“Gravely Concerned” by Rhys Dylan

It begins with a funeral. DCI Evan Warlow of the Wales Police is attending the funeral of his ex-wife, Denise, who’d died from complications of alcoholism. His two sons are there, one traveling all the way from Australia. The relationships are uneasy; much of the family had been splintered because of the divorce and Denise’s drinking problem. Then Warlow’s phone buzzes. 

A six-year-old boy has vanished from his family’s home. His mother and sister had been distracted with a fire at an adjoining property. The fire was extinguished, but the boy was gone. It isn’t just that there are few clues; absolutely no clues can be found anywhere. The fire department determines that the fire had been deliberately set. It appears it was staged to facilitate a kidnapping.

 

Rhys Dylan

Gravely Concerned is the fifth in the DCI Evan Warlow series by Welsh writer Rhys Dylan. The story is compacted into less than 24 hours, and it’s told to show how Warlow and his team move from zero clues and motive to ultimate resolution. 

 

Dylan has published 19 novels in the DCI Evan Warlow series, of which Suffer the Dead is the fourth. A native Welshman educated in London, Dylan wrote numerous books for children and adults under various pen names across several genres. He began writing the DCI Warlow series in 2021. He lives in Wales.

Dylan fills Gravely Concerned with tension, relieved by the police team’s camaraderie and the humor it engenders. He also allows the reader to know some of what’s happened, which cleverly both relives and adds to the tension. This is a story of every parent’s nightmare, told well and expertly. 

Related: 

The Engine House by Rhys Dylan.

Caution: Death at Work by Rhy Dylan. 

Ice Cold Malice by Rhys Dylan.

Suffer the Dead by Rhy Dylan.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Novel Wisdom and Epic Truth – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Defense of the Upper Chesapeake: Maryland’s First Trial in the Revolutionary War – Drew Palmer at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The West’s Strange Genius – Michael Jensen at Lost Arts.

 

‘Feminine Hands’: The Hidden History of Women in Medieval Book Culture – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitzen: “We Have Ceased to See the Purpose” – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

“The Pembroke Castle Murders” by Stephen Puleston

A minister is found dead inside his church in the Welsh town of Pembroke, killed with some kind of hammer. As DI Caren Waits and her team at the West Wales Police Service investigate, they discover that nothing is ever what it seems, even the world of a minister. 

The minister had inherited a large estate from an elderly aunt. He had a half-brother and half-sister, who now stood to inherit. A fellow minister had been passed over for an appointment as cathedral dean. A local man had accused the minister of molesting his son. The suspects seem like they’re falling out of the trees.

 

In the meantime, Waits herself is waiting on the outcome of legal negotiations with her dead husband’s “second” wife, a woman who bore him a child. Waits herself has a young son. The woman has made a claim on the dead husband’s estate. The detective had had no idea of this second family.

 

Stephen Puleston

The investigation has almost too many suspects. Promising leads evaporate. Alibis seem airtight. And then the lawyer handling the estate is himself murdered, followed soon by a third death.

 

The Pembroke Castle Murders is the fourth of the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It’s a solid police procedural story, with Waits and her team plugging away, pounding the pavement, and tracking down ever lead. And in the end, they stage a rather thrilling trap.

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Swansea Marina Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

"Bones Buried Deep" by Emma Jameson

It’s June of 1940. Dunkirk has happened. France had surrendered. The day of the formal surrender – June 22, 1940 – is approaching. And in Britain, there’s a collective holding of breath. What happens now? 

For Dr. Benjamin Bones, working in the village of Birdswing in Cornwall, what happens is another murder. A body is found in a stream nearby. It’s finally identified as that of a young man from Plymouth, and he’s been kicked and beaten to death. The case takes on a different overtone when the body is identified – a young Jewish man, the sole support of his young brothers and sisters.

