Colin Watson

Hopjoy Was Here

What strange passions seethe beneath the prosperous surface of Flaxborough town? Affable but diligent Detective Inspector Purbright is tasked with uncovering the darker underbelly of greed, corruption and crime. A classic British series of police mysteries, laced with wry humour. "Watson has an unforgivably sharp eye for the ridiculous." - New York Times "Flaxborough is Colin Watson's quiet English town whose outward respectability masks a seething pottage of greed, crime and vice ... Mr Watson wields a delightfully witty pen dripped in acid." - Daily Telegraph The gripping sight of four burly policemen manhandling a bath down the front path of a respectable villa isn't one the residents of Flaxborough see every day. Net curtains twitch furiously, and neighbours have observations to make to Chief Inspector Purbright and Sergeant Love about the inhabitants of 14, Beatrice Avenue. Nice Gordon Periam, the mild-mannered tobacconist, and his rather less nice (in fact a bit of a bounder) lodger Brian Hopjoy had apparently shared the house amicably. But now neither man is to be found and something very disagreeable seems to be lurking in the drains... Then a couple of government spooks turn up, one with an eye for the ladies the drama is acquiring overtones of a Bond movie! Witty and a little wicked, Colin Watson's tales offer a mordantly entertaining cast of characters and laugh-out-loud wordplay. AUTHOR: Colin Watson was born in 1920 in Croydon in south London. At age 17 he was appointed cub reporter on the Boston Guardian, a regional newspaper. His years as a journalist in the Lincolnshire market town proved formative, and he collected there much of the material that provided the basis for the Flaxborough novels. He won two CWA Silver Dagger awards, and the Flaxborough series was adapted for television by the BBC under the title Murder Most English. Watson died in 1983.