Tag: #Police Procedural

Angel by L.J. Ross

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, MysteryLeave a comment

Angel (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #4)My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: DCI Ryan Mysteries #4
Publication Date: 8/26/16
Number of Pages: 231

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.

Penshaw by L.J. Ross

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, MysteryLeave a comment

Penshaw (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #13)Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: DCI Ryan Mysteries #12
Publication Date: 7/27/19
Number of Pages: 280

OMGoodness! There is a LOT going on in Northumberia and we all need our running shoes on to keep up with it. Ryan and Lowerson are placed in untenable and dangerous positions, dead bodies are turning up in Penshaw, a dangerous villain from previous books turns up, and it appears there is more corruption within the constabulary. OH! MY! As always, the fast-paced, can’t-put-it-down mystery is filled with twists-and-turns that will keep your head spinning.

There has been a marked increase in crime and at the same time, a decrease in successful apprehensions and prosecutions. Because of his sterling reputation, DCI Ryan has been tasked with heading up a task force consisting of all of the various units such as drugs, fraud, major crimes, digital forensics, organized crime, etc. His task is to foster information sharing across agencies so that they can all help each other catch, prosecute, and imprison the culprits responsible for the mayhem. At the same time, Ryan is approached by his boss, Chief Constable Sandra Morrison, and DCI Andrew Blackett, of what is known as the Ghost Squad. They are sure that the policing forces have been compromised – at all levels – and that there is even a mole in Ryan’s own team. OH! MY! Ryan’s task is to figure out who, throughout the policing forces, have been compromised. Ryan is sure nobody in his squad would be compromised – one of them cannot be a mole on this very task force. Or, can they?

While all of that is happening, we are learning about the sad death of Alan Watson in Penshaw. Alan had been a robust, active, dedicated miner for years – until the great strike in the fall of 1984. Alan had been a major organizer and leader of the union and the strike, but when it failed, a rumor started, and it accused him of providing information to the government about the union’s plans. It broke him for his close-knit community to think that of him and he took to drink. Now, over 30 years later, his charred remains have been pulled from their burning home by his wife. She’s seriously burned, but Alan didn’t survive. Was he murdered or did he die of a heart attack and drop his cigarette, thus causing the fire? MacKenzie and Lowerson catch the Watson case and something about it just seems ‘off’ to MacKenzie. As they investigate, and more deaths and betrayals occur, they figure out that there is something much bigger going on.

You’ll love the mystery and you’ll see Ryan’s angst and dismay at dealing with yet more corruption within the constabulary. He thought they’d taken care of all of that two years ago and yet it is back again. It was good to see, and hope, that Lowerson is finally finding himself and realizing what is really important in life. I also liked seeing the growth in Trainee Detective Constable Melanie Yates and look forward to seeing more of her in future books.

Great read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.