George Cogrill is troubled. He has been made to give half of his inheritance, which includes his beloved Water Mill, to Vicky Gloam, a gorgeous female photographer.

He finds himself becoming increasingly drawn to her but there are dark forces at work determined to wrench the mill from his grasp and threaten his very existence.

This is a humorous tale of treachery and intrigue, featuring romance and murder. Beautiful women, scheming villains, a dog that inherits a fortune and a cat that does not exist, all combine to ensure that his life will never be the same again.

My Review

Absolutely bonkers, reminded me initially of Blandings with George looking like Jack Farthing as the dopey Freddie (not at all like the dastardly George in Poldark). I couldn’t get that image out of my head, so I stuck with it.

George Cogrill is trundling along quite nicely, thank you, making cider for his own consumption and living off his inheritance. He has no ambitions, no plans to marry and no chance of producing a legitimate heir. Unfortunately for George, if he doesn’t do anything with his life by the time he is thirty (which he is now), he will forfeit half of it, including his beloved Water Mill to photographer Vicky Gloam, whose father was conned by his own father many years before. Vicky is a photographer, albeit a not very good one, and moves into the Mill with her arty-farty, Bohemian friends.

He was informed of all this by his Aunt Jane, a formidable woman who rides round on an old motorcycle – British of course. She owns a stately home and has a dog called Winchester who is set to inherit if George can’t sort himself out. And a cat called Mable (Mabel?) who doesn’t appear to exist.

I couldn’t work out exactly where it was set – seems a bit Forest Of Dean to me by the accents – or when. I didn’t realise initially that it was actually written in 2005, so my fellow book club Pigeons and I surmised the 80s or 90s.

It started out very witty and surprising, though often too much detail, which I was desperate to cut out. But then it got more bonkers by the minute and lost its way, which is a great shame. It has some really good characters, though there are only so many ridiculous names before it ceases to be funny. An engaging, light read, which could do with some editing and bringing up to date and a bit more emotional engagement. I still really enjoyed it.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read. 

About the Author

Jack Lindsey is a pen name of Keith Jahans. He formed Peatmore Press as an online magazine in 1996 to publish and promote his writing. In 2008 he left his microbiology job at Defra’s Veterinary Laboratories Agency and established Peatmore Press as a Limited Company the following year.

His first novel, Cogrill’s Mill, was released as an e-book in 2005 and as a paperback book in 2009. He decided to use the pen name of Jack Lindsey for this novel to separate his fictional work from that he has published as a microbiologist. A second novel, Victim of Compromise, written under a second pen name of Luke Johnson, was published on 15 February 2010. Crime and Passion, a collection of twelve contrasting short stories by Luke Johnson and Jack Lindsey, was published in ebook format in August 2011. This was followed by four audiobooks, the first of which was released at the end of 2011. A second Jack Lindsey novel, Gifford’s Games, was launched in June 2012 in the month preceding the London Olympic Games (it has nothing to do with the Olympics but everything to do with games). New Beginnings, a collection of short stories written under his own name, was published in August 2014. 

In October 2013 he published his first non-fiction book, American Road, as an ebook in kindle and epub formats describing a motorcycle journey in words and pictures he undertook in the Southwest of the USA during 1982. Then following successful sales on Amazon he followed this in April 2015 with the publication of Bike Travelling Man in Kindle format describing his experiences with two motorcycles.

He lives in England and spends a lot of his time writing and travelling. Further information about him can be found by visiting his website at http://peatmore.com.