Digging Up Death

When DCI Henry Peckover agrees to attend a Burns Night dinner in the tiny Highlands town of Inverballoch he has no idea what he’s getting himself into.

Sir Gilbert Potter, KCB, CBE, FBA, Britain’s most eminent archaeologist, has invited Miriam Peckover to be guest chef and Henry, Bard of the Yard, predicts a night of wine, women and song.

At first, all goes smoothly. Miriam’s haggis is delicious, the Scotch flows freely and Peckover even manages to understand some of Rabbie Burns’ poetry before going to bed a contented man.

But at 7.15 a.m. his slumbers are interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Sir Gilbert Potter has been murdered.

Granted, Sir Gilbert Potter was a pompous bore, but who could have wanted him dead?

Might the killing be connected with the archaeological dig Sir Gilbert was leading up at Dundrummy Castle?

But surely the excavations could achieve nothing but good, especially for the poverty-stricken laird, who is hoping for a lucrative discovery on his land.

Sir Gilbert’s ambitious young assistant Posy Cork decides to continue with the dig regardless. And it’s not long before she and her colleague uncover something very interesting indeed.

But have they, as Posy hopes, discovered the body of an ancient bog man, or could this be Sir Wilfred Cuff-Bingley, another eminent archaeologist who disappeared mysteriously from the very same site some fifty years ago?

Somewhat chaotically assisted by Detective Constable Jason Twitty, Peckover decides to do some digging of his own …

'Digging Up Death' is a classic mystery from a master story-teller.

‘Seek out the Bard of the Yard … line for line, Michael Kenyon’s is the wittiest and freshest of all crime fiction … The writing never flags. It’s sharp, sparky, intelligent and warm.’ PETER LOVESEY

‘Hilarious humour adorns a plot that grips like a clothes-peg.’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

‘Eventful, clue-strewn, grimly farcical fare.’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘The comic pace never slackens.’ OXFORD TIMES

‘Kenyon’s idiosyncratic characters would do P G Wodehouse proud.’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

This book was previously published as Peckover and the Bog Man.

Michael Kenyon was born in Huddersfield in 1931. He was a reporter for the Bristol Evening Post, News Chronicle, and the Guardian, and has taught English and journalism at universities in the USA. For seven years he lived in France, and recently worked as cook to an American family in their beach palace on Long Island. He is married with three daughters.

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