This is yet another Dalziel/Pascoe mystery, and it’s just as much fun as
the others I’ve reviewed recently.

When Dalziel was a young detective, he was involved in one of the last
“Golden Age” country house murders. A guest was murdered, and the lord
of the manor and a young nanny were determined to be the murderers. The
lord was hanged, and the nanny sentenced to life in prison.

It’s now many, many years later. A TV documentary has raised doubts
about the nanny’s guilt, and after some cursory investigations by the
Home Office, she is freed pending a full police investigation into the
case. Early signs are that the result of this “full police
investigation” will be a report blackening the name of Dalziels late
friend and mentor, Wally Tallantire. Dalziel can’t be having this, and
despite being told to leave it alone undertakes an investigation of his
own–and begins to realize that some of the other folks who were at that
country house that deadly weekend are still very important people indeed.

It’s not as good as the best of the series, but I enjoyed it thoroughly;
also, it provides some of the long term background presumed by the later
book Arms and the Women.