Changes

When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an old man who wants his help in healing a decades' old family rift he's reluctant to get involved, but then Chris is reluctant to get involved in anything but a pint in the pub these days. It could just be the way that he is, or the fact that he's just lost both his parents within three months of each other. He's currently existing in the family home and wondering when he's going to be made redundant from his job with the council. The short answer to that one is 'soon'. Chris does his best to deter the old man, but it's not before he's left a lot of papers with his neighbour. Then the old man is murdered and the police come calling on Chris.

Like me you might feel that you know just a little bit too much of the restoration work, canal systems and narrowboats by the end of the book, but you can't fault Booth for the work he's obviously put into researching the background for the story. He's a brave author too: most make their lead character someone you can relate too and want to succeed. Chris Buckley is the stereotypical council officer (but probably not one real council officers would recognise, I hasten to add) who knows that he's going to be a failure at whatever he does and who seems capable of making wrong judgements at every turn. I couldn't root for him. I'm sorry! He annoyed the hell out of me...