A Respectable Woman was David Fletcher's second crime novel, dating from 1975. Like many good psychological suspense novels of that era, it was published by Macmillan, whose George Hardinge presided over a first-rate crime list. (Hardinge was also a good writer himself, and his occasional crime stories are worth seeking out).
As with a number of Fletcher's books in the genre, this one sees him experimenting with a particular type of story. He blends a genuine whodunit puzzle with suspense, although one always feels that his main focus is on depiction of character. He was a talented writer under his real name, Dulan Barber, and I suspect that the puzzle element was not his main enthusiasm. But I don't mean by this that the plot is faulty. It's sound, but it's not the main reason for enjoying the book.
His protagonist is a Scotland Yard man, DI John Cresswell, who is called in to help local police in his old stamping ground in the Midlands after an elderly woman is murdered. He has very mixed feelings about the assignment, as it brings him into contact with an old flame, who happens - surprise, surprise - to be mixed up in the crime he is investigating.
Fletcher deals in the story, as the title suggests, with the thorny question of 'respectability' in a provincial English town and what calamities a desire for respectability may lead to. Writers from Dorothy L. Sayers to, most recently, Ann Cleeves, have dealt with this topic in their detective novels, and although Fletcher isn't in quite that league, his books are smoothly written and definitely very readable.
