Mary Connon was a small-town femme fatale, eager to test her allure on any man between 6 and 60.

When she's found dead in her own living room, her husband - the one bloke to whom she never blew a kiss - comes instantly under suspicion.

But Andy Dalziel, the gloriously vulgar savant of the Mid-Yorkshire police force, has some other ideas, and all of them center on the local rugby club - the town's social center, and Mary Connon's preferred hunting ground.

Peter Pascoe, Dalziel's young sergeant, suspects that his new boss's interest in the club has at least as much to do with access to good beer as it does with solving the murder.

But while Dalziel never said no to a pint or three, Pascoe has much to learn about Fat Andy's uniquely effective methodology. With A Clubbable Woman - the first in an astonishing, multi-award-winning series - his education begins.