The Death Season (Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson) by Kate Ellis
| The Death Season (Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson) by Kate Ellis | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: When you get to the nineteenth book in a series what you find is often just a little bit tired - but that's not the case with 'The Death Season' which kept me reading into the early hours of the morning. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 284 | Date: January 2015 |
| Publisher: Piatkus | |
| ISBN: 978-0349403137 | |
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When Wesley Peterson was called to investigate the death of a man in a hotel room he thought that it was going to be straightforward, but then there were the credit cards - in different names - and there wasn't a mobile phone. He felt guilty about the little time he'd been able to spend with his family (and about the fact that he was ever so slightly attracted to one of his colleagues...) but the job had to come first and it wasn't long before he realised that there was a complex history to the dead man and that he was almost certainly a murderer.
Meanwhile, Peterson's best mate, Neil Watson is trying to work on two archaeological digs - one at historical Paradise Court and the other at Sandrock. Most of the village had fallen into the sea almost a century ago and the dig is being filmed. Neil doesn't find this easy, particularly as the director is a bit of a risk taker and Neil knows that the site is dangerous, but he's helped by his co-presenter, Lucy, who also has family connections to Paradise Court. In fact, her great grandmother, Clara, who lived at the house has just had her hundredth birthday.
This is the nineteenth book in the Wesley Peterson series and you could forgive any author who was feeling a little tired of their characters by this stage, but Kate Ellis has pulled out all the stops on this book and I felt that it was a step up from The Shroud Maker, published in 2014. And if you're wondering about coming in at book nineteen - don't worry - this book works perfectly well as a standalone, although it might tempt you to go back and read some of the earlier books. (I'm reviewing this book just before Christmas and it's just struck me that the best present I could find under the tree would be a previously unknown but brilliant author with a substantial back catalogue to explore!)
One of the factors which keeps me reading the Wesley Peterson series (I actually prefer Ellis's DI Joe Plantagenet) is that Peterson is of West Indian descent but Ellis doesn't overplay the race card. There is reservation on some people's parts. Occasionally there's prejudice, but it's part of life rather than a feature of the story. I loved the fact that both Peterson and his sister have made mixed-race marriages - not because they had done so, but because it worried their parents.
The plot is good. Concentrate early on as there's quite a lot to get to grips with and part of it is set in the early part of the twentieth century. Have faith in your author - she knows exactly what she's doing and all will become clear. I had someone pencilled in (well, actually, they were inked in...) as the murderer, but I was wrong - and there's a revelation at the end which takes your breath away. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If this book appeals then we think that you might also enjoy The Kill by Jane Casey.
Kate Ellis's D I Wesley Peterson Novels in chronological order
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