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Inspector Dover #5
Dover Goes to Pott
Detective Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is the most idle and avaricious hero in all of crime fiction. Why should he even be bothered to solve the case? The town of Pott Winckle owes its prosperity to the firm of Wibbley Ware. Naturally, when the owner’s daughter is murdered, the call goes out for Scotland Yard’s finest. Once again, Dover is off, the reluctant Sergeant MacGregor in town. All Dover has to do to clinch this one is settle back in Wibbley’s Rolls Royce, perhaps bend a bit of evidence, or maybe a few fingers. Oddly enough – and not for the first time – his methods result in something resembling a solution.
Editorial “Something quite out of the ordinary.” Daily Telegraph “Joyce Porter is a joy… Dover is unquestionably the most entertaining detective in fiction.” Guardian “Plotted with the technique of a virtuoso.” New York Times “Wonderfully funny.” Spectator “Dover is wildly, joyously unbelievable; and may he remain so for our comic delight.” Sun “You will be fascinated by his sheer dazzling incompetence. Porter has a keen eye, a wicked sense of comedy, and a delightfully low mind.” Harper’s
Editorial “Something quite out of the ordinary.” Daily Telegraph “Joyce Porter is a joy… Dover is unquestionably the most entertaining detective in fiction.” Guardian “Plotted with the technique of a virtuoso.” New York Times “Wonderfully funny.” Spectator “Dover is wildly, joyously unbelievable; and may he remain so for our comic delight.” Sun “You will be fascinated by his sheer dazzling incompetence. Porter has a keen eye, a wicked sense of comedy, and a delightfully low mind.” Harper’s
- GenresMystery
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1968
20 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Porter
67 books14 followersJoyce Porter was born in Marple, Cheshire, and educated at King's College, London. In 1949 she joined the Women's Royal Air Force, and, on the strength of an intensive course in Russian, qualified for confidential work in intelligence. When she left the service in 1963 she had completed three detective novels.
Porter is best known for her series of novels featuring Detective Inspector Wilfred Dover. Dover One appeared in 1964, followed by nine more in a highly successful series. Porter also created the reluctant spy Eddie Brown, and the "Hon-Con", the aristocratic gentlewoman-detective Constance Ethel Morrison Burke.
Porter is best known for her series of novels featuring Detective Inspector Wilfred Dover. Dover One appeared in 1964, followed by nine more in a highly successful series. Porter also created the reluctant spy Eddie Brown, and the "Hon-Con", the aristocratic gentlewoman-detective Constance Ethel Morrison Burke.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 18, 2025
In the small town of Pott Winckle, a young wife has been brutally murdered and the job of bringing her killer to justice rests in the fat, incompetent hands of Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover of New Scotland Yard. As usual, his superiors have happily sent him to the hinterlands on what they hope will be a lengthy investigation. Anything to get the disgusting, lazy scrounger out of London!
Pott Winckle is a company town - dominated by the Wibbley Ware Company Limited and the Wibbley family. Since the victim is the only child of Daniel Wibbley himself and since the Wibbley family is notoriously acrimonious, the local police are anxious to pass this hot-potato to Scotland Yard. Of course, they weren't counting on Dover.
He has no trouble laying his hands on the culprit. In his book, husbands kill their wives and vice versa and there's no need to look any further than the young victim's spouse. This suits her father just fine and he's even interested enough to offer Dover a cushy job in return for seeing that his son-in-law is hanged. When the husband refuses to admit guilt, Dover arranges a private meeting with a view to bashing a free and voluntary confession out of him. The results are hilarious and deeply satisfying.
As poor Sergeant MacGregor keeps insisting, there are several members of the Wibbley family who have ample motives for the murder and Dover (protesting all the way) is eventually forced to do some police work. The trail leads them to the local hospital and a shocking (and wildly entertaining) denouement.
This is not my favorite of the Inspector Dover series, but it has some great stuff in it. If you enjoy sly English humor and a well-written farce, you'll like it. Foul Press Mysteries had the good taste to re-print the Dover books in the 1980's and used paperback copies can be found. But Kindle editions are now available and that's even better. Porter's books are too good to be lost in the dim mists of time.
