As a crime wave breaks in the quiet Cotswold streets, Andy Caplet, a failed reporter, is reluctantly immersed in Inspector Hobbes's investigation. Allergic to danger and exercise, Andy is thrown into grave confusion as he discovers not everyone is human. Not only must he come to terms with Hobbes's extreme oddness, and the tooth-collection of Hobbes's housekeeper, the indomitable Mrs Goodfellow, but he must work out if a suicide, a murder, and several robberies are connected? And what is the connection?

Hobbes goes missing. The cops decide he's big and bad enough to look after...

Set in the Cotswolds, this is the next instalment in the adventures of Inspector Hobbes, Mrs Goodfellow and Dregs, as narrated by the still disaster-prone Andy Caplet. It is a rip roaring, funny and moving tale of Andy's infatuation with a dangerously beautiful woman, starting off during investigations into sheep deaths and the mysterious disappearance of pheasants. These incidents appear to be connected to a rash of big cat sightings, and something horrible seems to be lurking in the woods.

Is Andy cursed to be always unsuccessful in love, or is the curse something much darker,...