A Very Bad Thing by J. T. Ellison

November 5, 2024 By Leave a Comment


A Very Bad Thing by J. T. Ellison
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Cholla

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.

With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on—at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?

She couldn’t have written a better mystery herself. But when world renown author Columbia Jones is murdered on her own book tour, who’s left to solve her murder? With no one trusting anyone else, it’s a race to the finish line for the daughter, the reporter, and the detective.

Every character in this book intrigued me in some way. Columbia Jones, of course, because she’s the hugely successful author who has a secret past that no one, not even her daughter, knows about. Watching that backstory unravel was worth the price of admission.

Riley and Darian are two sides of the same coin. Both are strong and independent women, successful in their jobs, but also struggling to find their true selves. In the beginning, I liked Riley a lot more than I did Darian. But as the story unfolds, you get to know Darian better and she becomes a more sympathetic character.

Probably my favorite part, however, was how you get a glimpse into the past through a short story that’s presented chapter by chapter throughout the narrative. It’s an unusual way of imparting information and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I’d love to see more of this kind of thing in novels overall.

What a twisty rollercoaster of a ride this story was. I’m never very good at figuring out who the culprit is, but I definitely had no clue this time around. Just as you think one suspect is eliminated, they’re drawn back under the spotlight. This is a good thing in my opinion. I like to be led astray in a novel because it makes the reveal even more rewarding in the end. And the author seems to be very adept at doing exactly that. I look forward to reading more of the author’s work in the future. The two I have read so far have both blown me away.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! – Mayor to Manic – My Journey Through Crazy by Gerry Taft

November 4, 2024 By Leave a Comment


The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! – Mayor to Manic – My Journey Through Crazy by Gerry Taft
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, LGBTQ, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A creepy club. A sketchy fast food restaurant. Ultra wealth and urban poverty. A weird night during a political conference in Vancouver turns author Gerry Taft’s life—and mind—inside out.

Believing he’s about to die, with visions of good and evil conspiring around him, Gerry writes a contract to extend his life. He navigates this sudden psychosis and paranoia by posting about it on social media in real time—and running down the street with his daughter. The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! is the true story of an epic meltdown with real world consequences and important lessons.

Part memoir, part social commentary, Gerry uses his lived experience as a framework to discuss—and offer solutions to—the many failings in our society. The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! is a call to embrace shared values, have honest conversations, increase personal power, and decrease the pull of polarization.

Everyone needs sympathy sometimes.

Translating what it feels like to have a mental illness to people who have not been through the same thing is difficult. The author went into great detail about his symptoms and how they affected his life which was exactly what I was hoping to see in this book. The more information the general public has about how frightening and lonely this experience can be, the better informed they will be about what’s going on with their loved ones under the same circumstances.

There were some aspects of this memoir that I wish had been better explained. For example, the author described certain people in life as suddenly changing their minds about things they had agreed to. I was never entirely sure how many of these things were misunderstandings versus people genuinely changing their minds or both participants in those conversations coming away with slightly different memories of what happened. Nobody’s memory is perfect, of course, but I would have understood these sections better if more time had been spent teasing out what was truly going on there.

One of the things I appreciated the most about this memoir was how honest Mr. Taft strove to be about what really happened during his mental health crisis in 2023. Sometimes his memory was fuzzy for completely understandable reasons that were probably related to his mental state at the time and certain medications he was taking, but he kept circling back to sharing as many facts about this chapter of his life as he could recall. This was something he did even in cases when it didn’t necessarily paint him in a positive light. His self-awareness and willingness to admit that he was sometimes not very sensitive to other people’s feelings were admirable. Admitting one’s faults isn’t easy, and neither is genuinely trying to fix them!

The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Handler by L.T. Ryan

November 1, 2024 By Leave a Comment


The Handler by L.T. Ryan
Publisher: Liquid Mind Media
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Fern

A dead police officer…
A department desperate for answers…
Maddie Castle must take on the role that nearly took her life…
She must once again become The Handler.

