This is not good Mitchell - instead, it is more reminiscent of Dorothy Sayers and Umberto Eco on a literary binge with crime only peripherally involved.

The plot concerns the murders of five women in the New Forest - murders committed by one of three people. The murderer's identity is revealed a quarter through the book, so there is no surprise. (Note: in one of Mitchell's best books of the 1970s, Fault in the Structure, the killer's identity is known from the beginning). On the girls' bodies are notes written by the killer - notes to do with various religious heretics who were put to death for their beliefs. (This is where Eco and Sayers come in - Eco, however, is interested in knowledge for its own sake rather than as a way of showing-off as it is with Sayers.)

The book is a fairly sub-standard 'cosy', very different from Mitchell's normal work - and not really worth the bother. The plot is dull, the detection is dull, the murderer is obvious (and dull), and even Mrs. Bradley is dull. Tired Mitchell. Thankfully, her imagination picked up with her next book, Dance to Your Daddy (1969).

This annoying book is poorly written, sloppy intellectually, and poorly formatted. It is used as a college food science textbook and the workbook is a separate purchase. Too bad because the workbook is well written, well organized, and thoughfully put together. This book assumes a year of recent college chemistry. It lacks a glossary and serviceable index; but that seems unimportant when you consider the frequent contradictions and misinformation on things like the ratios of ingredients in self rising flour. AURGH! The authors are clearly not writers and the publisher clearly does not care to adequately edit this book for information, style, or presentation. Given the topics this text covers, it is hard to imagine how anyone could have done such a pitiable job. Food and food science should be exciting subjects. All I can say is the authors must have enormous egos. Shame on the authors... They must have gotten degrees from colleges that did not have an English requirement. When you get this text, buy an additional book to have something enjoyable to read.

I purchased this book as I thought it would be an exciting and informative read. Instead, it was disappointing in it's content & hard to follow due to the way it was written. There are many excellent shipwreck stories in Newfoundland...this is not one of them. A better read is "Shipwrecks of Newfoundland & Labrador" by Frank Galgay.