Sansom better balances the actual story he's telling and Morley's abundant trivia. ( )

I was a big fan of the first County Guides novels, set in Norfolk. The characterisation is spot on in my view, and makes for plenty of comic elements to the book. However, I was disappointed with the plot for Death in Devon. Whilst the first book saw Morley and Sefton become amateur detectives (either by chance or design), their involvement in any investigation in this book is minimal. Indeed there is very little enquiry at all into unfortunate events described in the book. Instead, the bulk of the story is about the main purpose of the visit to Devon, the Founders Day speech, and a subsequent outing to the coast with the schoolboys. It's only at the very end, do matters get very quickly tidied up. It almost felt that the crime element of the book had been forgotten about, at the expense of further stretching the Morley character out to new lengths of absurdity (although that is the point of the Swanton Morley at the end of the day). Suddenly the story needed wrapping up, and the final explanation whizzes by. A good, lighthearted read, but a little disappointed at the end. However, I'll still move onto the Westmoreland guide in due course. ( )

Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, receives an invitation to be the guest speaker at All Souls school in Rousdon, where a friend of his is the headmaster. Sensing an opportunity to write a book on Devon in his series The County Guides, Morley, along with his assistant Stephen Sefton and his daughter Miriam, sets off south in the Lagonda. But the rural idyll doesn't last long before a tragic accident occurs (or was it?) and sinister goings-on are revealed. Business as usual, then.

I can see why readers' opinions are split on this series, as the character of Swanton Morley is quite insufferable at times, but it is Sefton who pulls the book out of the fire with his rather laconic remarks and wry sense of humour. Stephen Sefton is everything Swanton Morley isn't - and vice versa - though Morley's way of thinking and erudition are clearly having an effect on his long-suffering assistant. I do agree that the mystery could have been developed better as it was rather delegated to the sidelines, and it was not difficult at all to discover the culprit behind the disappearances and other creepy events. Sansom writes with a keen sense of the absurd, and the plot and characters can't possibly be taken seriously, though I feel the person that's portrayed most realistically is Sefton, who grounds the narrative and the plot. Even more so than The Norfolk Mystery, Death in Devon has at its heart a very dark core, both in terms of Sefton's still being haunted by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War and the human relationships at the centre of the mystery, despite all its light-heartedness. ( )

Marley is overbearing and really overshadows what happens in the story line and the characters to me are boring.
I received this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Professor Swanton Morley drives to Devon with 2 friends in his Lagonda on a tour of the English Riviera.
Whilst there he discovers that a child who was a pupil at a school he is visiting has died in mysterious circumstances.
This is Devon in its heyday of the 40's.
A history lesson mixed with tales of the occult.
Great fun!
I was given a digital copy of this novel by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review. ( )