A NEW crime thriller series from Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author L.T. Ryan with C.R. Gray!

Wounded in the line of duty, former K9 Handler Maddie Castle finds herself back to square one. The bullet that shredded her leg took the life of her four-legged partner. The pain of recovery goes well beyond the daily physical torment she endures.

Time is the supposed healer of all wounds. In Castle’s case, this hasn’t proven true. In a hail of gunfire, she lost not only her dog, but the one thing she loved above all else…the job.

Castle is back home in the trailer park she vowed never to return to. Taking a job as a private investigator has proven an unrewarding comparative to her former career. Barely making ends meet and hampered by the ever-present pain in her leg, Castle struggles to keep her footing in her new life.

A K9 handler from Castle’s old unit is gunned down. Castle is called in to assess whether the dog can be rehabilitated. The alternative is a consequence Castle can’t live with. Working to save the K9 might just well save Castle from herself.

As the hunt for the killer continues, Castle receives a call from a desperate mother searching for her missing son. The hunt for the boy leads Castle into the criminal underbelly of Pittsburgh. Powerful players who will stop at nothing stand in her way. Behind them lies the truth. Getting to it may cost her everything, including her life, as she seeks to expose a dark secret that could bring a city to its knees.

Follow Maddie Castle as she walks the blurred line of right and wrong in a desperate search for justice.

Wounded in the line of duty, former police K9 handler Maddie Castle lost more than her career when a bullet shredded through her leg, she lost her beloved four legged partner, her marriage and everything she valued in her life – including her health. Trying to piece everything back together by working as a PI she’s barely making ends meet and struggles daily to push past the pain – physical and emotional. When a K9 handler from her previous unit is gunned down, Castle lets herself get talked into retraining Tempest, to try and rehabilitate the devastated K9. Simultaneously she’s looking for a missing teenage boy, only to discover there’s a lot more to both cases than she had ever considered.

I’m an absolute sucker for military or police procedurals with four legged co-stars and I was thrilled to find this book was an exceptional addition to my regular roster. This is a new to me author, and the first in a new to me series so I was fairly cautious about giving it a go. I was about half way through when I put the book down and eagerly ordered the next in the series. I also did a quick search online to reassure myself this is still an ongoing series. I was really impressed with both the writing – which was a style I enjoyed – and with the plot and pacing.

As the first book in this series, there is a bit of background and character introduction which I enjoyed and helped me get a good feel and comfort with the world and main characters. By about a quarter of the way in the main plot threads were starting to interweave together in both a realistic and logical manner and even though there were some twists I felt it all worked together really cohesively and wasn’t over the top nor was it all a bunch of coincidences that felt pat or too contrived.

While it took a while for the action to really get rolling – I do feel this should appeal to readers who like a more police procedural style of novel as well as those who like a bit more action. There was plenty going on in this book and I enjoyed watching it all come together. I felt a particular strength in this book was none of the characters were clearly all good or all bad. Maddie is our heroine so clearly good, but she’s got both emotional scars and baggage to work through as well as some drug dependency. In a similar manner Simeon Gunn is clearly a “bad guy”, being the main drug source in their small area, and yet he is adamant none of his network sell to or recruit kids, and show proper respect to others in the community. So I really enjoyed how the characters were very clearly multi-layered and not two dimensional “good” or “bad”.

Readers who enjoy their mysteries with complicated characters, a good pace and plots that interweave together should find this book well worth a try, and particularly readers who enjoy animal side-kicks should be very satisfied with this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next in the series. Recommended.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Broken Voyage by Lindsey Kinsella

October 31, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Broken Voyage by Lindsey Kinsella
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, LGBTQ
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Stranded in the Arctic, the international crew of an illegal whaler find themselves in a race for survival. Can they survive the cold, the sea, and, most of all, each other?