Pott Winckle is a company town - dominated by the Wibbley Ware Company Limited and the Wibbley family. Since the victim is the only child of Daniel Wibbley himself and since the Wibbley family is notoriously acrimonious, the local police are anxious to pass this hot-potato to Scotland Yard. Of course, they weren't counting on Dover.
He has no trouble laying his hands on the culprit. In his book, husbands kill their wives and vice versa and there's no need to look any further than the young victim's spouse. This suits her father just fine and he's even interested enough to offer Dover a cushy job in return for seeing that his son-in-law is hanged. When the husband refuses to admit guilt, Dover arranges a private meeting with a view to bashing a free and voluntary confession out of him. The results are hilarious and deeply satisfying.
As poor Sergeant MacGregor keeps insisting, there are several members of the Wibbley family who have ample motives for the murder and Dover (protesting all the way) is eventually forced to do some police work. The trail leads them to the local hospital and a shocking (and wildly entertaining) denouement.
This is not my favorite of the Inspector Dover series, but it has some great stuff in it. If you enjoy sly English humor and a well-written farce, you'll like it. Foul Press Mysteries had the good taste to re-print the Dover books in the 1980's and used paperback copies can be found. But Kindle editions are now available and that's even better. Porter's books are too good to be lost in the dim mists of time.
September 13, 2025
I love Dover, these are funny reads with mystery. Dover is a character you just have so much fun with. The ever cantankerous old detective that should have been fired long ago, barely getting by on the wits of his partner.
March 30, 2015
I read a couple of Porter's Dover comedy detections back in the late 1960s and/or early 1970s and wasn't overly amused. However, I came across this recently at a library sale and picked it up in a golden haze of faux nostalgia. To be fair, I wasn't quite as repelled by this revisit as I can recall being first time around, but I still found the humor heavy-handed, the plotting dubious, and the writing mediocre bordering on tedious. The series was fairly successful in its day, though, so my opinion may well be an outlier.
Dover is a Scotland Yard Detective Inspector -- the one whom the Yard is desperate to get rid of, because he's fat, lazy, obnoxious, vicious, corrupt and exceedingly stupid. He and his intelligent but intimidated sidekick Sergeant MacGregor are sent to the town of Pott Winckle to investigate the murder of Cynthia Perking, nee Wibbley, daughter of the owner of Wibbley Ware, the chamberpot manufacturer that's the town's primary employer. Primary suspect is Cynthia's husband John . . .
As an example of the lousy plotting, much is made in the first half of the book of the fact that the driver of a distinctive car visited Cynthia around the time she was killed; a neighbor saw her welcome him into the house, and then his hurried departure half an hour later. The two cops follow up this lead assiduously, especially since a car of that model is owned by another Wibbley relative, but then suddenly, at the end of a chapter, there's a paragraph tagged on to the effect that, although Dover and MacGregor would never know it, the mystery visitor was a carpet-sweeper salesman who had nothing to do with the case.
My jaw dropped at a major plot strand being so peremptorily, almost contemptuously, abandoned. But what really doesn't work is that, from this point on, the cops forget all about the mystery visitor. Surely, if they don't know he had nothing to do with the case, they'd continue -- or at least MacGregor would -- to follow the lead until they knew it could be eliminated.
There were several moments when I smiled wanly, and I think I did chuckle once, but that's not much of a hit rate for a supposedly comic novel. I gather the BBC Radio 4 adaptations of some of the Dover novels have been pretty good.
Dover is a Scotland Yard Detective Inspector -- the one whom the Yard is desperate to get rid of, because he's fat, lazy, obnoxious, vicious, corrupt and exceedingly stupid. He and his intelligent but intimidated sidekick Sergeant MacGregor are sent to the town of Pott Winckle to investigate the murder of Cynthia Perking, nee Wibbley, daughter of the owner of Wibbley Ware, the chamberpot manufacturer that's the town's primary employer. Primary suspect is Cynthia's husband John . . .
As an example of the lousy plotting, much is made in the first half of the book of the fact that the driver of a distinctive car visited Cynthia around the time she was killed; a neighbor saw her welcome him into the house, and then his hurried departure half an hour later. The two cops follow up this lead assiduously, especially since a car of that model is owned by another Wibbley relative, but then suddenly, at the end of a chapter, there's a paragraph tagged on to the effect that, although Dover and MacGregor would never know it, the mystery visitor was a carpet-sweeper salesman who had nothing to do with the case.