 

The discovery brings out the best and the worst in the local residents. Dr. Bones, and his great love Lady Juliet Linton, are surprised by the depth of anti-Semitic feeling from the people they like and thought they knew. It seems particularly virulent among the more upper-class crowd who gather at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth, already infiltrated by Lady Juliet’s errant husband working undercover for the British government. But what happened to the young man?

 

Emma Jameson

Bones is joined by the official investigator, a detective from Plymouth who himself is Jewish and knows firsthand what discrimination is like in the police department. Lady Juliet is not to be left out, and she finds innovative ways to investigate on her own.

 

Bones Buried Deep  is the fourth of four Dr. Benjamin Bones mysteries by British mystery author Emma Jameson, who’s also written the Lord and Lady Hetheridge mystery series (all set in London and have something to do with the word “blue”). 

 

This installment in the Dr. Bones series, like its predecessors, is leavened by humor (Jameson has created a great comic detective with Lady Juliet). And humor is definitely needed in what would be a dark tale indeed without it, a tale of vicious discrimination, death, black marketing, and the overhand of war.

 

Related:

Blue Murder by Emma Jameson.

 Something Blue by Emma Jameson.

 Black & Blue by Emma Jameson.

 Blue Blooded by Emma Jameson.

 Blue Christmas by Emma Jameson.

 Untrue Blue by Emma Jameson. 

 London Blue by Emma Jameson.

 Bones in the Blackout by Emma Jameson.

 Bones at the Manor House by Emma Jameson.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Technological Poverty – Matthew Walther at The Lamp.

 

A Quiet Refusal to Compromise – Elizabeth Corey at Law & Liberty.

 

The Novel That Kept a British Prime Minister Up All Night – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Art is the Signature of Man – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why Essex is Britain’s most right-wing county – Daniel Dieppe at the Critic Magazine.

"Shooting Season" by David Gatward

If you had told him three months before, DCI Harry Grimm would have laughed. He’s on loan (or “secondment”) to the police in Yorkshire, and he first couldn’t wait to return to his base in Bristol. But now, the landscape and the people are growing on him; he’s even tried the local preference for cake with cheese and discovered it’s not too bad. 

Grimm and his team are called into to handle a missing person report. A bestselling London author, in York to promote his newest book, has driven off into the dark. They soon discover the people attached to the author – his agent, his editor, his personal assistant, his accountant, and two “friends” – may have al had axes to grind. But where is the author?

 

David Gatward

He soon turns up, or his body does. It appears to be suicide by shotgun, except both triggers were pulled in succession. Suicide it wasn’t, and the list of suspects grows to include a woman who made a scene at a local bookstore author event, accusing the man of stealing someone else’s words. And if a murder investigation isn’t enough, Grimm’s criminal father shows up with two thugs, attempting to bring his son “into line.”

 

Shooting Season is the fourth novel in the DCI Harry Grimm series by British author David Gatward. Rather than a slow development toward the conclusion, this one finds Grimm and his team stymied at every turn, chasing leads that go nowhere – and that lasts for most of the book. What that means is that the story is less about the mystery and more about Grimm’s own development – and setting the stage for his possible permanent assignment to York.

 

In addition to the DCI Harry Grimm series, Gatward has published children’s and teen fiction, taught creative writing sessions, worked as an editor, started a small publishing firm, and returned to writing when the COVID pandemic arrived. He grew up in the Cotswold’s and Yorkshire in England (including the town for the setting of Grimm Up North), and he’s also lived in Lincolnshire and the Lake District.

 

Related: 

Grimm Up North by David Gatward.

 Best Served Cold by David Gatward. 

Corpse Road by David Gatward.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Köln Revisited: Or why our art needs this non-ideal world – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell – review by Phill Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

From the Stacks: A Place on Earth – Jeffrey Bilbro at Orange Blossom Ordinary.

 

River Reversed: The New Madrid Earthquake of 1812 – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Art competitions a forgotten part of Olympic history – Anne Handley-Fierce at St. Louis Art Museum.