Pushed to desperation in a bleak world ravaged by climate change, Lora M’Bandi flees her homeland to join a group of unlikely outcasts aboard the whaling ship Livyatan. When an explosion rips through the vessel, the crew become shipwrecked deep inside the Arctic Circle—sabotaged by one of their own. Now, they must trek across the treacherous sea ice to reach dry land before the ice retreats—all the while with a traitor in their midst and fearsome predators stalking their every move.

Who will make it out of this harrowing tale of horror and survival?

The threat of death lurks everywhere in the Arctic.

I enjoyed how much effort the author put into describing the characters’ backstories and explaining how they ended up illegally hunting whales on the Livyatan. This isn’t an occupation I’d generally sympathize with at all, but their reasons for breaking the law made sense once I got to know the characters better and understood how the powers that be let them down at critical moments in their lives. It was refreshing to understand their perspectives and why someone would agree to hunt such rare species.

It would have been helpful if more time was spent developing the mystery portion of the plot. The explosion that destroyed the Livyatan was such a crucial moment in the storyline that I was surprised by how little attention was given to figuring out why it happened. Yes, the characters needed to flee from the sinking ship and find a safe place to stay, but once they were out of the life raft they had plenty of time to think about what just happened and who might have been responsible for it. Having more clues to work with would have been beneficial for me as a reader, and I would have happily chosen a higher rating if they had been provided.

The world building was strong and intriguing. I especially liked how certain plot twists were shared with the audience as clips from news shows or when characters shared the latest headlines with one another. It made those revelations feel even more realistic, especially when certain characters had strong opinions in favor of or against what was happening in the world and I had a chance to compare their reactions with those who lived much closer to those wars, pandemics, droughts, and other critical events. Not everything affected everyone’s daily lives equally even if they were genuinely concerned about what was happening thousands of miles away from home, so it was also nice to have multiple perspectives on some of these moments.

Broken Voyage was a wild ride.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away by Andrew Larsen (Author), Oriol Vidal (Illustrator)

October 30, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away by Andrew Larsen (Author), Oriol Vidal (Illustrator)
Publisher: Sourcebooks Explore
Genre: Contemporary, Non-Fiction, Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.), Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.)
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Xeranthemum

A picture book about what we throw away, and why it might be worth keeping!

What if everywhere you looked, you saw something to make? Instead of seeing something broken, you saw something to fix? Instead of seeing something to throw out, you saw something to give away? This is how Nelson Molina sees the world. A former employee for the New York City sanitation department, Nelson saved over 45,000 objects from the garbage to fix and show his community through his museum, Treasures in the Trash.

Explore the hidden potential in what we often discard and think differently about consumption, waste, and the impact of small actions. With themes of upcycling, anti-consumerism, love for community, and finding joy, Gifts from the Garbage Truck inspires kids to think creatively and curiously about what they do (and don’t) throw away!

I think adults are going to like this as much as the 4-8-yr-olds that this story is geared towards. Imagination, creativity, awareness and a sense of accomplishment are the fruits this story can inspire in readers once they’ve finished. The best part is that it’s doable, real and the possibilities are exciting.

The storybook’s pictures/illustrations are vibrant and capture the neighborhood that Nelson Molina grew up in. There is an introduction that gives the reader an idea of his childhood and the role model who inspired his life’s passion – his mother. Her influence, positive outlook and strong sense of values helped shape a young man’s perspective. What is one person’s trash really can be another person’s treasure. It’s all in how you look at it. The pictures show what the words paint.

As an adult, I can appreciate the value, hard work and dedication to an underexplored career – sanitation worker. For decades it was a job that people looked askance at, looked down upon, or probably gave it no thought at all. I think Mr. Molina single handedly changes that in this story. I believe he shows how this profession isn’t just needed but can make a difference in any society. How?

Reimagining what can be, by either reusing, upcycling or recycling. Sure, those are buzz words today, but according to this little book, he’s spent a lifetime doing that and enlightening his co-workers along the way. He was and is a man before his time, ahead of the curve, if you will.

