Ever since television’s Antiques Road Show passed by that way, the inhabitants of Mr Mosley’s patch-the hill country of the Yorkshire-Lancashire border-have become avid collectors of bric-a-brac. And Dickie Holgate, with a junk-cum-antique stall in the market-place of the little town of Bagshawe Broome, is doing very well as a result. That is, until Mosley spots one or two items of doubtful provenance among the chromium-plated teapots and bone-handled cutlery.

Reducing his superiors-especially Detective-Superintendent Tom Grimshaw-to a state of nervous prostration, and accompanied by an admiring, if uncomprehending, Sergeant Beamish, Mosley, in his black homburg and overcoat, strolls through scenes of ever-increasing comic confusion to a final satisfying denouement.

What, Me, Mr Mosley? is the sixth, and sadly, the last, of John Greenwood’s Inspector Mosley novels. In its humour, wit, and nicely judged North-of-England atmosphere, this is a fitting and worthy conclusion to the series.

John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.