MEET YOUR NEW FAVOURITE AMATEUR SLEUTH.
At the grand old age of 55, the Colonel was put out to grass by the British Army. In the same year, his beloved wife, Laura, died. He found himself facing a bleak and lonely future. One summer, years before, he and Laura visited a village in Dorset called Frog End, which had a spit-and-sawdust pub called the Dog and Duck. Laura had fallen in love with a stone cottage across the village green. Years later, after her death, the Colonel had revisited the same village alone and seen Laura’s dream cottage. Against his better judgement, he bought it.

THE SETTING
The cottage was called Pond Cottage and the Colonel soon discovered that he had made a big mistake. The two-hundred-year-old building had deathwatch beetle, rising damp, a falling roof, rot and decay throughout. There was no heating and the wiring was a dangerous disgrace. There was no sign of any pond. But there were compensations: a view over the beautiful village green, clusters of other stone cottages, a Norman church built on Saxon foundations, a graveyard of ancient tombs leaning at perilous angles. And, of course, the Dog and Duck.