I think an engaged parent could take what this book presents and, together with their child or children, explore, discover and experiment with what items they have in their own home and before they think of throwing them away, apply the same wonder, imagination and artistic talents to those objects they find and see what they can do, too.

One of the things that I think was great was the author included practical tips you can do in real life with a single rain boot, and old T-shirt, cutlery you no longer use, and even old soda bottles. Mr. Molina even has a museum made up of all the treasures he’s discovered over the years. A testament to the beliefs his mom inspired in him when he was a young boy.

The author included another power hit when he wrapped up this story. At the end of all those great illustrations that capture a child’s eye, is the wow moment when the cartoon comes to life. There are actual pictures of Nelson Molina and the treasures in his museum. This makes everything in this story real to the child this book is read to. It means they too can really do the things Mr. Molina did. They may not pursue a career as a sanitation worker, but to reuse, upcycle and recycle is something we all can do, and it not only can be fun and rewarding but it can help people and our community in so many ways.

Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away makes me relook at the empty jelly jar in my hand and wonder – what else can I do with this? What can I make with this? Who else could use this? I believe this little book can inspire creativity and fun.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

A Body Of Water by Rhys Dylan

October 29, 2024 By Leave a Comment


A Body Of Water by Rhys Dylan
Publisher: Wyrmwood Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

The egg man cometh…

When a delivery driver stumbles across the dead body of a reclusive author in a remote area within a stone’s throw of the Llyn Brianne dam, his first thoughts are that the elderly man has had a heart attack.

But the knife sticking out of the corpse’s chest tells a different story.

Dial in some missing walkers, a secretive cult, and the unwelcome presence of paranormal-hunting podcasters and DCI Warlow has his work cut out getting to the rotten heart of the case.

DCI Evan Warlow and his team are called in when a delivery man stumbles across the dead body of an elderly man stabbed to dead out front of his home in the isolated far northern reaches of Wales. Even though the area is extremely hard to reach and very isolated, the few neighbors on offer are somewhat questionable and as Evan and his team dig deeper into the victim’s previous life more and more questions appear. Can they work out what elements are really at play here?

I am really enjoying this Welsh police procedural series. I feel these are just a little bit darker and grittier than the usual British police procedural books I read. I really enjoy the Welsh elements to this story – the different landscape, the few Welsh words and colloquiums thrown in and the different atmosphere to the writing itself. While I find there are a number of British and Scottish series out there this remains the only Welsh series, I’m aware of and I really enjoy it.

I found the pace of this book just slightly slower than some other mysteries out there. I didn’t mind that but know it might not appeal to all readers. There were also clearly a few different sub plots rolling around and I couldn’t help but feel the two kidnapped girls plot could have potentially moved at a slightly faster pace since it wasn’t clear even by the half-way mark into the book exactly what was going on with them.

I absolutely love the main characters in the team. They all work together really cohesively and it’s clear how much they value and support one another. I also enjoy that they are all quite individual characters and watching them mesh together and interact is a real pleasure. I am really enjoying this series as a whole and can’t wait to read the next coming along.

A solid and well written Welsh police procedural, this book is worth giving a try.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Neon Ziggurat by Angie Lofthouse

October 28, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Neon Ziggurat by Angie Lofthouse
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed Astilbe

Under the neon glitz of the big city lies a heart of greed, despair and murder. If Pressley Pierce can’t find a way to expose Span Corp’s CEO for his heinous crimes, it won’t be just her life on the line.

Hacking into a mega-corporation’s computer system for a noble cause is all in a day’s work for Pressley. But when her digging uncovers Ransom McCleary’s deepest secrets, Pressley finds herself on the run.

With her little sister kidnapped by Span Corp’s cyborg enforcers, Pressley is forced to turn to the one place she thought she’d never go for help—her childhood home…

Money shouldn’t influence who lives and who dies.

