A thrilling new whodunnit series, fast-paced and funny, featuring a detective as sharp as his suits and a heroine who’s trouble. 3000 years ago Iron Age people carved a White Horse on the Downs near Uffington Castle and now someone has dumped a body there. Laid out like a ceremonial killing, Detective Inspector Leo George isn’t convinced that the murder is what it appears. He suspects the young …
He suspects the young female victim may have been a member of the Children of the White Horse, a secretive valley commune, but none of the cult members are talking. That is until he discovers his friend, Jess Bridges, is undercover in the commune, attempting to persuade a wayward young woman to leave the cult.
Leo is confronted by the fact that Jess is heading right into the heart of a mystery that has less to do with ancient gods than it does modern vices, and there is nothing old about spilling blood…
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This is a good mystery with great characters and more than a dollop of well-placed humour. I recommend this series – with a highly engaging lead character [Jess] and two great supporting characters [Leo and Michael]. I have already bought book three and ordered book four.
After reading Black River, this book set up my love for the Jess Bridges series.
Leo and Jess have to discover who could kill a young woman and drop her body in a very historical setting. I will be honest, this book reminded me so much of a Midsummer Murders episode about secret society where once you are in, it’s difficult to get out and the interaction with the outside world is almost inexistent. Going undercover takes a lot of courage and strength, particularities that our heroine posses in full, and her quirky mind and humor made it once again an addictive read.
Fast-paced, suspenseful and unstoppable read, this is another favourite story by a now must read author.
Page-turner whodunit with an intrepid PI stumbling her way through danger
4.5stars
I got thoroughly wrapped up in this Jess Bridges mystery which I felt was a solid improvement over Black River, the first book in the series. Investigator Jess, DI Leo George and her former lover Michael are back, this time involved in two different investigations — a murder and a missing person — that dovetail into each other because they both lead to the same place on the Downs. The story flowed well and the last half was really fast-paced and exciting. I must admit the identity of the killer and motive eluded me through most of the story.
Although Joss Stirling is still keeping readers in the dark about the reason for Michael’s fall that crippled him and why he and Jess broke up, this book harkened less back to events that preceded this story. On some points, like references to Jess’s jailed dad, a reader will just wonder unless they’ve read Black River. I think I’ve grown to like the Jess Bridges character better than in the previous book. She’s still impulsive and a bit quick off the mark on sharing her physical charms, but she’s proved herself conscientious about serving her clients and loyal and protective of her friends. I would gladly read more about this trio.
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.
When a young blonde woman, clad in nothing but a sort of kaftan, is found murdered and posed along the back of the ‘White Horse’ (a massive chalk horse that’s carved out on a hillside in Thames Valley, dating back to the iron age), police and the local people are quick to point the finger at a local neo-pagan cult ‘the children of the white horse’. But the cult is adamant that they don’t know the victim and also locally no-one has seen her before.
As coincidence happens, Jess Bridges has just gone undercover in this cult as sister Poppy in order to talk sense into the daughter of a writer friend of Michael, her ex. But she can’t find the girl and it looks as if she left them around the time of the murder. So the paths of Jess and DI Leo George are to cross again.
Jess has a few issues; she has ADHD and very bad impulse control. She may be a scatterbrain, but she’s also one of those people that you can’t help but like them. She’s sympathetic, loyal, spontaneous, and doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. Once again this combination of qualities puts her in danger and in this story she discovers that she’s more a Johnny English than a James Bond. And she decides that she needs to find an online you-tube course on lock-picking.
This story is rooted in reality, as many places and the geoglyph self, do exist in the real world. The psychological information that Michael finds on cults and cult leaders is also well researched.
This was again a fun read without any pretensions. It’s the second book in the series, but you can read the story on its own without a problem. It’s quickly becoming one of my favourite series. There are a couple of good one-liners and quotes that will raise a smile.
The mysteries themselves aren’t too difficult to solve, I guessed most of the answers. A cult, a forbidden Ice-house, massive electric bills in an off-grid community are some of the clues for one of them. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the story.
I thank NetGalley and One More Chapter for the free ARC they provided and this is my honest, unbiased review of it.