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A review by usbsticky
The Body in the Marsh by Nick Louth
4.0
First time trying this series and pleasantly surprised. Spoilers ahead.
The writing is easy to read and follow and I got into the book right away. The wife (Liz) of a famous academic (Martin Knight) from the London School of Economics is missing and all indications are that she was murdered by him due to bickering about his adultery. The issue is further confused by the fact that the protagonist (Gillard) dated her briefly 30 years ago and never got over it. Problem 1: why wasn't he recused from the case?
However I was able ignore that little problem because the writing was pretty good. The author did a good job of fleshing out the characters and making them interesting and making me want to follow them. The other problem was that pretty much every reader should have figured out the real killer once the massive clues appeared and that kept piling up. Surely the entire Surrey department can't be that thick? At some point surely even a DC on their first day on the job should have figured it out. And lastly, the killer just piled the clues on too thick - should have remembered the "more is less" saying. There were also a few loose ends not tied up but not a big deal.
I was almost tempted to just skip to the reveal because of that. But I have to admit, the ending was pretty good. So, overall writing that was easy to read and follow and pleasant characters with a plot that was a bit holey. I enjoyed it though so I'm on book two now.
The writing is easy to read and follow and I got into the book right away. The wife (Liz) of a famous academic (Martin Knight) from the London School of Economics is missing and all indications are that she was murdered by him due to bickering about his adultery. The issue is further confused by the fact that the protagonist (Gillard) dated her briefly 30 years ago and never got over it. Problem 1: why wasn't he recused from the case?
However I was able ignore that little problem because the writing was pretty good. The author did a good job of fleshing out the characters and making them interesting and making me want to follow them. The other problem was that pretty much every reader should have figured out the real killer once the massive clues appeared and that kept piling up. Surely the entire Surrey department can't be that thick? At some point surely even a DC on their first day on the job should have figured it out. And lastly, the killer just piled the clues on too thick - should have remembered the "more is less" saying. There were also a few loose ends not tied up but not a big deal.
I was almost tempted to just skip to the reveal because of that. But I have to admit, the ending was pretty good. So, overall writing that was easy to read and follow and pleasant characters with a plot that was a bit holey. I enjoyed it though so I'm on book two now.