Books like Late, late in the evening by Gladys Mitchell

In the quiet Yorkshire village of Hill, childhood adventures take a dark turn when a young London girl in a dinosaur costume is found dead by the sheepwash. Margaret and Kenneth Clifton, a pair of siblings who have long roamed the town’s pastoral lanes, discover that the victim and Lionel Kempson‑Conyers, the manor’s heir, wore the same costume. The funeral‑like investigation centers on Mr. Ward, an eccentric boarder with a spade and increasingly erratic behavior, and his sudden disappearance from his room. Mrs. Bradley, a renowned psycho‑analyst and resident detective, arrives to interrogate the townsfolk. Her inquiries reveal tangled romantic entanglements, a missing visitor, and a concealed grave in the hermit’s shack now apparently filled with bodies. As secrets surface, Bradley must determine whether one or two killers lurk within Hill’s unsuspecting streets. The tale blends gentle rural settings with a sharp detective’s mind, weaving psychological insight into a classic British mystery.

First publish date: 1976