Where Every Man (Inspector James Given Investigations)
Garratt shifts the setting for this fourth book in the Inspector James Given series from England to France in the months before the 1940 German occupation. The newly married Jewish Inspector from Warwickshire has relocated to Brittany in search of a more peaceful life. Tranquility gives way to mystery when the local librarian is found dead. Although her death has been ruled an accident, Given’s suspicions are roused by clues suggesting foul play, and he pursues the matter with increasing obsession, as one after the other of the locals comes under suspicion.
The story is told in first person by the Inspector, who is struggling to remain steadfast to his decision to stay away from police work while being tempted by the keen interest in crime shown by a young local woman, determined to become a detective herself, whom Given takes under his wing. It stands on its own outside the series. Garratt does an admirable job of stitching an engaging narrative full of colorful characters and plot twists into its World War II context, adding tension with a subplot about the personal threat to the protagonist and his family posed by the Nazis’ imminent threat to France.
