Murder Being Once Done
The seventh Wexford novel published by Hutchinson in 1972
Once the bus had turned into Elgin Crescent, Wexford lost his bearings. He wondered how he would know they had left North Kensington, or Notting Hill or wherever it was and entered Kenbourne Vale.
It seems fitting that the final resting place of a girl’s body should be in a graveyard. But this is no peaceful burial. This is a brutal murder scene.
Under strict orders from his doctor to indulge in no criminal investigation, Wexford is sent to London for a break away from the pressures of the Kingsmarkham police force.
But then he discovers that his nephew Howard is heading the investigation into the macabre murder of Loveday Morgan, whose body was found abandoned in Kenbourne Cemetery.
Notes
The novel is set in the fictitious London borough of Kenbourne Vale W.15.
The chapter heading quotations are taken from Sir Thomas More’s Utopia in the Ralph Richardson translation of 1551.
After viewing Sir Thomas’s statue in the grounds of Chelsea Old Church, Wexford tries to take his mind off his illness by hunting down a copy of Richardson’s translation at the local library.
Who was Thomas More - Knight, Chancellor and Martyr? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Tom Betteridge.
Adapted for TV in 1991.
Contemporary Reads 1
Ursula K. Le Guin - The Word for World is Forest
P.D. James - An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö - The Locked Room
Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities
Tove Jansson - The Summer Book
Susan Hill - The Bird of Night
Footnotes
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