Call The Dying by Andrew Taylor

Synopsis :

Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry-driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart. 

Britain is basking in the warm glow of post-war tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train, and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toyshop. 

Returning to a town shrouded in intrigue and suspicion, Jill Francis becomes acting editor of the Gazette. Meanwhile, there's no pleasure left in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come.

The storyline is set in the rural countryside of UK and started off rather mellow and slow with just a bit of hint of excitement.  This continues on almost throughout the book and the excitement builds slowing and gradually and if readers are patient (like me :), you will be rewarded with something unexpected that made it all worthwhile.

I kept this book in my car and read it while being caught in traffic and such until almost towards the ending then only I brought it home and read completed it over coffee during a particular weekend.

There's some history among the characters that might have started in previous books but even then, it doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the story.