A Final Gently?
Review of the Walker & Company (US) hardcover (1984) retitled from the Constable (UK) original hardcover "The Unhung Man" (1984).

He turned his head to watch the downs unfolding, their lines etched hard by late sun, and to take in the yellowing aisles of hawthorn, the groves of cow parsley. At last he sighed softly.
'You know what one misses over there? It's just this, an English spring. In Ontario we have nothing like it.'
'What happens in Ontario?'
'What happens? One day it's snow and frozen earth, then suddenly it's all melted away and everything comes out at once. But nothing you can call spring. Across in Kent I've seen hazel catkins at Christmas. Then it goes on, the snowdrops, the blackthorn, the daffodils, the cherries, the young leaf in every colour, the first butterflies, the birdsong. Feller, you don't know where you're at. This you can't buy with a million dollars. Shakespeare* knew. When I come across that speech my eyes dazzle and I can't read it.'

I managed to source a fine used copy of George Gently #31: The Unhanged Man (1984) for a reasonable price, after thinking availability of the late Gentlys had dried up. Constable UK stopped its paperback & eBook reprints after Gently With Passion (#30 - orig. 1983/reissue 2016) after a long streak beginning with #1 in 2010. Presumably they thought the market dried up when the TV series (2007-2017) ended. So I thought #31 to #46 were lost to me as most of the original editions go for phenomenal prices. I lucked into a cheap #31 after all though.

Despite an intriguing premise as described in the synopsis: The only clue in the strange death of a retired Wiltshire judge is a clear fingerprint of a man sentenced to death eighteen years before and supposedly hanged in a British prison. the investigation was not very dramatic and my favourite excerpted quote (as above) had nothing to do with Gently or the case itself. You could even say that the title of the book is itself a spoiler. There is only the patient unravelling of various lies and mis-directions before the solution is uncovered. I wouldn't say there was any drop-off in quality, but it was only a so-so Gently to my mind.

See cover at https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41-bj3aNC+L._SX373_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
The dust cover of the original UK hardcover published by Constable in 1984. Image sourced from Amazon.

I may still read further of the later books if I am able to source them at a reasonable price or make a lucky library or used book store find. Otherwise this is the end of my Alan Hunter/George Gently binge.

Footnote, Trivia and Links
* The Shakespeare "speech" is not identified. I don't know what it could be. The Shakespeare and Spring association brings to my mind the songs "In the Spring time, the only pretty ring time" from As You Like It and "When daisies pied and violets blue" from Love's Labour Lost. On a personal side note, I live in Ontario, Canada and I think the characterization of an Ontario spring is unfair 🌻🌞😎.

The Unhanged Man was not adapted for the Inspector George Gently TV series (2007-2017). Very few of the TV episodes are based on the original books and the characters are quite different, e.g. Sgt Bacchus does not appear in the books. The timeline for the TV series takes place in the 1960s only. ( )