The naked, maimed body found floating off the coast of Cornwall’s English Channel presents a vexing puzzle for Detective Inspector Morgan Davies and her Scene of Crimes Manager, Calum West. Post-mortem confirms the dead man’s wounds are evidence of torture, but without a name, a crime scene, or a motive, the detectives are stymied. Two days later, a woman reports her partner, Archie Hansen, … Hansen, missing. A farmer and Druid, Archie had made a dangerous discovery he dared not share with anyone. Is he the anonymous floater?
Unraveling this mystery of betrayal, greed, and revenge will test the investigative skills and intuition of Davies and West as never before. With so little evidence, can they outsmart a wickedly clever killer?
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An intricate murder mystery with almost no physical evidence and many persons of interest some of whom are killed as the story evolves. At the core is the murder victim’s discovery of ancient highly valuable artifacts that he tried to sell illegally before he was killed. The police, led by Morgan and Calum, run down leads while others try to sell the artifacts. One of the killers is identified and prosecuted; the assistants escape. In the end, the good people win when the victim’s will leaves everything to his illegitimate infant.
Keeps you guessing.
I enjoyed this book more than anything I’ve read in a while and that’s saying something because I read a lot.
I loved the setting and the characters were engaging. I even liked the “bad guys”.
Didn’t care for this book.
Enthralling; a can’t put down murder mystery that rolls along, snowballing into ever more complications. Interspersed with deep characters & wonderfully described landscaping! An absolute must read!
So good that I read the whole series.
Only recently found this author but thoroughly enjoying his who-dun-its. The Cornish sense of time and place is great, characters are wonderfully British/Cornish. If I could sign up for all futures of his books in this genre I would
The only thing I did not like was that the story was not told chronological. It confused me a few times. It was a good story with really quirky characters.
I would give it a 10 Stars if I could
This is a great book. It is well written and it moves along nicely without getting bogged down in the story telling. The characters are believable, the situation possible, and the outcome, well, it’s pretty much real life.
Some parts are predictable, many are not, but overall, it seems well balanced. I do recommend this book.
Enjoyed the difference in language and location. Well written.
Love female characters who are strong enough to question themselves.
Too many characters all at once. Only read a few chapters til I gave up. Sorry.
This is the first book I’ve read by author Will North, and though I jumped ahead to book number two the series, I didn’t feel like I had missed out on anything. The author did a very good job making references to events in the previous book whenever necessary, so the story flowed well for me. And though the book skipped forward and back in places, it was done with such skill that it managed to peel back layers of intrigue at just the right moments, which created real depth to the story and also packed a lot of suspenseful passages without losing me. I enjoyed the large cast of characters, the good guys to the bad guys, and all the moving parts. I will definitely be reading more by this talented writer.
Excellent writing. A very good read.
Wish for more in the story to flesh out more characters. Love reading will north’s Davies & West series.
Not much. I have read some other books by this author that were better
The characters and the author’ s use of language keep this story moving in both senses of the word.
Couldn’t get into it – didn’t read
I love these type of books.