Fox Evil by Minette Walters

Fox Evil is not quite the most recent of Ms Walters’ books but the one before last.
In a lot of ways it starts off and to my mind, remains one of her more, minor works.

The one thing that slightly annoyed me about Fox Evil is the dated nature of the book due to the metaphor and use of foxes throughout to bring her imagery out. The problem is that the book was written before the ban on hunting with hounds came into force, so it is stuck in the past.

Having said that the story is an intriguing mystery based on a dying, aristocratic family, the Luckyer-Foxes who hail from a remote part of Dorset.

Nine months prior to the start of the book, Ailsa Luckyer-Fox, died in mysterious circumstances on her garden terrace. Although the eye of suspicion fell on her husband, the police were happy that he wasn’t directly involved in his wife’s demise.

Roll forward nine months and James has become a bit of a recluse and is the victim of a Chinese Whispers campaign alleging that he killed his wife and also that he committed incest with his daughter who bore an illegitimate child nearly thirty years ago.

This mystery plus the ‘adverse possession’ of a locally contested plot of land by a group of travellers are well plotted and executed by Ms Walters.

All her characters are well drawn and evoke the appropriate amounts of sympathy and fear from her readers.

Although its not her best, its still as good as many other crime hacks are putting out these days.