I liked the messages that were embedded into this story about the danger of associating a person’s worth with how much money and power they have. Span Corp was so powerful that it was difficult for most characters to imagine a world where justice could ever be served to their dangerous CEO. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover just what Ransom’s terrible crime was, but this was an interesting exploration of what can happen when a wealthy and powerful person believes they are above the law and will never be caught.

There were a few conflicts that I wish had been given more time to develop and resolve, especially as it pertained to Pressley’s health and the strict rules her company had about certain medical conditions were meant to be handled. This was described as a major issue early on in the plot, so I was surprised by how quickly it was swept aside for other matters. There was more that could have been done there, and the plot would have been stronger if the narrator had dug more deeply into her health in my opinion.

This was an action-packed read that never left me any good stopping points when I needed to go do other things for a while. What a great problem to have with a book! I found myself thinking about the storyline when I was away from it and wondering what might happen next to the characters. The author certainly knew how to keep my interest levels high with all of the running, fighting, and hiding going on.

Neon Ziggurat was suspenseful.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

Sally Mitts And The Land Of Imagination by Shain Stodt

October 25, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Sally Mitts And The Land Of Imagination by Shain Stodt
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

It all begins when Sally spies shoes that are walking – without any feet! Led to a mysterious red door, she enters a fantastical world where the imagination holds sway – where what you can imagine, you can do! Paint the sky in bold new colors. Play on the ceiling. Fly an airplane through the stars! Anything is possible if you believe in yourself.

Come with Sally and her new friends, Clair the opera-singing hare and Jack the floating snail, as they explore wonders and challenges: A hungry fog monster who saps dreams away. A rainbow lake where the joyful Gollyphants live, their raucous dancing making the waves shimmer and shake. Meet a snobbish mole, the Big Word Lummox, who rouses Jack’s competitive energy – with hilarious results!

Nothing is too much for Sally to handle!

Without sharing spoilers, the characters faced a villain that was large and seemed hard to defeat. My favorite scene was when they figured out a possible way to defeat him. It was such a sweet way to introduce some conflict into this tale and remind little ones that there are many ways to cope with things that seem a little scary at first.

I would have loved to see more attention paid to explaining why Sally’s previous family never seemed to search for her very hard or what her new family was like. These are such important aspects of any pet’s life that it surprised me to see them glossed over. This is something I’m saying as a reader who loves this series and hopes it will continue to be published for a long time yet. Sally is a wonderful little cat, but there are important pieces of her story that I think should be filled in.

With that being said, I enjoyed the focus on developing a strong imagination. Thinking deeply about things, no matter whether they’re serious or maybe a little silly, is a fantastic way to pass the time. There is definitely something to be said for learning to amuse oneself quietly without relying on any outside distractions to make it fun. That is a skill that everyone should have.

This is the second picture book in a series that is best read in order.

Sally Mitts And The Land Of Imagination was cute.

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , ,

The Dying of the Year by MS Morris

October 24, 2024 By Leave a Comment


The Dying of the Year by MS Morris
Publisher: Landmark Media
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

A hit and run. A suspicious death. A vendetta.

Sam Earnshaw’s recovery from a year-long coma should be an occasion for celebration. Instead, he reveals that the hit and run incident that left him close to death was no accident. Someone deliberately pushed him into the path of a speeding vehicle.

As DCI Tom Raven leads the investigation into the attempted murder, he soon uncovers a web of dark secrets and lies. The attempt on Sam’s life is not the first time a killer has struck.

And it won’t be the last.

As the bodies mount up, Raven is forced into a race against time, whilst facing serious questions about his own life and future.

After a full year of sitting by the bedside of her comatose boyfriend, Becca is thrilled when – against all the odds – Sam finally wakes up. She is horrified, however, when Sam tells her the hit and run which had led to his coma all this time was an accident. Sam quickly insists this was not an accident at all, but that he’d been solidly pushed in front of that oncoming van. Becca rushes to tell her boss, DCI Raven and the team quickly goes about reinvestigating the case from a year earlier. Can they uncover what really went on after all this time?

