Missing: Presumed Dead

Geoff Cragg is a tenured instructor in the Faculty of General Studies at
the University of Calgary in Alberta.

Missing: Presumed Dead is an entertaining novel that blends the police
procedural genre with comic elements of the traditional rural English
mystery. It centres on a case of presumed murder that the main
character, Detective Inspector David Bliss, encounters on his first day
at a small police station in rural Hampshire. At first, the case seems
open and shut (after all, the accused has already confessed to murdering
his father), but the body evades the searches of the police. Only when
they revisit the family mansion do they discover the skeleton of a man,
dead for at least 40 years, in a sealed-up room.

This is a copious novel—it has a complex plot and an abundance of
characters, many of whom seem to possess a dark past, from Inspector
Bliss himself, haunted by the death of an innocent victim, to Daphne,
the station’s elderly cleaning lady, who hides her wartime espionage
service and her Distinguished Service Order. In time-honored fashion,
there are the stock characters and eccentricities of the English
countryside (a stuffed goat plays a significant role), which lend comic
relief to the darker themes of the story. And there is also romance, as
Inspector Bliss meets a policewoman who undertakes to help him exorcise
his guilt.

Perhaps this mystery would be a stronger book if it were less complex.
In places the various elements are too diverse to easily blend.
Nonetheless, the fast-paced plot and frequent comedy are genuine
strengths and carry the reader along.