The wealthy Sir Thomas Pedhurst is dead. The Pedhurst and de Reve families arrive at Harcroft Manor in Devon for the reading of the will. Alongside them is Fred Willets, an Australian Second World War aviator, police officer, and old friend of Thomas’s from the war, who has also come as a beneficiary of the will. Old feuds and secrecy make this family less loving than most, setting an anxious scene full of foreboding in the lead up to the reading. First, a shocking burglary sets the families on edge. Then, Thomas’s widow, Julia, is found mysteriously dead, with no signs of foul play, sowing distrust and suspicion. As another murder takes place, more brutal than the last, it’s up to Detective Willets and local pharmacist Prudence Meadows to unmask the killer.

Unlike most of Dave Warner’s previous gritty crime noirs set in Perth, Sound Mind Dead Body takes place in the serenity of the English countryside, in stark contrast against the violence and hatred brewing in this family. As is fitting for this new scenery, and drawing on his personal love for Agatha Christie novels, Warner has written a classic, cosy whodunnit, with a cast of suspicious characters and an atmospheric crime scene set in 1929, between the two World Wars, reflecting the tension and increasing rivalry that divides this family.

However, it wouldn’t be a Dave Warner novel without a connection to Australia, which manifests in our protagonist Fred, a police officer from the Gold Stealing Detection Squad, based in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Fred is someone we can connect with and relate to, somebody familiar among the eclectic cast of suspects. Sound Mind Dead Body is a clever and entertaining murder mystery with Fred as our trustworthy detective upon whom we can rely to solve the murder – a true-blue Poirot, if you will!