The Custard Corpses

A Delicious 1940s Mystery

By: M J Porter

Narrated by: Matt Coles

A delicious 1940s mystery.

Birmingham, England, 1943.

While the whine of the air raid sirens might no longer be rousing him from bed every night, a two-decade-old unsolved murder case will ensure that Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is about to suffer more sleepless nights.

Young Robert McFarlane’s body was found outside the local church hall on 30th September 1923. But, his cause of death was drowning, and he’d been missing for three days before his body was found. No one was ever arrested for the crime. No answers could ever be given to the grieving family. The unsolved case has haunted Mason ever since.

But, the chance discovery of another victim, with worrying parallels, sets Mason, and his constable, O’Rourke, on a journey that will take them back over 25 years, the chance to finally solve the case, while all around them the uncertainty of war continues, impossible to ignore.

©2021 M J Porter (P)2023 M J Porter

Riveting!

Well-written. Held my attention throughout!

Matt Coles did a great job narrating.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

The Custard Corpses

I LOVED this book!I could barely put it down! Mason and O'Rourke make a great team trying to find the connection in cold cases so old,that most of the people that worked them are dead. It takes fresh eyes to find the killer of these 2 children,as well as a few more.Well written.Narrated nicely by Matt Coles. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

"Every little helps."

The twentieth anniversary of the unsolved murder of young Robert McFarlane brought his surviving sister, Rebecca, to the police station as always: there was still no news for her. In fact, the original officer in charge of the case was long gone, his successor Sam Mason as regretful as he had been that the killer had never been found. But this time Rebecca brought a news article form another part of England, marking the anniversary of a second killing, three years after that of Robert, but sounding similar in several ways. The perpetrator in this case had also never been found. Sam investigates and decides that there is enough to reopen both as a cold case with a single murderer.

The Custard Corpses is a totally fictional police procedural investigation set in England during the later years of World War Two with mentions of the bomb damage and other wartime true life experiences as backdrop. I personally enjoyed the inclusion of the magazine beloved by Sam's wife, Picture Post. Starting in 1939 under the editorship of Tom Hopkinson, a friend of mine now sadly dead some thirty years, it was a weekly pictorial magazine, the first to feature stories about ordinary people, not just the famous and aristocracy. It's still enjoyable to read, a real life of-it's-moment slice of history.

Narration by Matt Coles was well paced and modulated with various accented voices for the several protagonists across Britain: only Hamish, the chap who came down from Scotland, didn't quite ring true. But overall, a good performance.

This is an enjoyable of mix of historic facts overlaid by a really interesting murder hunt police procedural, well worth reading by anyone who enjoys the careful search for clues in cases which seem long lost and forgotten. It is an exciting paper chase with colourful historic facts along the way. truly delicious. And what a great title! My thanks to the rights holder of The Custard Corpses, who, at my request freely gifted me with a complimentary copy via Audiobook Boom. Recommended.

very entertaining

Kept me interested in the story performance was better the ending was in climatic

Awkward Storytelling

While the author has been published before, he could have done with some judicious editing. I just couldn't get wrapped up in why the protagonist hesitated to take a biscuit or why he did or did not eat breakfast before a meeting. And all the trite self-questioning: "Yet what did they really know?" Then there were the characters . . . who had no characteristics. They were monotonous people with whom to spend time. In the end, the motivation of the killer still eluded me. I wanted to like this for the sake of the era, but mentions of rationing, the Great War and the horrific bombing of Coventry seemed tossed in randomly to evoke World War II without any real understanding of the period.