The Water Clock (Jim Kelly, 2002)

The Water Clock is a pretty standard crime read, though an enjoyable one all the same. Set on the Cambridge Fens, the central mystery surrounds a body that is dredged up from the river in the boot of a car, and the connection it may have to a second body found on the roof of Ely Cathedral and a service station robbery from decades past...

Philip Dryden, a reporter, is the book's protagonist, which makes a change from traditional police investigators, and the book is peopled with interesting and quirky characters. There's Dryden's taxi-driving friend, a fat man who spends pretty much all of his day in his taxi, learning languages on tape. Dryden's wife spends the book in a coma, and the mystery behind the car crash that caused it forms a sub-plot that Dryden uses to gain leverage with the police. It's a taught little mystery, with splashes of British humour and memorable characters.