My jaw dropped at a major plot strand being so peremptorily, almost contemptuously, abandoned. But what really doesn't work is that, from this point on, the cops forget all about the mystery visitor. Surely, if they don't know he had nothing to do with the case, they'd continue -- or at least MacGregor would -- to follow the lead until they knew it could be eliminated.
There were several moments when I smiled wanly, and I think I did chuckle once, but that's not much of a hit rate for a supposedly comic novel. I gather the BBC Radio 4 adaptations of some of the Dover novels have been pretty good.
January 5, 2022
I'm not entirely sure why I (for the most part) like this series so much. The lead detective is unpleasant (but at least, unlike forensic anthropologist Kay Scarpetta, he's intended to be), the mysteries are sometimes technically unsolved, and the dastardly-deed-doers sometimes evade punishment, and yet ... I keep coming back, because it's such a refreshing change from the formula.
I mean, here's a detective who'd rather not detect (he likes to sleep, drink, and eat, in probably that order), and if he gets an idea right, it's a mere accident. But he's awfully vivid, and so are most of the peripheral characters and suspects. It's bold, bravura writing, and so much fun—if you can imagine a RuPaul's Drag Race sketch that were actually well-written (sorry RuPaul, I love you, but those acting challenges are working with sketchy material in both senses of the word), perhaps they would turn out like these books. Over-the-top, and delicious.
(5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
I mean, here's a detective who'd rather not detect (he likes to sleep, drink, and eat, in probably that order), and if he gets an idea right, it's a mere accident. But he's awfully vivid, and so are most of the peripheral characters and suspects. It's bold, bravura writing, and so much fun—if you can imagine a RuPaul's Drag Race sketch that were actually well-written (sorry RuPaul, I love you, but those acting challenges are working with sketchy material in both senses of the word), perhaps they would turn out like these books. Over-the-top, and delicious.
(5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
December 11, 2024
I know the Dover series isn't for everyone, but I have loved them since I was a teenager. Every year I try to reread one or two especially after I have read a few books I didn't like, just to remind myself that there are books out there that bring me joy. Like I said; not for everyone, but I always get a kick out of them.
January 24, 2020
Dover, the detective you learn to hate.
Well, another one down. I got no. 1 on Book Bub - liked the look of the cover - despite the saying! Enjoyed the characters, although Dover is a thorough pain. Just once, I would like to see Sgt. McGregor come out on top just once.
Friends - get to know Chief Inspector Dover and his sergeant - you won’t regret it.
Well, another one down. I got no. 1 on Book Bub - liked the look of the cover - despite the saying! Enjoyed the characters, although Dover is a thorough pain. Just once, I would like to see Sgt. McGregor come out on top just once.
Friends - get to know Chief Inspector Dover and his sergeant - you won’t regret it.
March 25, 2025
3.5 stars
An easy listening dramatisation. The main detective is obnoxious but in a funny way. The mystery itself is fairly weak but, on the whole, enjoyable. Will probably listen to more in the series.
An easy listening dramatisation. The main detective is obnoxious but in a funny way. The mystery itself is fairly weak but, on the whole, enjoyable. Will probably listen to more in the series.
December 9, 2019
Another Dover- small town murder.
July 13, 2024
Comedic crime mastery.
Nothing else like it .
Nothing else like it .
November 23, 2022
A fun entry in the series with a nice twist at the end. Good stuff.
July 23, 2021
I didn't enjoy as much as the previous books in the series. In this book Dover seem almost too evil. It may be that 21st century sensibilities make it a step too far to allow a senior Detective Inspector to beat up a prisoner but, it too a little joy away from the series.
September 5, 2022
Read in Danish. A little humorous.
January 10, 2012
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
The Yard's Inspector Dover probes the murder of a businessman's daughter.
The Yard's Inspector Dover probes the murder of a businessman's daughter.
March 6, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 23, 2019
Perusdekkari.
September 12, 2021
Another cracking case for Chief Inspector Dover.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews