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Mr. Mosley #1
Murder, Mr. Mosley
After 17 years, Brenda Thwaites Cryer returns to Parson's Fold with a shadowy past and a shadowy fortune. Now, she lay dead in Jackman's Cottage. And the only possible witness -- her invalid mother -- is missing. For Inspector Mosley, this case is a radical departure.
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1983
5 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
John Greenwood
176 books7 followersJohn Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton.
Hilton was born in 1921 in Buxton, Derbyshire. After his war service in the army he became an Inspector of schools, before retiring in 1970 to take up full-time writing.
He wrote two books on language teaching as well as being a prolific crime writer - his works include the Superintendent Simon Kenworthy series and the Inspector Thomas Brunt series, as well as the Inspector Mosley series as John Greenwood.
Hilton was born in 1921 in Buxton, Derbyshire. After his war service in the army he became an Inspector of schools, before retiring in 1970 to take up full-time writing.
He wrote two books on language teaching as well as being a prolific crime writer - his works include the Superintendent Simon Kenworthy series and the Inspector Thomas Brunt series, as well as the Inspector Mosley series as John Greenwood.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 28, 2021
Three and a half stars.
My first time reading John Greenwood and I quite enjoyed it. Mosley is an idiosyncratic copper having been in the same area for decades: knows every inch of his patch and virtually everyone in it. His methods are old fashioned to say the least but prove effective. The interplay between him and the whizz-kid young sergeant is entertaining and well done. The story is quite complex and as a police procedural it works well. This is the first one in Inspector Mosley series and I suspect the author is just getting to know him. I look forward to reading the next installment.
My first time reading John Greenwood and I quite enjoyed it. Mosley is an idiosyncratic copper having been in the same area for decades: knows every inch of his patch and virtually everyone in it. His methods are old fashioned to say the least but prove effective. The interplay between him and the whizz-kid young sergeant is entertaining and well done. The story is quite complex and as a police procedural it works well. This is the first one in Inspector Mosley series and I suspect the author is just getting to know him. I look forward to reading the next installment.
January 11, 2017
Rumpled, balding, and underestimated by both his superiors and suspects, Inspector Jack Mosley is a force to be dealt with. This was a clever and amusing mystery that I can't say was properly clued, but to see how Mosley goes about his investigation is worth the read. Much of the connections in the mystery are told in long pieces of dialog. I enjoyed watching the relationship between Mosley and his assigned Sergeant Beamish develop. I'll look forward to the other titles in this series.
December 30, 2012
Inspector Mosley is the only person available when Brenda Cryer is found shot dead in her mother’s home, Jackman’s Cottage in the village of Parson’s Fold. Mosley is usually concerned with minor crime in the area and no one is better than he is at ferretting out the miscreants but his superiors are doubtful about his abilities when it comes to a serious crime like murder. High flyer, DS Beamish is allocated to keep an eye on him but Mosley proves more than a match for Beamish and sends him off to gather evidence from all over the country.
I enjoyed this is well plotted crime novel and like Mosley as a character. It is easy for everyone to underestimate Mosley but his encyclopaedic jottings which include everything anyone ever tells him prove more than worth their weight in gold. Even when he is taken off the case he still manages to solve it. I liked the way his relationship with Beamish develops and the way his superiors treat him with exasperation tinged with affection.
Village life is well realised as is the web of relationships between people who have lived in the same area all their lives. I liked the way the petty crimes are woven into the fabric of the murder case. If you like crime novels set in the country, in this case Yorkshire, rather than a city then you will enjoy this book which is the first in a series.
I enjoyed this is well plotted crime novel and like Mosley as a character. It is easy for everyone to underestimate Mosley but his encyclopaedic jottings which include everything anyone ever tells him prove more than worth their weight in gold. Even when he is taken off the case he still manages to solve it. I liked the way his relationship with Beamish develops and the way his superiors treat him with exasperation tinged with affection.
Village life is well realised as is the web of relationships between people who have lived in the same area all their lives. I liked the way the petty crimes are woven into the fabric of the murder case. If you like crime novels set in the country, in this case Yorkshire, rather than a city then you will enjoy this book which is the first in a series.
April 20, 2009
The first book in this delightful series introduces Inspector Mosley, who knows his mountainous Lancashire patch but, his superiors fear, not much else. When a woman returns to her family home after many years and is promptly murdered, even the powers that be realize that Mosley is the man for the job, although they assign him Sgt. Beamish, who believes in science, not intuition. Mosley seems to wander around at random, chatting to people to pass the time, yet his information network in the area is unequaled, and he usually gets where he's going before the rest of the police force realize that there's a problem.
December 12, 2023
One of the few books I love to pick up and re-read!
June 23, 2023
What a joy to read! First in the all-too-short series (only six) featuring Inspector Jack Mosley, though all seem to call him either Mr. Mosley or just Mosley. This little charmer is emblematic of what was once called an “English village mystery,” long before the appending of the dreadful modifier, “cozy.”
Nothing cozy here. The police are all fairly straighforward civil servants doing a job that needs doing, with of course the exception of Mosely - a finely nuanced character and the glue that holds all the constabulary together, not that any will credit him for it, he’s far too unorthodox in his methodology and effectively uses his knowledge of and relationships with most everybody who resides on “his patch.” And those residents! Perfect depictions of small town denizens, where everybody knows everybody’s business, and enmities can be deeply ingrained and long held.
Here Brenda Thwaites, as was, returns to the village after disappearing seventeen years previously, and none are happy to see her return. She brings her addled mother with her, whom she has just removed from the “rest home” other elements of the family have consigned her to, much to the consternation of said elements. And then just like that, Brenda is discovered dead on the floor of her cottage and her mother missing. While the police powers-that-be are reluctant to allow Mosley to investigate a capital crime, they themselves are already involved in “more momentous” investigations. Trust our Inspector Mosley to solve his case, and pretty well crack the politically sensitive case of the higher ups while doing so.
Nothing cozy here. The police are all fairly straighforward civil servants doing a job that needs doing, with of course the exception of Mosely - a finely nuanced character and the glue that holds all the constabulary together, not that any will credit him for it, he’s far too unorthodox in his methodology and effectively uses his knowledge of and relationships with most everybody who resides on “his patch.” And those residents! Perfect depictions of small town denizens, where everybody knows everybody’s business, and enmities can be deeply ingrained and long held.
Here Brenda Thwaites, as was, returns to the village after disappearing seventeen years previously, and none are happy to see her return. She brings her addled mother with her, whom she has just removed from the “rest home” other elements of the family have consigned her to, much to the consternation of said elements. And then just like that, Brenda is discovered dead on the floor of her cottage and her mother missing. While the police powers-that-be are reluctant to allow Mosley to investigate a capital crime, they themselves are already involved in “more momentous” investigations. Trust our Inspector Mosley to solve his case, and pretty well crack the politically sensitive case of the higher ups while doing so.
February 26, 2024
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton who died in 1986. I first came across the author's work in 1981 and read nineteen of his books under his own name. In the early 1990s I also read four of the Inspector Mosley books. I was really pleased to find in 2024 that some of these books have been reprinted.
Mosley is an old-fashioned police officer based on the Lancashire Yorkshire border. This is a charming almost cosy story where Mosley solves a murder as well as a case of poultry rustling!
Mosley is an old-fashioned police officer based on the Lancashire Yorkshire border. This is a charming almost cosy story where Mosley solves a murder as well as a case of poultry rustling!
December 2, 2020
The one about the older copper whose superiors think is not up to the job of landing a murderer. Think A Touch of Frost moved up to the wilds of Lancashire or Yorkshire and stir in some of the habitual low-level felons that Rumpole of the Bailey might represent.
Good. Worth a read. Not much different than a lot of others in the genre.
Good. Worth a read. Not much different than a lot of others in the genre.
June 9, 2024
A very British novel with more than a few convenient coincidences. An enjoyable book that is outside the range of what I normally read. I thought it had weak character development and a contrived plot. Not a great book but one that will keep your interest
Want to read
March 13, 2019Synopsis: Brenda Thwaites Cryer returns to Parson's Fold with a shadowy past and fortune. Now, she's dead. Inspector Mosley finds it different.
August 19, 2021
A rather old fashioned little murder mystery, set in 1980, yet the atmosphere could be 1950, or even 1930...
August 13, 2022
Got this on the off chance that I might enjoy it, and that I certainly did.
it was not fast paced, a cross between Miss Marple and Jack Frost - right up my ally!
it was not fast paced, a cross between Miss Marple and Jack Frost - right up my ally!
April 26, 2024
4 1/2 stars.
Read
July 9, 2025Loved the character development and richness of detail. Found the plot a bit confusing and a bit disappointing at the end.
September 3, 2017
A slow start but charming. Mr. Mosley is old fashioned and much despised by his modern peers but gains the grudging admiration of both his Sargent and the reader after we realise the brilliance in his unorthodox methods. This was a really fun read.
November 15, 2011
"After seventeen years, Brenda Thwaites Cryer returns to Parson's Fold with a shadowy past and a shadowy fortune. Now, she lay dead in Jackman's Cottage. And the only possible witness -- her invalid mother -- is missing.
"For Inspector Mosley, this case is a radical departure from locating missing turkeys or thwarting orange thieves. But HQ has no one else available -- no one, but whiz-kid Sergeant Beamish, whose task it becomes to keep a close eye on unpredictable Mosley. Yet how could Beamish fulfill his duty when Mosley dispatches him on ridiculous research missions from a Yorkshire castle, to a prestigious law firm, to a dentist in Ember Bay -- only to discover Mosley poking about on the scene when he arrives? For Beamish, it is infuriating -- until these haphazard leads net important clues that help quietly ingenious Mosley bag his very first killer."
~~ back cover
"Mosley and Beamish are an appealing odd couple as cops, both likeable human beeings. If this is the beginning of a new series, may there be more!"
~~The Washington Post
And indeed it is the beginning of a new series -- a small but brilliant one.
The crimes themselves are a bit more gruesome than I'd prefer, and sometimes the plot meanderings leave me lost in the woods somewhere, but oh! the language! John Greenwood is a master of wordsmithing, and also a master of limning the character that lived in the north of England back in the day. Perfect, often understated, but a pure joy to read.
"For Inspector Mosley, this case is a radical departure from locating missing turkeys or thwarting orange thieves. But HQ has no one else available -- no one, but whiz-kid Sergeant Beamish, whose task it becomes to keep a close eye on unpredictable Mosley. Yet how could Beamish fulfill his duty when Mosley dispatches him on ridiculous research missions from a Yorkshire castle, to a prestigious law firm, to a dentist in Ember Bay -- only to discover Mosley poking about on the scene when he arrives? For Beamish, it is infuriating -- until these haphazard leads net important clues that help quietly ingenious Mosley bag his very first killer."
~~ back cover
"Mosley and Beamish are an appealing odd couple as cops, both likeable human beeings. If this is the beginning of a new series, may there be more!"
~~The Washington Post
And indeed it is the beginning of a new series -- a small but brilliant one.
The crimes themselves are a bit more gruesome than I'd prefer, and sometimes the plot meanderings leave me lost in the woods somewhere, but oh! the language! John Greenwood is a master of wordsmithing, and also a master of limning the character that lived in the north of England back in the day. Perfect, often understated, but a pure joy to read.
