George Felse is a detective inspector in the Comerfordshire police force, a fictional English county created by Ellis Peters. He first appeared in Fallen Into the Pit (1951) and starred in thirteen novels over the next three decades. Felse is a steady, observant investigator who approaches cases with patience rather than flash.
What sets the series apart from typical police procedurals is the role of George’s family. His wife Bunty and their son Dominic gradually become more central to the stories. Dominic, in particular, develops from a child in the early books into a young man who finds himself involved in dangerous situations abroad. Several of the later novels follow Dominic rather than George as the main character.
Ellis Peters used the series to experiment with settings beyond the English countryside. While the early books stay close to Comerfordshire, later entries send the Felse family to locations across Europe and Asia. The Piper on the Mountain takes Dominic to Czechoslovakia, and Mourning Raga involves him in events in India. These travel elements give the series variety that the domestic setting alone would not support.
The Inspector Felse novels predate Peters’ more famous Brother Cadfael mysteries and show her working out the mystery-writing techniques she would later perfect in a medieval setting.
Reading Order
See the complete Inspector Felse reading order for all books in the series.