The Seventh Link: An English Village Cosy Featuring the
Colonel. Margaret Mayhew. Severn House. November
2014. 160 pp. ISBN#: 9780727884213.
The Colonel is retired from military service and finding
city life distasteful has retired to a country town where everyone knows
everyone. He’s delighted to putter
around his house and especially hide out in his man-cave shed where he begins
work on a naval model. He has a nice
relationship with his neighbor Naomi who stops by for tea and a chat and he has
another neighbor who spends her day harmlessly spying with a pair of German
U-Boat military binoculars. And of
course there’s his cat Thursday who is close but finicky companion, amusing and
aloof but clearly attached to his beloved Colonel.
Now the Colonel is setting off to visit a friend Geoffrey
who with his wife runs a bed and breakfast home in the Village of Buckby, a
place of historical interest because from here the Royal Air Force flew off to
Europe and Germany where they carried out special operations against
Germany. It coincidentally happens to be
a weekend when the Royal Air Force is having a reunion of those who belonged to
the same RAF Unit.
Much of Buckby has changed but that doesn’t ruin the
reunion which is really a sacred ceremony celebrating the men who were very
skilled but also more lucky to survive missions in which one out of three survived. The men share memories and one of the late
arrivals shares a troubling story with a news reporter. The mystery of that account turns even more
intriguing when the teller appears dead and no one can figure out if it’s a
murder or just an unfortunate accident.
The ending is quite unusual and the reader is left to
draw his or her own conclusions. The Seventh Link… is a warm and
intriguing story briefly told but no less thrilling for the unexpected
outcome. The conflict creeps up on the
reader and there are some amusing and unique characters to enhance the
mysterious ambiance of the story. Nicely crafted historical fiction, Margaret
Mayhew.
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