Wycliffe x 3: How to Kill a Cat (1970); the Scapegoat (1978); Four Jacks (1985).

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat (1970) A victim deliberately disfigured to prevent or delay identification. Wycliffe is on holiday; he has mixed feelings about having to investigate. The girl has a mixed past, her life intersecting with people who value respectability, families who thrive on power games, and of course witnesses and suspects who omit or misrepresent the truth. A satisfactory early member if the series. Burley obviously loves Cornwall; some of the best passages gave me vivid impressions of the harbour, the tourists, the mix of locally necessary and tourist-trap businesses, the cramped streets and houses, and the weather. **½ 

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Scapegoat (1978) At Hallowe’en, a Wheel with a life-sizedeffigy is lit and rolled blazing down a hill and over a cliff into the sea. Jonathan Riddle, a hard-hearted, money-focussed business man, has disappeared, and the awful thought that he may have been inside the effigy first raises the possibility of murder and then distracts Wycliffe and his team into red-herring strewn byways which both extend the tale and allow Burley to do what I think he really likes best: comment on the darkness and absurdity of the human heart’s longings.

Riddle is an unpleasant man for whom business is as much a means of exerting power as for making money. Hence many suspects, most with the common motive of vengeance. One of the better Wycliffe novels. ***

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Four Jacks. (1985) A successful writer receives four Jacks of Diamonds in the mail, reminding him of an ancient guilt. He’s killed, and his body’s burned in the tent that serves as the workshop for an archeological dig on his land. Wycliffe, on holiday once again, must lead the investigation. The motive is vengeance for an ancient wrong. The murderer is cunning and careful, placing clues to implicate first one innocent then another. He overdoes it, which gives Wycliffe the insight he needs to rearrange the evidence and construct the true account of the crime. One of Burley’s best. ****