Sometimes, especially in English crime fiction, your run across what I’m inclined to call a “Police Cozy.” It’s a story about cops, but low on the action and violence. That kind of story suits me very well.

Author David Carter is producing a series about Chester (England) detective Walter Darriteau. He works in a sex-balanced headquarters (they’re always sex-balanced these days, at least in fiction), and cooperates well with his colleagues. His partner, Karen, is an attractive blonde, but they both have outside romantic relationships. The Missing Man (one of the least charismatic book titles I’ve ever come across) is a novella featuring the regular characters.

A middle-aged woman calls the police and informs them, matter-of-factly, that she wants to confess to a murder. Nearly 25 years ago, she says, she killed her philandering husband. Now she wants to come clean.

Walter and Karen go to her home to interview her, and she tells them she didn’t actually commit the murder herself. She hired a couple criminals to do the job. She doesn’t in fact have any evidence of a crime. The perpetrators are dead, and even the purported burial site is under a concrete overpass (called a “flyover” in England), so it would be difficult to dig up. But her husband disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since, so she’s confident he’s dead.

Walter’s and Karen’s bizarre job is to try to ferret out any evidence or witnesses that might still be around after a quarter of a century. In time all will be revealed – and I have to admit it was a surprise.

The writing in The Missing Man was good. I enjoyed the story. Based on this short sample, the series appears worth checking out.