BETTY ROWLANDS – Exhaustive Enquiries. Walker, US, hardcover, 1994. Berkley, paperback, April 1995. First published in the UK: Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1993.

   This is the fourth of twelve books in Berry Rowlands’ series of real life cases of murder solved by mystery writer Melissa Craig. The first appeared in 1990 when the author was 67; the final one in 2004. By that time, however, the sixth in her series of novels featuring police photographer Sukey Reynolds had appeared. There are now thirteen in that series, the most recent appearing in 2014.

   I wonder what she eats for breakfast.

   This the first I’ve read of any of her work. It falls into what I call the classical British cozy category, which is to say it is set in the beautiful English countryside, complete with a large manor house converted to a public inn — with ghosts reportedly residing in the cellar — and a protagonist (female) with just enough reason to get involved with mysteries — she writes them — plus a boy friend of sorts who is a member of the local police force, and a good friend (also female) next door to bounce ideas off of, if not share adventures with.

   All well and good, but what this particular sample of her work also is is a good old-fashioned thriller, complete with a gang of thieves who are busy smuggling something in or out of the country in the phony exhaust systems of automobiles. (Hence the title.)

   All in all, it’s minor affair, but it gets rougher and tougher than American cozies tend to do, albeit in a semi-sanitized way. Enjoyable enough to read, but in a couple of hours, you’ll be hungry again.