"Murder in the Stableyard" by Roy Lewis

Arnold Landon of the Northumberland planning department is asked by a professor friend to help another professor with a project. The project is finding enough evidence that a medieval mason had worked in the area. If enough evidence is found, then a grant will come through for the research. It’s an interesting project, but the investigating professor is anything but polite, and it’s clear he bitterly resents have to work with an amateur. 

For that’s what Landon is, a knowledgeable and insightful amateur. He’s also likely much more knowledgeable about medieval masons, stone, and wood than the professor will ever be. But Landon’s new boss, another nameless Chief Planning Officer (replacing the one who sailed a bit too close to the bribery wind), is not happy with this request, and loads more work on Landon’s desk.

 

The work is an application for improvements at a local estate. The man who owns is seems to be universally disliked – by his tenants, his housekeeper, his neighbors, and especially by the man who feels cheated out of his inheritance, who’s suing. Landon has to deal with everyone involved, and even his rude professor dislikes the estate owner, having been once humiliated by him. 

 

Roy Lewis

The estate owner is found stabbed to death with a crossbow arrow, right in his own stableyard. The problem for the police investigator is that there are too many people glad to see the man dead, and all of them had the motive and opportunity. But it’s Landon, with his precise, puzzle-solving mind, who will eventually identify the killer – and perhaps find the evidence the rude professor is looking for.

 

Murder in the Stableyard is the fourth Arnold Landon mystery by British writer Roy Lewis, and a fine, intriguing mystery it is. A planning official is not your typical mystery detective, but his mild, unassuming manner masks a mystery-solving mind. Landon mut have been a favorite character for the author, as he’s written some 22 novels featuring him.

 

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.

 

Murder in the Farmhouse by Roy Lewis.

 

Error in Judgment by Roy Lewis.