July 25, 2018
A gem of a thriller by an author I was not au fait with but again took the plunge as story attracted me. It is also available under the author's real name John Buxton Hilton. Principal character Mr Mosley is a terrific personality far more intelligent and intuitive than his superiors and collagues give him credit for and easily transfers his skills from catching sheep rustlers to a murderer using his innate common sense and assessment of suspects than modern technology which appeals hugely to me, a confirmed Luddite! Nice storyline of prodigal daughter returning to roots and ending up brown bread.....and how Mr Mosley brings the case to a close is sublime. Nice streak of humour too throughout it such as describing how the village at the centre of the murder Parson's Fold lies in the no mans land between Lancs and Yorks after boundary changes "men had suddenly found themselves belonging to a neighbouring race which they had been brought up to hate from the cradle onwards. One local philosopher, interviewed on radio and asked about how he felt about the change , said he did not know how he would be able to stand the climate." . Will definitely buy more. A kind of Maigret of the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
February 15, 2013
Mosley, a British local policeman, is a unique detective, and these are unique books. They are very well and thoroughly crafted, and the mood ranges from thoroughly enjoyable to howlingly funny. They are set in Yorkshire in the mid-to-late 1900s. But Greenwood's twist on "British country mystery" is that the people of the remote rural areas that make up "Mosley's patch" are almost tribal in their mental outlook, and Mosley himself has a well-established place in that semi-tribal society. Even in the urban or otherwise modern settings in which his colleagues and superiors expect him to be at a loss, he has a strange way of making things happen the way he wants them to happen, based on an understanding of people and of their real concerns.
"John Greenwood" is a pseudonym of the late John Buxton Hilton, who also wrote mysteries under his own name. I've read one or two, which were good, but rather run-of-the mill good. Even in those, however, there are flashes of the sort of unconventional imagination that runs through the six Mosley books. So perhaps others are better.
"John Greenwood" is a pseudonym of the late John Buxton Hilton, who also wrote mysteries under his own name. I've read one or two, which were good, but rather run-of-the mill good. Even in those, however, there are flashes of the sort of unconventional imagination that runs through the six Mosley books. So perhaps others are better.
October 25, 2013
Brenda Thwaites returns to her village after an absence of 17 years, her whereabouts during that time totally unknown. She gets herself shot in the back of the neck and her mother goes missing. Mosely is assigned to the case because it occurs in his neck of the woods and he knows everything about everything in his district. He also has an aversion to doing things by the book. Sgt. Beamish, on the other hand, knows all about the most up to date technology and very much believes in the book. I can't quite get a handle on why I don't find this book more appealing since the story line served the purpose and the writing is involving. Perhaps the book just feels dated in a way that Nero Wolfe never does.
January 26, 2014
This book reminded me just a tiny bit of the fabulous Poirot...but unfortunately the author did not develop his detective in the same unforgettable, and lovable manner. I like mysteries that give me clues to what happened (whether or not I can figure them out!) This one rambled on and on..introducing very important characters in the last few chapters...that held great bearing on the outcome. I did not appreciate that. Even after thinking on it for 24 hours..I'm still miffed about how the book wrapped it all up. I feel cheated out of being able to try and figure out "whodunnit". I hope the follow up books are better..but I can't say I will go out of my way to read them. I adore almost all British Mysteries...in all forms of media...but I just can't recommend this one.
July 22, 2013
Picked this up by chance on Kindle. What a cracking wee story and the first of series. Enjoyed it so much that I quickly downloaded No. 2 ( Mosley by Moonlight) which I am currently reading. Enjoying that so much that I have already downloaded the third book in the series!
These books were being published at around about the same time as Colin Dexter's Morse stories. I think they would have made equally compelling television. The milieu is quite different but can't help thinking that John Thaw would have been a great Mosley and Kevin Whately a fine Sgt Beamish!
These books were being published at around about the same time as Colin Dexter's Morse stories. I think they would have made equally compelling television. The milieu is quite different but can't help thinking that John Thaw would have been a great Mosley and Kevin Whately a fine Sgt Beamish!
May 10, 2018
I both loved and was frustrated by this book.
I love words but I struggled through some passages where the language was so dense that I had to re-read sentences in order to make sense of them.
Usually I'm a speed-reader but I had to take my time in this one - still this was time well spent!
Mr Mosley was worth it
I love words but I struggled through some passages where the language was so dense that I had to re-read sentences in order to make sense of them.
Usually I'm a speed-reader but I had to take my time in this one - still this was time well spent!
Mr Mosley was worth it
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews