Anything for a quiet life

Jonas Pickett moves his legal practice to the South coast of England in anticipation of his retirement, but work keeps getting in the way. Set in that cosily familiar, but probably mythical, England of retired admirals and colonels, deferential schoolboys and untrustworthy lower classes, the plots seem predictable at first but are enlivened by the twists and occasional hard edge characteristic of this author. The stories are dated in parts (school teachers are "allowed" to administer corporal punishment) but forward-looking in others (the most competent lawyer in the town is a woman, one of the plots involves gender fluidity and cross-dressing). A quick read for a wet afternoon.