La fin est explosive, en quelques pages, Delilah et Samson résolvent plusieurs mystères qui les poursuivent depuis le premier roman. I wouldn't recommend anyone to read this book without reading the others first, relationships and storylines all converge in 'Date with Evil', but if that's too much of a reading commitment, I would at least start with the first book to get to know the characters, then read one or two before this one, if by that point you feel you can bear the spoilers.

I say latest because much reference is made to previous mayhem, which I assume was covered in earlier novels. All of the elements of a standard cosy crime novel are present in this latest instalment of the Dales Detective. It’s hard to know which crackles with energy more, the various explosions and fires or their chemistry. The stakes are high, the danger greater than ever as the villain of the piece sees their plans fast unravelling, but will the Dales Detective Agency succeed in discovering the perpetrator, and will Bruncliffe be left unscathed, or will the village be scarred forever by the fallout of this last(?

But with Samson O’Brien still in London helping the Met Police clear his name, and the newly appointed member of the investigations team, Ida Capstick, distracted by her brother George’s insistence that their farm is haunted, Delilah Metcalfe is struggling to meet the mounting demands for the agency’s services. I would liken this book and indeed the series to a boiled sweet with a soft centre but a hard shell.

However, in this case I found myself fairly lost given what was clearly extensive character backstories and plot lines that appear to have been carried over from previous books. Retourner à Bruncliff, c’est retrouver de vieux amis et la chaleur de ce petit village anglais mais pas seulement. Je rêvais d’un happy-end, style « conte de fées » avec un chouette prologue type 6 mois après les faits. The whole series has a televisual quality and I can’t wait for the French dramatised version of the stories to hit the Saturday night BBC4 schedules. So I was curious to see if my crush with this background was tied to the adrenaline rush I had with seven books read in a little more than a month.Chapman has created a superb cast of characters with all the domestic gossip, rivalries, fallings-out and community spirit anyone who grew up in a small town will love and recognise. In the eighth novel in the Dales Detective series, Date with Evil, Samson and Delilah are about to discover that all of their new cases may be connected to a network of evil that seems to be surrounding Bruncliffe.