"Murder in the Farmhouse" by Roy Lewis

If there’s one thing the Senior Planning Officer of the Northumberland Planning Department doesn’t like, it’s publicity. Not to mention upset. Arnold Landon, the Senior Planning Officer’s #2, may be effective at his job, but he attracts publicity, upset, and even murder like flies. For his part, Landon doesn’t mean to attract attention; his idea of a great day is exploring old barns and medieval dwellings, looking for examples of ancient craftsmanship, just like he did as a boy with his father. 

When his boss goes on holiday, Arnold is left to deal with a rather prickly planning application – the taking of an old farm for a home for the elderly. By necessity, the farmhouse and adjacent buildings would be razed. But the woods would be left alone, for now. It doesn’t help that Landon suspects, and then learns, that the applicants are about far more than a home for the elderly. Or that one of the women living at the farm is a borderline terrorist when it comes to defending the place. 

 

At the same time, Landon must deal with an application for yet another money-making scheme at a nearby manor property. The applications form the owner have come in fast and furious over the years, and most are withdrawn; few are implemented, and of those that are, they all fail to raise funds to keep the manor alive.

 

Roy Lewis

Then the owner of the farm is found dead, murdered in her own home. And Landon is the one who finds her. And here comes the publicity and upset, followed shortly by the ire of the Senior Planning Officer (who remains nameless, as if stereotyped bureaucrats have only titles, not names). And it’s Landon who decides he will find out what happened.

 

Murder in the Farmhouse is the third Arnold Landon mystery by British author Roy Lewis. Continuing in the same vein as its predecessors, it’s the story of an unassuming planning department employee who finds himself thrust into the middle of serious crimes.

 

Lewis is the author of some 60 other mysteries, novels, and short story collections. His Inspector Crow series includes A Lover Too Many, Murder in the Mine, The Woods Murder, Error of Judgment, and Murder for Money, among others. The Eric Ward series, of which The Sedleigh Hall Murder is the first (and originally published as A Certain Blindness in 1981), includes 17 novels. Lewis lives in northern England.  

 

Related:

 

Murder in the Barn by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Manor by Roy Lewis.

 

Error in Judgment by Roy Lewis.