I have been thoroughly enjoying this series and was pleased that this third installment was just as well plotted and well written as the two previous books. While the authors have a somewhat bad habit of strongly teasing the following book in the final few pages of the present book – not quite a cliffhanger ending but more than just a foreshadowing or tease – I can find little else that is wrong with this series. I enjoy the small and well-rounded cast of characters. The four main members of the team are well drawn and unique enough I can easily enjoy their strengths and weaknesses. I was also very impressed that this book – as have the others – stood well alone. There is very little baggage left over from previous books and so I strongly feel readers can pick this book by itself and still thoroughly enjoy the mystery within.

I was pleased a blast from Raven’s past came back into this story. There is very little carry over from his previous life in London and I saw this small opening into Raven’s past both interesting and well plotted into the story. The ongoing renovation to Raven’s house – a small bit of normalcy and amusement to my mind – helps keep the story rooted in reality and the different layers to the main mystery plot were all well handled.

Readers who enjoy a slightly slower paced British police procedural style of story should find this an enjoyable read and worth their time. I found the plot was woven quite well together and entirely believable.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Dead Man’s Lane by Kate Ellis

October 23, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Dead Man’s Lane by Kate Ellis
Publisher: Piatkus Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Historical, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

Some paths lead only to the grave . . .

Strangefields Farm is notorious for its sinister history ever since artist Jackson Temples lured young women there to model for disturbing works of art. Some of those girls never left the house alive.

Now, decades later, Strangefields is to be transformed into a holiday village, but the developer’s hopes of its dark history being forgotten are dashed when a skull is found on the site. And when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Temples’ crimes, DI Wesley Peterson fears that a copy-cat killer is at large. Especially when another brutal murder in a nearby village appears to be linked.

As Wesley’s friend, archaeologist Dr Neil Watson, uncovers the secrets of Strangefields’ grisly past, it seems that an ancient tale of the dead returning to torment the living might not be as fantastical as it seems. And Wesley must work fast to discover who’s behind the recent murders . . . before someone close to him is put in danger.

Decades after Strangefield’s Farm became infamous as the place where Jackson Temples lured many women to be his disturbing works of art – and a number of the young women were never seen or heard from again – it’s dark history is once more coming into focus. A skull is found in the cellar floor as building works begin, only for two more skeletons to quickly be unearthed. DI Wesley Peterson is curious but not overly concerned until a local florist is found murdered in an eerily similar style to that of Temples’ victims. Is a copy cat killer among them, or is something far more sinister at play here?

This is a long running series I have been enjoying and while I don’t feel this is the strongest book in the series it is still a very well written and I found it to be a highly enjoyable British Police Procedural. A few of the main themes have been thoroughly explored in previous books so at times I felt a little like this book was a rehash of previous novels.

I think possibly if it had just been one theme I might have overlooked it, but Della, Wesley’s mother in law, was being a bit of a pain, and then Rachel and Wesley spent a night in a motel for work and came close – again – to crossing the professional line, and then add in a woman from Wesley’s long distant past caught up with him for lunch and his wife, Pam, misread the signals she saw all happening within the space of the one book really made me feel as if the author was somewhat padding out the story. I would have honestly much preferred to have had another link in the historical/archaeology excavations and Neil’s plotline rather than all three rehashed Wesley’s personal life storylines, had the word count been a little low and the author needed to add in a few extra chapters.

That said, I did honestly find the main murder mystery and the current day police investigation was quite well written and I thoroughly enjoyed the twists revolving around Grace – the very long distant friend/girlfriend of Wesley’s – and her re-meeting the dead ex-lover. I thought that aspect to the plot, along with the incarcerated Jackson Temples was very well paced, well written and deeply interesting. I also enjoyed how, as usual, the book itself can be fairly easily picked up with little or no previous knowledge of this cast of characters and this world and still highly enjoyed.

While not the strongest book in the series this is still an enjoyable British police procedural style of murder mystery, and I enjoyed it.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,
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