2019/69: Hither, Page -- Cat Sebastian

Secrets were the invisible skeleton of society. Everything depended on the strength of secrets, and on not being able to see them; like a skeleton, once the secret was visible to the naked eye, something had gone drastically and irretrievably wrong. That was when people started to die. [loc. 1379]

Sheer coincidence that I read two M/M romances consecutively, both set in English villages in the 1940s. They're very different stories, though.

James Sommers is a country doctor, haunted by his experiences in WWII, who's set up a practice in the small village of Wychcomb St. Mary. Everyone in the village knows everyone else -- and they all agree that Mildred Hoggett, a cleaner who's employed by several prominent villagers, is up to no good. And then she dies in suspicious circumstances.

Enter Leo Page, sent to Wychcomb St. Mary to determine whether the murder has anything to do with espionage. Leo is rootless -- it's rare for him to work in England, or under his real name -- and ruthless, prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure that loose ends are tidied away and a potential double agent isn't spooked.

Leo finds himself wishing that he was the sort of chap who could lead a normal life. He doesn't even know what's inside a Christmas cracker. And Wychcomb St Mary may be seething with secrets and the aftermath of war -- James Sommers certainly is -- but perhaps it's still a place where Leo can make a home.

This is a cosy murder mystery with a cast of intriguing characters, all of whom have secrets (though some of those secrets aren't very well concealed). The vicar's wife is definitely not telling Page, or Sommers, everything she knows -- especially about evacuee Wendy, the beneficiary of Mrs Hoggett's will. And the two old ladies, Edith and Cora, may not be as harmless as they seem.

James Sommers' PTSD is sensitively described rather than dramatised; Leo Page's back story is sketched rather than set out; and there is a thoroughly satisfactory ending for all the (surviving) characters.

First in a new series. Incidentally, the action of the novel takes place over a week in December 1946: I'd strongly recommend reading it in winter, for it is a very wintry novel, with fresh snow and roaring fires ... and an epidemic of tonsillitis!