Ye Little Hills Like Lambs

Ye Little Hills Like Lambs is the fourth novel in the Village Tales series.

Synopsis
Fr Bohun and Fr Gascelyn Levett are looking after the Downlands parishes, now joined in the Combined Benefice, as their special responsibility. Millicent Lacy and her team are taking their own special responsibility for the Downlands as well: an archaeological one.

The Duke is also taking the Downlands in hand; but there is trouble in the Vale, and just over the border in Dorset.

And then there is a road smash, with terrible consequences.

Amidst the distractions of Brexit and political infighting, an innocent man becomes the victim of a local witch-hunt for alleged paedos; Teddy-and-Edmond’s attempts to adopt are complicated by several surprises, and not least by Edmond’s learning he’d a son he’d never suspected himself to have, now orphaned by Su Allred’s death; Headmaster Trulock evolves plans for a new independent school in the Downlands; the canal restoration begins to take shape, and Teddy’s parents, like Edmond’s family, are lured to the District; the Duke sets Whitehall and Westminster by the ears and dictates to the 1922 Committee; Meg Stamford is killed and Will Stamford permanently disabled in a road traffic collision; Canon Paddick (as he now is) becomes his niece Wee Molly’s Special Guardian and substitute parent; Millicent Lacy resigns her post at Durham; the Duke pulls strings in both Houses of Parliament; a distinguished scholar makes a startling discovery in Wodewough Wood by inadvertently sitting on an newly-exposed (and quite sharp, even now) hand-axe made by the hominid soon named as Wodewough Man; Lady Crispin announces she is to marry Giles Trulock; Teddy and Edmond are allowed to adopt the three children they’d meant to, and Pip Allred as well; Tariq and Ameena announce their engagement; Wilts Police are saddled with conducting an enquiry into the failures of the Dorset and Thames Valley forces; the Duke arranges a knighthood for Giles Trulock; the innocent are vindicated; and the Duke and Lady Lacy insist that Lady Crispin and Giles Trulock wait until after the new year to marry … when they intend to do.

Main characters introduced
Madeleine Elsworth, Dorset bureaucrat on the make; Kevin Bagnall, Premier League footballer; John Treasure Voss, scholar, author, and expert on Lewis Carroll: which is not always a safe thing to be; Alec Parham, farmer – at first; Gladdie Rideout, local slattern; Liza and Dan Allred, Pip’s grandparents; AJ Birkett, Olivia Hoyle, and Sophia Hoyle, adoptees.

Setting(s)
The Vale, the Downlands, and the Woolfonts, Wilts; Westminster; Whitehall; Trowbridge, Wilts; Macclesfield; Durham; Oxford.