TBR

Another fantastic book by this author but slightly different in that Inspector Lynley does not feature but his sidekick Sgt Barbara Havers is now centre stage as a one off. She follows her pakistani neighbour and child to the fictitious town of Balford-le-Nez (a growing community of Asians), near Clacton, Essex, on the pretext of taking a holiday and bamboozles an old CID friend into inviting her onto the team when a visiting Asian from Pakistan is found murdered. Secretly she is there to protect her neighbour and his eight year old child she has grown to love and make sure that they do not get into any trouble, which they inevitably do!

Sgt Havers shows a softer side to her character in this book and there is a definite frisson of attraction between the neighbour and herself.

Great story.

Well, I must have picked this book up at the meet to take in for the girls at work and then it got put somewhere else as I have found it today, still unjournalled. I will now take it to release at the BookCrossing Convention in London at the weekend.

I got this from the book table at the London Convention April 2008 very late registering due to very frustrating loss of internet connection only just sorted out.

I am reading the whole Inspector Lynley series in order, although he only appears briefly in this as it is his side kick Barbara Havers does the investigating here. A bit of extra interest for me as this book is set in the Tendring Hundred and I come from Dovercourt which is in this area. After a little annoyance at the reference to 'the cranes of Harwich' (it should say Felixstowe) I found the story very gripping, and some of the twists not being at all obvious (to me at least) and yet believable. It is interesting to read about the issues between the Asian and White communities set in the fictional seaside town of Balford - le - Nez which locals would recognise. Keeping for my daughter Sandyundead as she is also reading the series

Although I guessed two of the twists in this, I didn’t get the murderer until just before it was revealed. I enjoyed reading about an area that I know. An interesting choice to not have Lynley in the story at all, but I think Havers is a strong enough character to have her own stories. I'll pass it on to another teacher here who is desparate for stuff to read.