Carolyn Walsh 's Reviews > Cut Short

4.5 stars. I was pleased to come across this collection of three short stories featuring two of my very favourite characters, Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw. This is a delightful addition while awaiting a new full-length book ( a hoped-for participation by the two in their next crime investigation.) Although this 71-page volume can be read on its own, it is much more effective if one has read an earlier book and learned how these two very different characters came together to investigate crimes and develop a friendship and mutual understanding.

Poe is a typical crime investigator who works mainly by intuition. Tilly is a math and computer wizard who lacks social graces and misses verbal cues.

The first story, The Killing Field, is set in 2001 in the Cumbrian airfield, where countless farm animals were buried during the hoof-and-mouth epidemic. It is a disturbing story. Poe is called to solve a terrible scene where two human bodies are found bound within the bodies of a couple of dead and buried cattle during a leak in one of the burial sites. Poe figures out the identity of the victims and the reason for their murder.

Why Don't Sheep Shrink is a cold case locked room mystery. Poe and Tilly are forced to self-isolate together during the pandemic. Poe finds an old file that was never solved, but the lack of results has always bothered him. He is highly suspicious that the victim who died in his bath during an epileptic episode was murdered, but it was written off as an accident. Tilly uses her hacking skills to solve the mystery in an hour and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Dead Man's Fingers takes place when Poe and Tilly go for a walk and picnic in a nature reserve. Twenty years earlier, two teenage lovers disappeared, and it was believed they ran away together. Tilly quickly solves the old mystery by observing a field of purple flowers.
It was great to see the two working together again, and I hope another full-length book is in the future.