A thrilling new whodunnit series, fast-paced and funny, featuring a detective as sharp as his suits and a heroine who’s trouble. The River Thames always gives up its dead… There’s a killer picking off victims from the wild swimming spots on the upper reaches of the Thames. The case takes Detective Inspector Leo George into the path of Jess Bridges, a private investigator who lives life close to … investigator who lives life close to the edge.
Their enquiries lead them to author, Jago Jackson, whose book on secret wild swimming spots has turned him into a social media celebrity. Is Jago’s book the blueprint that the murderer is following? If so, does that make Jago a target or the killer himself? Either way, the duo find themselves swimming in some very dangerous waters …
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Jess Bridges, out with her reading group, decides to go skinny dipping after just a tad too much to drink. They’ve been discussing a book on Wild Swimming and she thinks skinny dipping is a good idea. Her clothes are taken by a dog and her friend goes running after the dog, leaving Jess naked, shivering, and hiding in the bushes.
Spying a boat and thinking it should have a tarp .. or something .. to cover herself with, she gets back in the water and tries pulling it to shore. But she doesn’t find a tarp .. she finds a man’s body.
So begins this new series featuring a woman who is no stranger to dead bodies. She’s been in this position before … but never while being naked. She’s a part time private investigator with a specialty in finding missing persons. She does part time work as an office assistant. She’s also had some experience in working in a funeral home.
Now enters two men …. neither known to Jess. One is an author … actually, the man who wrote the book on Wild Swimming that the reading group had been discussing. And then there’s DI Leo George who fears there is a serial killer in his patch … especially when another body is soon found.
It’s fast-paced, with a few twists and turns, chock full of action … and a lot of humor. The characters are finely drawn and I really enjoyed the backstories of the main characters. I look forward to reading the next 3 books in this series … already available.
Many thanks to the author / Harper Collins – One More Chapter / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
For a free book it was pretty good
Mixed thoughts on this book.
If you like Janet Ivanovich, you will like this book. Very similar characters.
Not a bad read, but not interesting enough that I would buy more books by this author.
A very fun read. I loved the play-off of the main characters against each other.
This is the first in a bright new whodunnit series that combines police procedural with suspense and humour. I thoroughly enjoyed this suspenseful caper and have already bought the next two books in the series.
Jess Bridges is a new heroine that I love in mystery/crime genre.
She’s strong and resilient and her character driven kept me up for a few hours to devour this new series.
Imagine the terror of finding a dead body while swimming. This book is addictive and the turns and twists kept coming with each page turned. As the body count starts to grow, so the uncertainy that something is not really right. But as a great heroine, even facing her terrible past and being on the spectrum of ADHD, Jess has become a woman that will always fight for what’s right and won’t step aside in front of any obstacle.
Black River is a mystery story that many readers will enjoy as much as me for sure
Took awhile to come together & questions remain
3.5-4stars
I am a big fan of murder mysteries set in the British Isles and this one takes place in the Thames Valley near Oxford and Windsor. The murder mystery and the subplots involving former lover Michael and Jess’s search for teen Angelica were good and kept me guessing but I had some issues with the structure of this story and what it left out.
This is the first book in a new series but it reads like a follow-on book with much of the backstory provided in incomplete dribs and drabs. I was initially confused but after waiting for explanations that never surfaced (like why and how Michael was injured, why Michael and Jess broke up and what case they were involved in the previous year with DI Leo George), I was miffed by the little hints and allusions that never answered my questions about their joint history.
Add to that that main character Jess was borderline likable for me. She’s into foolish, risky behavior. She’s got a string of men interested in her and seems quite content not having to choose. In fact, a good part of the story focuses on her love life rather than the cases. As for her investigative abilities, it seems mostly a case of luck rather than real work or intuition. And, in general, the story does not spend much time on the details of the police investigation.
Now that I am familiar with Jess and the main people in her life, especially Michael and Leo, I do want to read the next story in the series. But I feel Black River leaves plenty of holes in their recent past that still need to be filled.
Thanks to publishers Harper Collins/One More Chapter and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest review.
The story starts out as something that looks to be a cosy mystery. After attending her book club that discusses a book on wild swimming by a local celebrity, Jess ends up skinny dipping in one of the spots described in the book. Not only does a dog run off with her clothes but she also meets the writer when she stumbles on a dead body. The tone is set when the investigating officer, DI Leo George turns out to be friendly, dark, tall, and handsome.
The story changes into more of a serious murder mystery when it becomes clear that this murder is just the 1st one in a series. All of them occur on places described in Jago’s book. A strange habit of the killer is that he dresses up in and acts out the life of his last victim.
There are other issues that play at the same time. Michael (profiler and ex-boyfriend of Jess) is being trolled on the internet and the threats extend to Jess who’s searching for a teenage girl that ran away with her stepdad.
Here we come across another woman who was told by her mother to wear your best underwear in case you’re run over by the proverbial bus. There are quite a few good one-liners in the book that are bound to put a smile on your face, although some references might be a bit obscure for non-Brits.
1 was seriously under the impression that this was number 2 or 3 in a series, but to my surprise, it turns out to be the first one. There is some serious backstory with acquaintances and relationships that intertwine. This complicates the story a bit as we’re not yet acquainted with the characters. I can only assume that this is a spin-off from another series. I just found out that the characters appear in a standalone ‘don’t trust me’ that I haven’t read. I’m sure that it all makes things easier if you have read that first but I managed just fine.
Jess, the main character is a bit of a mess. The relationship with her boyfriend is ‘on hiatus’ and she lives with her friend Cory and her children. She used to work in the funeral parlour of her boyfriend’s parents where she mucked up somehow and now she temps as an office clerk. Her main interest is her PI business that specialises in finding missing persons.
DI George is a relatively normal guy, for a book detective that is (he hasn’t got any murdered or missing relatives). He’s passionate and determined to catch the murderer and he just thinks about Jess a bit much; I’m sure that they’ll meet again in the next adventures.
As the book focuses on wild swimming, I must admit that I’ve been guilty of that myself (not nude though) and it is greatly enjoyable on hot summer days. Down here in Belgium it is illegal, but I don’t think that many fines are issued; usually, you get off with a warning. The reason for that is the danger of drowning in unsupervised lakes, rivers, or canals and there have been a few cases of that over the last 2 summers with extreme heatwaves. You don’t drown because you’re a bad swimmer but because of undercurrents, shock from sudden temperature change in the water. There’s an added danger for leptospirosis (I haven’t heard of any recent cases though) and botulism (seen warning signs but no cases). You’ve been warned. Enjoy swimming but be careful not to go alone or don’t dive into obviously polluted water, I’d say.
This was a fun book to read with several likeable characters. I’m not too fond of Jago though and Drew, well he’s an ass and doesn’t deserve to be with Jess. Di George is the man to go for if you ask me. So yes, there’s more than enough romance in the book as well but luckily it never gets soppy. There’s a meaty crime (or rather 3 of them) to explore where a lot of people are possible suspects.
I thank NetGalley and One More Chapter for the free ARC they provided; this is my honest, unbiased review of it.