W. D. Burley. Wycliffe and the Tangled Web (1988) Hilda Clemo, beautiful, intelligent, and 17 years old, tells her boyfriend and assorted other folk that she is pregnant. Then she disappears. Wycliffe sees the missing persons report, and a vague unease prompts him to order a more thorough search and investigation. The tangled web of the title refers to past and present relationships, but the one that leads to her murder is simple jealousy. Another satisfying concoction. Burley apparently preferred to write radio plays, and wrote the Wycliffe series because it paid. Radio play require the ability to suggest character and ambience in dialogue, skills that make his potboiler novels above average. Burley is very good at pacing the narrative slowly enough to create tension, and fast enough to maintain curiosity.
A re-read. Either I’m mellowing, or I saw more in the story this time round, since I’m rating it half a star higher. ***
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