Only a Game

Foul play’s afoot at Bruton Rovers Football Club. - Bruton Rovers FC has been promoted to the Premiership, but Jim Capstick’s days as Chairman have made him some enemies in the Lancashire mill town. With the team fighting relegation, the debts are piling high. But when the club is rocked by a murder after Jim makes a surprise announcement, the question’s not who had the motive, but who had the balls to actually do it. ‘Percy’ Peach and DS Lucy Blake have their work cut out for them . . .From BooklistThe irreverent, irrepressible DCI Percy Peach returns to do battle not only with the criminals of Brunton, Lancashire, but also with his pompous boss, Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, whose balloon of pretentiousness Peach just loves to burst. Peach’s latest case concerns the murder of Jim Capstick, owner of the Brunton Rovers soccer team. Capstick is found strangled shortly after making the shocking announcement that he’s selling the team. As Peach sees it, nearly everyone in the room at the time of the announcement had a motive for killing Capstick, from his much-younger wife, whose love affair was about to be exposed, to the team coach, who could lose his job under new ownership, to the club secretary, whose secret vice would gain him no favor with the sheik rumored to be buying the team. While Peach is the consummate cop, he has trouble focusing on the case at hand, since he’s due in a few short weeks to tie the knot with his longtime lover, DS Lucy Blake. Another engaging, cleverly plotted, darkly witty British police procedural from a well-liked and always entertaining author. --Emily Melton ReviewThe irreverent, irrepressible DCI Percy Peach returns to do battle not only with the criminals of Brunton, Lancashire, but also with his pompous boss, Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, whose balloon of pretentiousness Peach just loves to burst. Peach's latest case concerns the murder of Jim Capstick, owner of the Brunton Rovers soccer team. Capstick is found strangled shortly after making the shock announcement that he's selling the team. As Peach sees it, nearly everyone in the room at the time of the announcement had a motive for killing Capstick, from his much younger wife, whose love affair was about to be exposed, to the team coach, who could lose his job under new ownership, to the club secretary, whose secret vice would gain him no favor with the sheik rumoured to be buying the team. While Peach is the consummate cop, he has trouble focusing on the case at hand, since he's due in a few short weeks to tie the knot with his longtime lover, DS Lucy Blake. Another engaging, cleverly plotted, darkly witty British police procedural from a well-liked and always entertaining author. --Booklist, 15th February 2010