‘Deceptive Appearances,’ by P. F. Ford

I’ve been following P.F. Ford’s series of detective novels set in the fictional town of Tinton, in England. They started out as police procedurals – of a sort – and then became private eye stories when both the heroes, Dave Slater and Norman Norman (sic) went into that business.

In Deceptive Appearances, the thirteenth in the series, Dave and Norman get a visit from a young man who tells them his sister, Martha Dennis, is missing. Would they try to find her?

The two detectives are suspicious. The young man’s story seems improbably convoluted, and he just strikes them as shifty. But they’re not in a position to turn business down, and the fellow pays an advance, so why not check it out?

They will find that the sister isn’t a sister, but is an investigative journalist. Who has been using an assumed identity. And who may or may not be the same person as an unidentified body in the morgue. Their investigation will lead them to an elderly recluse, a millionaire pornographer, and the world of human trafficking. Also Dave will enter a tentative romance with a damaged woman.

I’m not sure why I enjoy the Slater/Norman books so much. They are, to be frank, not terribly well written. The steps of the investigation seemed a little improbable to me. The dialogue tends to be flaccid – it could use a lot of tightening up.

But I like the characters, and the generally upbeat tone of the books. And there’s little objectionable material in them. So I recommend them, as light reading, for the appropriate audience. Like me.

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