Book Review: Echoes of the Fens by Joy Ellis

 Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from joffee books via #netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.


From multi-million-selling Joy Ellis, one of Britain’s best-loved crime writers, with over twenty number-one bestsellers.


Echoes of the Fens  cover

Synopsis:

Meet Detective Nikki Galena. She will stop at nothing to avenge her daughter. Under the brooding skies of the Lincolnshire Fens, she pursues the most vicious criminals. 

Three days. Three murders. No leads . . . except for Nikki’s mother. 

The call comes at 6.30 a.m. Widowed Angela Sandford has been found dead in her expensively-furnished bungalow. An overdose, it would appear. 

But to Detective Nikki it doesn’t add up. Angela was planning a holiday next month. The trip of a lifetime. She had everything to live for. 

The following night there’s another death on Nikki’s patch. A fatal hit-and-run. A young woman deliberately mown down as she picked up a takeaway fish supper. 

The next day, a third suspicious death. The dead man is found sprawled on the dining room floor in his grand old house, blood soaking into the carpet. 

And Nikki’s mother was the last person to see him alive. 

In each case, there is no clue, no motive and no suspect. It’s up to Nikki and her team to find the link before more people die. 

The Setting 

The Lincolnshire Fens: great open skies brood over marshes, farmland, and nature reserves. It is not easy terrain for the Fenland Constabulary to police: with remote Fen villages, dangerous and often misty lanes, and poor telephone coverage. There are still villages where the oldest residents have never set foot outside their own farmland. A visit to the nearest town is a major event. But it has a strange airy beauty to it, and above it all are the biggest skies you’ve ever seen.


Review;

Not only does the Fen team have an apparent murder made to look like suicide, they have a hit and run, and then a murder. All roads seem to lead to one person connected to them all. But she is getting death threats. This part of the story was a roller coaster read- who could want all these people dead, and why is the Claire the victim? What didn't work for me was the Nikki and Joseph personal chaos.maybe because I haven't read all the books in the series, but it just seemed to slow the plot and divert the reader from the cases at hand, and it's ultimate solution seemed weird and something higher ups would have said long ago in their relationship, and it was like trying to add rom comm to a procedural, and it didn't work for me. But the rest of the book was well played by the author, so 4.5 stars.This is book 15 of the Nikki Galena series..


About the Author:

I was born in Kent but spent most of my working life in London and Surrey. I was an apprentice florist to Constance Spry Ltd, a prestigious Mayfair shop that throughout the Sixties and Seventies teemed with both royalty and ‘real’ celebrities. What an eye-opener for a working-class kid from the Garden of England! I swore then, probably whilst I was scrubbing the floor or making the tea, that I would have a shop of my own one day. It took until the early Eighties, but I did it. Sadly the recession wiped us out, and I embarked on a series of weird and wonderful jobs; the last one being a bookshop manager. Surrounded by books all day, getting to order whatever you liked, and being paid for it! Oh bliss!

And now I live in a village in the Lincolnshire Fens with my partner, Jacqueline, and three Springer spaniels and four little rescue, Breton spaniels. I had been writing mysteries for years but never had the time to take it seriously. Now I write full-time, and as my partner is a highly decorated retired police officer; my choice of genre is a no-braine! I have an on-tap police and judicial consul>tant, who makes exceedingly good tea!

I have set my crime thrillers here in the misty fens because I sincerely love the remoteness and airy beauty of the marshlands. This area is steeped in superstitions and lends itself so well to murder!

I am lucky enough to be one of the amazing Joffe Books team of authors and am really enjoying being able to spend time doing what I love... writing!



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