This is the first of the series, and the first of Rhys Bowen’s three series. I dis­cov­ered her third series first, then the sec­ond, and now while I’m try­ing to col­lect all the books in the sec­ond, I decid­ed to try the first. Did not know what to expect with a male pro­tag­o­nist, a vil­lage con­sta­ble in Wales. I must say, from my read­ing of the first book, that this series is just as delight­ful (not a term usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with male cops) as the oth­er two. In this book read­ers are right there in Wales, along with all the frus­tra­tions, the odd goings on, and the vari­ety of char­ac­ters. Add to that a puz­zling plot and a wind-up that pulls an amaz­ing host of events together.

I’d like to quote from the pub­lish­er’s descrip­tion — Evan Evans, a young police con­sta­ble, has trad­ed city life for that of Llan­fair — an idyl­lic Welsh vil­lage. Nestling in the Snow­do­nia moun­tain range, Llan­fair looks to Evans like a town for­got­ten by time, but he quick­ly learns that even the bucol­ic coun­try­side has its share of eccen­tric — and dead­ly — char­ac­ters. Evan­s’s new neigh­bors include two com­pet­i­tive min­is­ters vying for the souls of their flock, one las­civ­i­ous bar­maid, and three oth­er Evans­es: Evans-the-Meat; Evans-the-Milk and Evans-the-Post (whose favorite hob­by is to read the mail before he deliv­ers it).

Before Evans has time to sort through the com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ships and rival­ries of his new home, he’s called to the scene of a crime as bru­tal and fear­some as any he encoun­tered in the big city. Two hik­ers have been mur­dered on the trails of the local moun­tain, and Evans must hunt down a vicious killer — who may or may not be linked to the mys­te­ri­ous destruc­tion of Mrs. Pow­ell-Jones’ prize-win­ning tomatoes.

Most of this series is avail­able as e‑books only. I’ve got­ten them as used books through the resellers on Ama­zon since my hus­band enjoys them too, and he has­n’t con­vert­ed to e‑book read­ing. I do wish they were more wide­ly available.

Since I men­tioned the rar­i­ty of books pub­lished even as late as 2005, I won­der, do you have a favorite series that is out of print?