More Deaths Than One

June 3, 1991
When the ostensible suicide of journalist Rupert Fleming turns out to have been murder, British detective inspector Gil Mayo probes the lives of the victim's relatives and lovers. He learns that Fleming was disliked in his hometown; observes that his widow, a successful businesswoman, seems little affected by his death; notes that her father is jubilant; finds out that Fleming had stolen from one lover, the sister of a police sergeant. The only person who seems grieved is naive young Bryonyok Harper, with whom the victim occasionally lived. One trail leads to the local community theater, whose vanished director, Ashleigh Cockayne, was a partner of the deceased in the business of taking and selling pornographic photos of underage girls. The search for Cockayne, who has become the chief suspect, intensifies when the body of a young constable is fished out of the river beside the theater. A surprising development, however, turns Mayo in another direction. Eccles's ( Requiem for a Dove ) procedurals are superior specimens, with well-developed relationships among the police officers, and thorough details of the motivations and circumstances of the crimes they investigate.