no sign of losing momentum.   The heroine Dandy Gilver is, in most ways, a typical lady of her period but she has the skills of a detective - to the horror of her highly conventional husband.   The contrasts between her life and that of the group she is investigating here are delicious.  Dandy comes from the hands of her lady’s maid (whose conventionality is probably even deeper than that of Dandy’s husband!)  to the circus which has taken up winter quarters on the land of Dandy’s neighbour.

The circus has many conventions of its own and these fascinate us all -Dandy and the readers.   The extra layer here is provided by the setting of Scotland in 1925 so that we are looking at a family circus with the skills, costumes and attitudes of that era and at an investigator with the views of her class though these are softened by her own character.  The circus folk use a virtually incomprehensible language but we, like Dandy, gradually learn to understand some of it. The knowledge of Dandy’s detective skills leads to her being asked to  investigate a series of puzzling incidents within the circus and she asks her usual collaborator, Alec Osborne, to assist her.  Dandy fears, and rightly, that these apparently minor examples of damage could escalate to the point of causing a fatality.

The characters in this tale not only include the magnificent circus members but also Dandy’s sons and some unusual representatives of Dandy’s own social milieu. The development of events and the interactions between these various protagonists makes a fascinating story with revelations about people’s pasts featuring strongly.   Eventually Dandy sees through to the truth.

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Jennifer S. Palmer