The Body in the Dales by J.R. EllisMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Three and a half stars.
DS Andrew Carter has just moved to Harrogate, Yorkshire from London. His first case, with veteran DCI Jim Oldroyd is the murder of Dave Atkins. Mr Atkins body was found two and a half hours into a cave system, dressed in normal everyday clothes. Even more surprising, his body appears to have been in the caves for at least ten days, yet several of the cavers who found the body swear that it wasn't there three days ago when they made the same journey.
As they investigate it seems Mr Atkins was almost universally disliked, he was a womaniser who specialised in married women, he was involved in various financial scams, he refused to pay tradesmen for work performed, and was generally a shady individual. Soon there is a plethora of suspects.
The third member of the team is DS Steph Johnson.
Set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Dales and with an in-depth discussion of caving this was an interesting start to a new (to me) detective series. The romance was a bit clunky, they seemed to go from having a sandwich at lunchtime to having serious feelings about each other but I can overlook that. I thought the 'mystery' of how Mr Atkins' body got so far into the cave system was quite obvious (maybe I'd read something similar before) but I didn't have a clue as to the murderer(s)' identity, although the 'evidence' was a bit of a deus ex machina moment for me.
Nevertheless, I am interested and have already downloaded the second book.
Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.
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