FROM THE #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HOLY ISLANDHe’ll make you his angel, but first you have to die… After a turbulent time, DCI Ryan’s life is finally beginning to return to normal and he’s looking forward to spending an uneventful Easter bank holiday weekend with his fiancée. Then, on Good Friday morning he is called out to a crime scene at one of the largest cemeteries in … crime scene at one of the largest cemeteries in Newcastle. The body of a redheaded woman has been found buried in a shallow grave and the killer has given her wings, like an angel.
Soon, another woman is found at a different cemetery, followed quickly by another. Panic spreads like wildfire as a new serial killer is born, and Ryan’s band of detectives must work around the clock to unmask him before he can strike again.
Murder and mystery are peppered with romance and humour in this fast paced crime whodunnit set amidst the spectacular Northumbrian landscape.
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Easter bank holiday weekend looks like it might be a relaxing time for DCI Ryan, but when he’s called to a crime scene in a Newcastle cemetery, a bizarre murder sets him off on the trail of a killer. Meanwhile, Lowerson and MacKenzie take a trip up to Rothbury to check out what appears to be the natural death of an older woman. However, the case isn’t all it seems and it begins to look as if they could be looking for a second killer. When another body is discovered in a cemetery, Ryan and his team face growing pressure, and to make matters worse, a name from the past is lurking on the horizon—someone is plotting revenge…
This is the fourth book in the DCI Ryan series and as with the others, is a stonking good tale, though the writing isn’t quite as tight as the first three books. Throwing poor Ryan into yet another murder mystery with a bit of a twist, Ms Ross gives him lots to think about as he searches for the killer in a series of bizarre murders. In this volume, there’s a new Chief Constable, who naturally wants results yesterday. And while Ryan’s love interest takes a bit of a back seat, the focus moves to redhead Mackenzie who is the recipient of a number of unsettling messages. As always, the author weaves a clever plot that kept me guessing all the way to the end, and just in case we thought it was all going to be alright, she brings Ryan’s past terrors back to haunt him. Nice.
NB It’s worth saying that the plot involves a bit of Catholic-bashing, which I didn’t mind at all, but some folk might find offensive.
What I enjoyed most about this book: While the religious theme of the murders has been consistent (in some form or another) for the entire series, I really enjoyed the linking together of two seemingly unrelated crimes. Slowly uncovering what all these people had in common was delightful – and the ending was both satisfying and a great cliffhanger. Now excuse me while I go grab book 5, High Force.
After their last case, DCI Ryan and his team are the stars of the show around Northumberland. The public is fickle though and when it becomes apparent there is a serial killer among them, they start demanding a quick solution. In this fast-paced, page-turning, can’t-put-it-down book, you’ll chase down the clues and put them together to find an unexpected and twisted villain at work.
In the early morning hours of a foggy, dreary, Good Friday in Newcastle upon Tyne, city gravedigger, Keith Wilson, drove his mini-digger machine into the West Road Cemetery. It might be a Bank Holiday, but death doesn’t wait for holidays. When he gets to the spot assigned for him to dig the grave, it appears to have already have a fresh burial. After checking with his dispatch and finding out he’s definitely at the correct spot, he looks at the grave and sees – OMGoodness, he sees a single dead eye, peering sightlessly at him through the soil.
DCI Ryan is at home with his fiancé Dr. Anna Taylor. The floor is strewn with wedding magazines. He loves her to distraction, but he just wants to get married, he doesn’t care what she chooses. So, when his mobile phone rings, and it flashes Control Room as the caller, he gleefully tells her – WORK!
The victim is a lovely red-haired lady in her early thirties who had been strangled. There is nothing to identify her, but she is posed to look like an Angel with arms overhead and blouse torn and spread to look like wings. Her burial site also included a note saying: Et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. To Ryan’s surprise, DS Phillips recognizes that as being what a priest says when he is absolving the dead of their sins: ‘I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. What sins did the murderer think this lovely young woman had committed?
Ryan’s team also catches another case, and since the two cases aren’t related, he assigns it to DI Denise MacKenzie and DC Jack Lowerson. MacKenzie and Lowerson step into a gruesome scene. The badly decomposed body of a sixty-five-year-old woman, lying on the floor of her home. She’s not a well-liked woman, so nobody notices that she hasn’t been seen for a week. It looks like they have their work cut out for them just to get a timeline for when she was last seen.
Ryan and Phillips feel the urgency to solve the case as the bodies of other red-headed, early-thirties, women are found in graves awaiting burials for other people. Who is killing these ladies? What sins have they committed for which they need absolution? Why are they posed as angels?
It takes all of Ryan’s team to finally identify and apprehend this twisted murderer. I figured out who it was early on, but there are lots of red-herrings and twists-and-turns to throw you off and make you doubt your suppositions.
I listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed the performance of the narrator. I like his voice, but he does seem to have a narrower range of voices and it is often difficult to tell which character is speaking.
The series keeps getting better with another tense and thrilling investigation by DCI Ryan and his trusty team. Two different investigations, involving separate members of the team eventually overlap as the race to catch a serial killer with an unusual trademark gathers speed.
The interplay between Phillips and Ryan has never been better, providing some lovely light relief. The tightly knit team all work hard for each other, determined to catch the killer. But lurking in the background, like a dark, brooding shadow, tension builds as you realise one of the team is in danger.
The tension reaches an unbearable level as the story races to a surprising and frightening conclusion, leaving the reader on a knife edge, desperate to know what happens next.
If you like original, twisting plots with characters you care for, this series is for you. It’s crime fiction at its best and most accessible. I could say more, but I need to read High Force, the next in the series, to find out what happens.