It also sees the return from his previous novel When the Wind Blows of the humourless police officer Trimble, now promoted to Superintendent.

The novel's setting of a fictional beauty spot in southern England was inspired by Box Hill in the author's native Surrey.

Pettigrew and his wife have retired to a cottage she has inherited from an aunt in Yew Hill, a picturesque spot in the county of Markshire.

The peace of the area is broken by the Easter tourists who flock there and the murder of Mrs Pink, a kindly local woman who is battered to death on the hill.

Potential suspects include a pig farmer, a garage owner and Humphrey Rose, a notorious financial swindler and disgraced politician recently released from prison.