Probably he had the honest man’s instinctive distaste for subverting the course of justice. That was a luxury Leo never had. If only honest men knew how many lives had been saved with a bit of criminal conspiracy, they’d think it one of the cardinal virtues.
― Cat Sebastian, Hither, Page
Leo Page and James Sommers end up in the same small English village in the years following WWII. James is a physician and he returned to the small village where he lived with his uncle during summers and school holidays. He is a local but also not. He was in and out of boarding school and the village was the closest thing he had to a real home. Now, he plays the role of village doctor while slowly unraveling as the effects of being a combat surgeon wreak havoc on his mind.
At fourteen, Leo Page was recruited directly from a Bristol prison and put into training for some unnamed branch of the English spy network. Leo is an assassin and is surprised to be called back from Egypt to seek out a potential war criminal in an unassuming English village.
This book is a cozy murder mystery masquerading as a romance. The romance is perfectly fine! But it is such a small part of the story and the two leads are far less interesting than practically everyone else in the village.
This is the coziest murder mystery I’ve ever read. I don’t read a ton of mysteries but I do read plenty of romance and I enjoyed the mystery more than the love story. Normally, I like a bit more romance, but the type of low-stakes relationship between two reasonable people who communicate with one another is a welcome staple of Cat Sebastian books.
In summary, I have no problem with this book, but there is nothing special about the romance. The true stars are the supporting characters and the village itself.
