This one was surprisingly good read! Maybe because human naiveté and greed are the same in every society. This installment in the Miss seeton series has quick pace and the quick wit (of the police) nicely combined with village sensitivities and charming characters.
While I still find Miss Seeton being unbelievably naive for former teacher (like, truly) and my mystery queen is forever Miss Marple, yet I has been amused and intrigued by this novel - and this is not a small accomplishment, me being the very picky crime genre reader!

I enjoy all of the Miss Seeton books -- it is an excellent series! This book does not disappoint, although I have to say that it is not my favorite one so far.

Emily Seeton, aka Miss Seeton, Miss Ess, or the Battling Brolly, is the fictional heroine in a series of British cosy mystery novels written in part by Heron Carvic; then following Carvic's death, by Roy Peter Martin, writing as Hampton Charles (I guess preferring to focus more on his own "The Superintendent Otani Mysteries" under the name of James Melville); then picked by Sarah J. Mason (writing as Hamilton Crane), before branching out on her own with the “Trewley & Stone” series .

In each book, we find Miss Seeton using her skills as an art teach as she randomly draws psychologically and, perhaps, psychically informative sketches that allow Inspector Delphick of the Yard, and his assistant Bob Ranger, to solve the crime. The primary storyline is the seemingly naive and oblivious Miss Seeton finding herself in awkward situations, then managing to provide enough random clues and insights for the detectives to use to solve these mysteries.

I have read a number of titles in the series (of which there are 23 - 22 and a prequel). The character of Miss Seeton is standard cosy fare (elderly spinster involved in solving crimes); the villagers, distinctly unique (reference "The Nuts"); the crimes predominantly local with a few trips further afield; the community, typically English of the 1950s style. Whilst the first five stories were original and charming, as the series goes on, it does get a bit repetitive, and with so much crime in one sleepy village, I'm surprised Scotland Yard has opened a branch there! In the end, Miss Seeton comes across as a poor man's Miss Marple crossed with Inspector Clouseau as the final author, I feel, struggles to provide anything original with which to involve our heroine.

I rather like this one. Miss Seeton with schoolchildren is ripe with possibilities...and as usual, she (literally) falls into the answer to the cops' questions. But there are a lot of unpleasant characters involved here - on balance, not bad, but not my favorite. Pleased they're being re-released.

I honestly got a really interesting Mary Poppins feel from this book, mixed with Sherlock Holmes and Warlock Holmes. Really fantastic.

This is book 3 in the series and I think you should read the other books in the series to appreciate it. I have not so I just couldn't get into the story line. I will give the 1st book a read to see if it changes my mind.

Few writers have been able to capture the dynamic and humor of life in a small village in rural England as well as Heron Carvic. In his skillful hands, Miss Seeton's village, Plummergen, comes to life with all of its warmth and hysterical lunacy.

In this third book of the series, retired art teacher and sometime sleuth, Miss Seeton, unknowingly has caused the village busybodies to conclude that she is practicing witchcraft, which practice, coincidentally is on the rise in England. More than that, however, the police are concerned over a fraudulent but growing cult called Nuscience, which claims, among other things, that true believers can travel to other planets at will.

Scotland Yard Superintendent Delphick, known as the Oracle, wants to shut down this cult, and he suspects that the rise of witchcraft and the growth of Nuscience are connected. He believes that only Miss Seeton, because of her unrelenting belief in the goodness of others, and her uncanny ability to suss out the truth in her drawings, can determine the true intent of the cult.

After he sends Miss Seeton to a Nuscience event to take notes and report back, the head of the cult, called the Master, orders his young male followers to steal Miss Seeton's notes as she leaves the meeting. But the Master has not counted on Miss Seeton's famous umbrella, which once stopped a murderer. As the young men descend on her, Miss Seeton believes her purse is being pulled by the exiting crowd and, unwittingly, she dispatches her umbrella. As her victims nurse broken noses and bruised ribs, Miss Seeton innocently wanders away, purse in hand.

Despite the humorous situations she often finds herself in, Carvic never allows his reader to believe that Miss Seeton is truly dotty. Instead, Miss Seeton often is depicted as the only person able to see the truth, including the true talent, of those around her, and it is her naive but always insightful honesty that makes the Miss Seeton novels so attractive and long-lived.