Date with Evil: A delightfully witty and charming mystery set in the Yorkshire Dales: 8 (The Dales Detective Series, 8)

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Not only is one of my most anticipated books in my grasp, but it didn't disappoint, love this series even more for having this book in it! James Ellison is the local vet, Bernard Taylor the local estate agent, and the local police are Sgnt Clayton and PC Danny Bradley. Rick Procter is the local businessman and public benefactor whom Samson knows to be a villain but he can't prove it. No bad language, sex scenes or violence that is graphic, just implied so books are suitable for all.

From stolen washing to inheritance investigations, Bruncliffe’s Dales Detective Agency is being inundated with cases. The book opens with young Stuart Lister, rental manager at Taylors, aware that things are not up to date, breaking into his boss's office to look at the high rental properties that only Bernard Taylor runs, and what a can of worms he unknowingly unearths.DCI Frank Thistlethwaite is from a neighbouring police force, but he is convinced that Samson is corrupt, and determined to nail him. In the eighth novel in the Dales Detective series, Date with Evil, Samson and Delilah are about to discover that all of their new cases may be connected to a network of evil that seems to be surrounding Bruncliffe. But with Samson O'Brien still in London helping the Met Police clear his name, and the newly appointed member of the investigations team, Ida Capstick, distracted by her brother George's insistence that their farm is haunted, Delilah Metcalfe is struggling to meet the mounting demands for the agency's services. Retourner à Bruncliff, c’est retrouver de vieux amis et la chaleur de ce petit village anglais mais pas seulement. But with Samson O’Brien still in London helping the Met Police clear his name, and the newly appointed member of the investigations team, Ida Capstick, distracted by her brother George’s insistence that their farm is haunted, Delilah Metcalfe is struggling to meet the mounting demands for the agency’s services.

Joseph now lives in Fellside Hall with his pensioner friends (and amateur detectives) Arty Robinson, Eric Bradley, Clarissa Ralph, and Edith Hird. Needing something to do to take his mind off all the emerging complexities of the case, Jimmy goes out to split and divide the rhubarb, but finds something buried there.

Mrs Hargreaves is the local butcher, Clive Knowles a hopeless local farmer living in squalor (he wants Dee's Dales Dating Agency to find him a wife - some hope), and Pete Ferris a local poacher. This is the first book I've read waiting for its release - because I discovered The Dales Detective when the previous books were already published - and I read them, one after the other, last year. Even though the reader can guess for fitting conclusions, it is so skillfully written to keep the suspense until the final pages. This is book 2 in what is promising to be a very enjoyable series, set in Bruncliffe in the Yorkshire Dales. Arty catches Samson hiding in a ginnel watching Taylors, works out what is afoot, and soon the Fellside Hall pensioners are in on the act too.

Samson had disappeared without saying goodbye, back to London to help clear his name and provide evidence against the corrupt policemen . I say latest because much reference is made to previous mayhem, which I assume was covered in earlier novels. I liked the bit where Troy, the landlord of The Fleece, was tasked with using his people reading skill to identify the likely hitman. Jimmy Thornton's mother Marian has just died and Matty Thistlewaite, their solicitor tells Jimmy that inexplicably Marian has left half the estate to Livvy Thornton, Jimmy's sister who died some 20 years ago apparently in a hit and run accident in Leeds.

The development of the story through all of the books as well as being excellent stand alone stories have had me hooked. It doesn’t help that both his detective agency and Delilah’s business are lettered the same, ‘DDA’ and in the same building! Of lesser importance, what has happened to Stuart Lister, will Gareth lose his gun licence (and so his job), and what will Nancy discover when she starts to run Taylors ?