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Injury Time is one of the Inspector Sloan novels that came in the middle of Catherine Aird's long run, and the formula is dependable. A death at a sports club brings Sloan and Crosby into a club community that has been quietly fractious for decades. The investigation widens to take in the club's board, the bar staff, and the spouses who do not particularly want to be there.
The social texture is what these books deliver. Aird writes the Calleshire fictional county with the attention you would give a real place, and the small social rivalries that drive the case have the kind of weight only a long-running observer can give them. The case resolves fairly.
Three stars. A reliable Sloan procedural. Best for series readers.
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