The Piper on the Mountain

When Herbert Terrell falls from a mountain in Czechoslovakia during a vacation, accidental death is the initial verdict. Then his stepdaughter Tossa receives an anonymous note suggesting murder, transforming the European holiday she had planned with her college friends into an investigation into her stepfather's real life and who might have wanted him dead. Ellis Peters's fifth Felse investigation takes the series out of England and into the political atmosphere of communist Eastern Europe.

Simon Prebble narrates with the understated British mystery authority suited to Peters's style, treating the political backdrop of 1960s Czechoslovakia with the same observational precision Peters brings to her English village settings. At just under seven hours, the audiobook is a compact, elegant procedural in the tradition of the British crime novel's postwar golden period. Listeners who enjoy classic mysteries with social texture and genuine period atmosphere will find Peters consistently rewarding.