You might be interested to know that while he is no longer officially involved with the magazine, Mat Coward was one of the brains behind the setup of TTA Press's Crimewave, an infrequent, award winning mystery anthology that tends to the more literary end of the crminal spectrum.

Murder is a heinous enough crime. But for DI Don Packham, there are worse breaches of the social etiquette. When a man is beaten to death with a baseball bat, the detective turns livid. After all, what kind of monster brings a baseball bat into a cricket pavilion?

Mat Coward’s third Don Packham and Frank Mitchell novel is a wonderfully frothy mystery. Capturing the eccentricity of middle class, suburban England, it clicks along at refreshing pace and manages to persuade even the most jaded reader that even in a genre as frequently dark as crime fiction we could all do with having a smile once in a while.

The cricket match in question is being played between the Writers and Comedians both professionals in their fields and enthusiasts coming together for an annual event. Coward draws his teams of enthusiasts with the kind of affection that comes from an insiders knowledge of such worlds. With his other writings including a short history of radio comedy for the “Pocket Essentials” series he is well prepared to characterise such a world for us. The people and places he describes are at once eccentric in the best British tradition and also, refreshingly, very real. Coward excels in taking us places we think we might have been before but presenting these familiar locales and situations in a light that feels new. Indeed, there isn’t much in Over and Under that hasn’t been explored before but its done so well that you just don’t care, allowing yourself to be carried away by the enthusiasm and joie-de-vivre of the book.

It helps that Coward is actually a very funny writer. His cast of comedy enthusiasts are frequently amusing in their own right and his gentle rib-nudging caricatures – witness the deaf radio sound man at a comedy convention – provide moments of levity that are amusing because they feel natural. Nothing about Coward’s humour is forced. There is no pandering to his audience, no dumbing down or – something that is frequently even more insulting – clevering-up. The humour and the jokes flow easily from the characters, helped by the fact that the leads – Packham and Mitchell – have a respectful relationship built on the tension of their differences. They play off each other like the best comedy double acts, yet they never fall into tomfoolery. You laugh at and with them, yet you know they’re not dumb. The fact that they’re played as professional and dedicated police officers endears the reader to them and even if you’ve never read any of Coward’s previous books – something to which I raise my hand and promise to remedy – you feel like they’re old friends before you’re even a third of the way into the book.

Of course, everyone knows our bias runs towards harder mysteries her at the Crime Scene but every so often we find a gentler change of pace refreshing. Coward is a talented enough writer that he makes the world of Over and Under seem real, which tends to be my major problem with such gentle mysteries. Not only that but his skill with characters means you come to care for the leads and the supporting cast. While I do believe that there are too many British writers writing light procedural novels and that far too many of them are setting their work in a gentrified England, Coward provides proof that my cynicism is due to an over saturation of the market rather than there being anything wrong with such novels. Indeed, Coward shows us that such books are still engaging and entertaining when in the hands of a skilled writer who cares about what he’s writing. A good story is a good story and good writing is good writing. Mat Coward is an excellent writer, with a dry and self-deprecatory sense of humour in the vein of the most likeable comedians. Not only that, but it’s clear to the reader that he is enjoying himself with this book, perhaps because he knows the characters and the subject area about which he’s writing.

If there are problems with Over and Under, they stem from the fact that the book doesn’t feel like its much “about” anything. If you’re looking for revelations or thematic symbiosis of prose and subject matter, this just isn’t that kind of book. It’s a shame, because Coward’s affection for his subject matter is evident. This isn’t a dumb novel, but the sharp wit and intelligence is slightly unfocussed. When talking of comedy, characters discuss how in the old days it used to mean something and how the Goons and Round the Horne were subversive and anti-establishment; a subject under discussion by several characters that never translates into anything like a theme, staying instead a side-note to the less interesting questions of whodunit and whydunit. Beneath the fun characters and the back-and-forth fun of the jokey dialogue, there isn’t much else going on. There are nods to Coward’s socialist tendencies, including discussions on how comedians are more like businessmen these days than people who are in it for the comedy alone, but these are dealt with in a few pages and are little more than an indication of issues that may or may not be on the author’s mind. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. Maybe I just need to relax a little – and that’s something Over and Under certainly helped me do. I just feel that some of the discussions and themes about the changing worlds of both comedy and fandom could be explored in more depth. However, perhaps that would have taken away from the lighthearted and fun tone that engaged me to begin with. Of course, some of the best comedy comes from anger and frustration. If Spike Milligan had been a happy and contented man his whole life would The Goons have been so side-splittingly ludicrous?

Over and Under isn’t angry, it isn’t revolutionary, but, rather, it is content. And while this means that it maybe loses that extra something for people like me who are never content to take things quite at face value, it achieves the job it set out to do: leaving the reader with a grin on their face and a good feeling inside them, even if they are still a little perturbed by the murder that forms the books central mystery. While the book is laugh out loud funny at time, Coward is still careful that neither he nor his characters are flippant or cavalier about the death. Even Don’s misplaced anger over the crime committed – he’s more angry about the baseball bat at a cricket game – isn’t overplayed in a way that cheapens the murder. But, of course, in this kind of work the murder is probably the least important part of the puzzle and not something that needs to be dwelled on too deeply.

Concerns about depth aside, Over and Under is great fun. Well written and peopled with interesting eccentrics who seem sometimes to be drawn from the “Guide to English Eccentrics” but are still nevertheless engaging and amusing. Coward skates close to the edge of the stereotype but never allows himself to weaken completely, often giving the most unexpected characters an air of sympathy that is both surprising and affecting.

After the dark selection of books that have popped through Crimescene’s postbox this month, Over and Under has come along as a pleasant and diverting surprise. It may not be “about” anything per-se, but with its fair share of chuckles and even a few belly laughs (I’ve mentioned him before, but that deaf sound technician is a hoot), Over and Under is recommended not only for those looking for a gentler pace, but anyone looking for a good-humoured, well written novel. Mat Coward is not just a fine writer, but a funny man and even if, ultimately, there is a sense that perhaps he could go “deeper” than he does, this is probably missing the point entirely. As this reviewer found, Over and Under is best enjoyed in front of a roaring coal fire with a good glass of wine. Warm, witty and guaranteed to leave you smiling, it showcases how to write a traditional mystery/procedural without insulting the intelligence of your audience or forgetting that, above all, in telling a good story what you want to do is to entertain your reader. And it is in that department, by leaving us with a big grin, that Over and Under receives an assured thumbs up.

Russel D McLean