Death at the White Hart, by Chris Chibnall

This is ideal holiday reading, a fast-moving, relatively concise murder mystery from the creator of Broadchurch and in a similar style. It begins with a man driving back home into Dorset at 2 am discovering a body on the road. This body is striking: a naked man in an old sack, trussed to a wooden chair with antlers fixed to his head. 

The discovery is made on page 3 but it's not until page 42 that we discover who has been murdered. The effect is to make us lean in, to read more carefully for clues about who this might be. We interrogate all that happens in the meantime as we meet a wealth of different characters from Fleetcombe and nearby Bredy - including a beleagured delivery driver, a trans barber and a refuge from Ukraine who has married one of the locals. As Russell T Davies says in his back-cover blurb, it "feels like it's set right now."

Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge has her own secrets to be uncovered over the course of the story. Of course, she already knows them but we don't - another effective bit of suspense. Her relationship with eager-to-please young Detective Constable Harry Ward is immediately endearing. I suspect it's probably quite easy to write world-weary detectives with difficult home lives but it's quite a skill to write them with such warmth.

In fact, Chibnall is great on all these different characters - immediately real and distinct, and liable to clash. Often, people turn out to be more than they appear: the last person we'd expect turns out to have been having an affair with the victim, while another character who initially seems lazy turns out to be proactive in a particular way, greatly aiding the enquiry.

It's not exactly a cosy crime novel given the constant sense of threat in this quiet community, such as organised crime, domestic violence or when a convicted criminal catches up with a grass. One thread to the story is a century-old crime and gross act of injustice, but really the focus here is on what happens next, such as whether a relationship can survive or a character stay in their home. There's a constant, uneasy feeling of things about to kick-off.

Then there's the reasoning behind the murder itself, which is relayed over more than one chapter to give it full, devastating effect. I was completely blind-sided by the identity of the murderer and yet it all makes perfect, awful sense. In people's tragedies, in their friendships, in the bittersweet final pages, Chibnall is really good with people.

My one note is that what this lacks of the "right now" is any mention of the weather, so much part of daily conversation in real life and requiring last-minute changes of plan. How different things might have been for characters sneaking out at night and/or starting fires if there were torrential rain. Without enough rain, setting fires could quickly spread - as we've seen in recent days. I'm acutely conscious of this having read the book on holiday in Rhodes, where unseasonably cold, wet weather meant less time to enjoy this on the beach. I finished it in the dark on the flight home late last night, its effect very different out of the sunshine.