Review: Death Under a Little Sky

Death Under a Little Sky by Stig Abell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jake Jackson is a former London police detective. His eccentric uncle has died and left him his palatial (but off-grid) rural retreat 'Little Sky' and sufficient funds to live comfortably for the rest of his life. He has also paid/obtained water and electricity in perpetuity and restricted Jake's ability to do anything other than live in the house. Jake and his wife have drifted apart after several miscarriages and so they see this as an ideal opportunity to make a break. He will keep his inheritance in its entirety and she will keep their London home.

The facilities in the house are unusual, there's a purpose built library with built in speakers, a doomsday-style basement, secret compartments etc, but no bath, shower, washing machine or phone!

Jake rather enjoys going feral, living alone, speaking to no-one. Even when he does venture out the nearby village is tiny, consisting of just a few other residents. There's no supermarket or bank but the local village store (incredibly) stocks a wide range of wonderful local produce and the owner also runs a sort-of pub in her basement.

Whilst enjoying a local treasure hunt which is rather macabrely a bag of bones with other residents and celebrating his victory, Jake discovers that the 'bones' which should have been a bundle of sticks and logs from the shop-keeper's log store have been substituted for he thinks are human bones. While the local police tend to believe the bones have been dug up from a local grave in rather a poor taste joke to haze the newcomer, Jake isn't so sure and seeks to discover whose bones they are and how they got into the sack.

Met with threats and hostility from the local residents, Jake's investigations lead him and the local vet Livia into danger.

I'm torn with my review of this. I did enjoy the mystery although I question how much Stig Abell knows of the British countryside, his book is populated by in-bred locals, fey incomers, and lots of 'don't go into the woodshed' comments, yet they have organic this-that and the other at the local store whereas in my limited experience you are more likely to get plastic cheese and sliced white bread.

Also the romance was very much a man's take on the way women behave and IMHO not very realistic (and as an aside, there was far too much talk of pubic hair - is the man obsessed?). Also, Livia has a full-time job and is the mother of a six/seven year old daughter yet she seems to have loads of time to go gallivanting around detecting and showing her pubic hair to Jake (sorry - but really).

In fact, I have just downgraded my review from three and a half stars to three stars because the more I think about it the more ludicrous the set up seems. Jake has acres of land, he goes for a five mile run every day then plunges into the lake to swim, he then sits in the sauna (which he and the local can-do handyman built from scratch, naturally) before barbecuing a tender steak on hot stones and serving with some greens he's grown in his vegetable patch - puhlease!

Stepping back it seems like Stig Abell wants to give Jake all the skills and tools (money) to do whatever he wants whilst also forcing him to live in a small village and effectively putting him back into the 19th century by giving him no phone or internet.

I am absolutely astonished that this novel won the 2024 CrimeFest Debut Crime Novel of the Year and that Lee Child and Ann Cleeves raved about it in the blurb - I even thought the identity of the murderer was blindingly obvious(view spoiler)[, he was the only one no-one suspected (hide spoiler)].

However, I will give the second book a try to see if the series settles down.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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