Author Stella Cameron has several best-selling books in print, chiefly crime or romantic suspense stories. In 2013 she released a book called Cold which has now been re- released as FOLLY. This is set in the Cotswolds, a picturesque hilly area near London and Oxford, in modern day.

The village of Folly-on-Weir is bitterly cold this winter, but Alex Bailey-Jones who bought the Black Dog Inn after her marriage broke down, is content - until a whining dog leads her to its dead owner. Strangely the man lying in the snow has a dart stuck in his neck just like those used for the pub's dartboard. After the police leave, a local man named Tony hopes to comfort Alex, but Heather and Leonard the big landowners arrive with the same idea. They didn't want to know her when she crept here as an impecunious divorcee. Not long after everyone leaves, Alex finds that a prowler has slashed her Land Rover's tyres. What is going on?

The atmosphere is skilfully built with the villagers becoming interested in the murder and turning up to drink Guinness and play darts. The scruffy little dog Bogie is a star in his own right while Alex, initially quiet, grows in strength and character as she wonders who would want to kill Brother Dominic. Alex has had a sad past but she is trying to put that behind her. A scrap of lace however drags her into a story from someone else's past, a tragedy perhaps serious enough to incite a killing. I like the attention to local detail and feeling of realism.

FOLLY is not a long book and sees Alex taking back her surname of Duggins. This is the first in the Alex Duggins series by Stella Cameron; I found it a refreshing cross between a cosy and a serious crime study, with police procedure, security cameras and DNA all entering the fray. If you like English countryside murder stories this book may provide your new favourite detecting heroine.