Netherplash Cantorum in Dorset was the village John Waterson and his young wife chose to live in after his retirement. In the event, this idyllic spot had one severe but unforeseeable drawback: among its inhabitants was a practical joker whose fertile mind ran to the most bizarre and grotesque designs. The Village was no place for a quite retirement, or for a gentle recuperation from the nervous breakdown that had afflicted Waterson's wife. In Netherplash Cantorum you couldn't tell what was going to happen next. Extra-ordinary events tripped over each other. Maybe it was just good fun - or fairly good fun, except that it became less and less funny, and eventually someone died hideously and painfully of it. There has never been a village murder story with a flavour comparable to that of The Deadly Joker. The weird events at Netherplash Contorum are made fascinating and convincing by characters who are both bizarre and credible, including the beautiful Indian Vera Paston, the brothers called Card, and Waterson himself.

The many crime readers who are addicts of Nicholas Blake will delighted with the originality of this tour-de-force of crime fiction.