FRANK PARRISH – Snare in the Dark. Constable, UK, hardcover, 1982. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1981. Perennial, US, paperback, 1983.

   Dan Mallett is a poacher by profession — he once was a banker and didn’t like it — so he went back to the way of his father — to his now aged mother’s dismay.

   Caught in the open while setting up snares for a forest filled with plump pheasants, a shot rings out (in all honesty, not quite — it’s an arrow from a crossbow) and his gamekeeper nemesis is dead. Mallett has to spend the rest of the book with the police on his trail. The only way to clear himself is to find the real killer.

   It doesn’t seem like a lot to base a full length novel on, but Parrish somehow finds a way to fill the pages and keep them turning at the same time. What’s amusing about this case is how women are attracted to Mallett, a short and not very handsome man. But obviously not one without some charm, and in its own quiet bucolic way, so is this, his third of eight adventures. If you like books about the rustic side of English life as it was in the 1970s and 80s, don’t miss this one.


      The Dan Mallett series —

Fire in the Barley. Constable, 1977.
Sting of the Honeybee. Constable, 1978.
Snare in the Dark. Constable, 1982.
Bait on the Hook. Constable, 1983.
Face at the Window. Constable, 1984.
Fly in the Cobweb. Constable, 1986.
Caught in the Birdlime. Constable, 1987.
Voices from the Dark. Constable, 1993.