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Little Knell is a late-period Catherine Aird, and it is exactly as quietly competent as you would expect. A piece of stone garden statuary in a country garden turns out to be a memorial to a missing person, and the trail Sloan and Crosby follow leads back through several decades of village life in Calleshire.
The pleasures are the familiar ones. Aird writes Crosby's literal-mindedness with affection. Sloan's impatience with bureaucracy continues to deepen across the series. The reveal is the kind of slow social-deduction puzzle Aird has always done well.
Three stars. Cozy procedural readers will be content. New readers should start earlier in the series.
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