The body in the woods near Bristol was a nasty shock - a monk strapped to a chair and dumped in a ditch. He'd been savagely beaten. It's a while before D S George Cross and the Major Crime Unit establish that this is Father Dominic. He'd been missing for a few days and certainly hadn't asked permission to leave his abbey. As the team gradually unpick the monk's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment banker, brother, neighbour and friend. He'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up for his faith. Why would someone savagely murder him?
| The Monk by Tim Sullivan | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: It's number five in the series and another absolute cracker. Right now, this is one of my favourite crime series. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 384 | Date: April 2023 |
| Publisher: Head of Zeus | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1804545607 | |
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If you've met DS George Cross before, he'll need no introduction from me. He's on the autistic spectrum and probably has Asperger's Syndrome. He can be hard to get on with but none of it is intentional: George simply doesn't understand the niceties that oil the wheels of everyday life. If you say good morning to him, he's unlikely to respond as he takes it as a simple statement of the obvious. He might offend you or he might say something which you take as being complimentary: neither is intentional. To George, they're just statements of fact.
But D S Cross is an exceptionally good detective. He's not easy to have around the MCU but he has an impressively high success rate when it comes to solving crimes. He owes a lot (but never realises it) to his partner, D S Josie Ottey, who will explain him, or nudge him when he's not delivering the social niceties which people expect. Other than that, he just chips away at the case until he gets the answers he needs.
Cross is safe in Tim Sullivan's hands. It would have been simple to make him a figure of fun and whilst we might smile at some of the things that George says, we sense that there's affection there. I've read quite a bit about autism but Sullivan, through George Cross, has brought the neurodiversity to life.
It's the plot you want to know about, though, isn't it? Well, pretty early on, I had it all worked out. I knew who had done it and why. I was convinced that this was going to be a boring, disappointing read but, good little reviewer that I am, I kept reading. I was, of course, completely wrong and Sullivan was still surprising me right up to the final few pages. It's another absolute cracker and I can't wait for the next in the series. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.
My first outing with George Cross was The Patient.
Tim Sullivan's D S George Cross Novels in Chronological Order
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