THE RHYME OF THE MAGPIE follows Julia Lanchester, a practical, detail-oriented nature lover who is determinedly making a new life for herself. Her father remarried soon after her mother's death, and while it's easy for outsiders to say life is short and he deserves to be happy, Julia sees it as a betrayal of the family. Her father hosts a BBC TV nature show and Julia has cut her ties with the BBC and come to manage a country estate towards a tourist income. Lord Fotheringill here is a bachelor, and Julia manages to thwart a co-worker's attempts to set her up with the peer - even if they both enjoy birdwatching.

Julia's father comes to see her, then is reported missing by his new wife, while Julia's car has been stolen. Together with her father's new assistant, Michael Sedgwick, she goes to look for him and instead discovers the body of a man in a gruesome incident. What is going on? Issues of the day include proposed wind farms that would spoil a rare bird habitat, and the deceased worked for the wind farm company. That's not worth killing for, is it? And Julia still doesn't know where her father Rupert has gone.

With plenty to puzzle us, and lovely countryside details, we can settle in to enjoy this story. Locally kept farm pigs not only produce quality pork, they provide bird habitat. A twitcher - fanatical spotter of rare birds - makes an appearance, while the one bird that Julia didn't want to see - a lone magpie, presaging sorrow - signposts death. A nicely balancing touch is that an Asian family run a general store, and one of the family offers to help guide visitors to the stately home where Julia works. In fact, the cast is plentiful and varied, with modernisation and tradition side by side in the villages.

Marty Wingate has written non-fiction books on gardening, which make her fiction books a delight to read. Whether you love the outdoors, or wildlife, or environmental issues, or cracking good mysteries, I highly recommend THE RHYME OF THE MAGPIE.

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