Do you need some total escape detective fiction?

Faith Martn series featuring DI Hillary Greene 

The world calls to seriousness, but there is only so much a human can take.  Thus enters the escape fiction genre and I prefer good old fashioned whodunnits.  Faith Martin has created an Oxford Detective Inspector called Hilary Greene. She is middle aged and coming off  her" bent" fellow officer husband who has recently been killed in a car crash, but has stashed a pile of his ill gotten gains in some secretive place that a number of people are still looking for.  Her superiors all think she is a top notch investigator and thus saddle her with green recruits needing instruction, old thorns in the side that no one else can tolerate, and mysterious folks who always seem to have unusual agendas. She lives on a canal boat on the Thames just out of Oxford and that adds a nice link to the countryside and the various villages where the crimes seem to be committed. 

There tends to be one murder to each short book and  the five I've read so far all have a nice balance between Oxfordshire local color and plain old fashioned  shoe leather investigations and interviews.  There are generally some nice twists before the nasty is nabbed.  By and large limited violence, sex, and hard language so I guess the books fit into the "Cosy" category. They do come with a glossary of Britticisms at the end if you are not already on top of common Brit idioms like boot, knickers, and semi-detached.  

Hillary is bright but definitely has personal problems to work on. She and her fellow workers are interesting enough to keep you moving on without having to think too much about anything. Having spent time in England and been to Oxford and environs helps. In one book she goes to the Trout Inn outside of town and I have been there and it has always been one of my favorite spots in the English countryside.

Best of all, if your have Amazon Prime, you can read at least the first ten for free on your Kindle.  No muss no fuss no clutter on our bookshelves.   Meanwhile I am reading a revised biography of Arthur Miller and a memoir by Jackie Winspear (the creator of the Maisie Dobbs series).