"Island Games" by Luke H. Davis

DI Gareth Benedict and his team are assigned to help police the Island Games, a sports event held every two years and attracting teams in some 13 sports from various islands, and not only those around the United Kingdom. This year, the island of Anglesey off the coast of Wales is the host, and teams are coming from as far away as the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. 

The reader knows, before the police forces do, that the games have also attracted two assassins. We don’t know yet their intended targets, but we will. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Learning to Dine with Sinners – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

We’ll Catch Up Sometime – short story by Br. Seth Bauer at The Imaginative Conservative.

“Snow” by John Banville

It’s near Christmas of 1957 and heavily snowing. Detective Inspector St. John Strafford is called to County Wexford in Ireland to the ancestral home of the Osbornes, a family that has seen better times but still maintain their position, at least in their own eyes. Like Strafford, they are Protestant, the remnant of the great landed families who dominated Ireland before independence from Britain. Strafford himself is the son of a similar family in similar circumstances – and no one knows why he became a police officer, including Strafford himself. 

What it’s been called to investigate is the body of a Catholic priest, Father Tom Lawless. The man, a frequent guest, had been found in the library, stabbed to death and the body mutilated. The body and the crime scene has also been tampered with – Colonel Osborne couldn’t stand the sight of the mess and so had the housekeeper clean up the blood. It soon becomes clear that this is where the priest may have died, but he was initially stabbed upstairs.

 

Strafford not only has to investigate the gruesome death, he also must deal with his political superior in the Dublin police force, the powerful archbishop of Ireland who prefers to cover up messy crimes, even of priest, and his own inner demons. And then his subordinate police officer, helping the investigation, disappears. 

 

John Banville

Snow is the first mystery novel in the Strafford and Quirke series by Irish writer John Banville. Originally published in 2020, it received rave reviews from The Guardian in Britain and The New York Times. It was something of a departure for Banville, a Booker Prize winner who’s known more for his literary novels. 

 

That said, Snow seems more a cross between a mystery novel and a literary one. It’s less about police procedure and solving a mystery and more about the interior life of the detective investigating the crime. But it’s well done, with Banville peeling away the layers of past and present that the crime is really all about.

 

In addition to his work in literary journalism (The Irish Press and The Irish Times), Banville is the author of numerous works of fiction, including novels, short stories, and novellas. Under the pseudonym Benjamin Black and his own name, he’s also written several crime novels. His fiction has received numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Award and the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature.

 

Related: The Sea by John Banville.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Tanya Berry’s Work and Wisdom – Gracy Olmstead at Granola.

 

In Praise of Common Sense – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Ancient Roman Guide to Building Your Personal Library – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

“Murder in the South of France” by Roy Lewis

The Morpeth Department of Antiquities and Museums in northern England faces a daunting challenge. An archaeological excavation team needs time to do its job properly, but the landowner had bulldozers, road builders, and construction crews ready to roll. The department needs more people and funding for the project, so Arnold Landon and his boss Karen Stannard head to a conference in southern France where they just might find the funding. 

The local police back in Morpeth have their hands full. A child’s torso placed in a plastic bag has washed up; a raid has netted several pedophiles but not the kingpin, someone called “The Doctor;” and the new assistant commissioner is more than anxious to nail a local luxury car owner, suspected of leading a car theft ring.

 

In Murder in the South of France, British author Roy Lewis has woven all of these disparate threads into a fine tapestry of a story, the 18^th in the Arnold Landon series. The only trouble is that Arnold Landon is once again something of a secondary character, at least as far as the police investigation goes, and the murder doesn’t happen in the south of France. (The book’s original title was Headhunter, which is less misleading but still a bit off.) There’s also less emphasis on the specific archaeology, which gave the earlier books so much of their character and feel and usually tied into the murder in some way. 

 

Roy Lewis

Lewis (1933-2019) was the author of some 60 other mysteries, novels, and short story collections. His Inspector Crow series includes A Lover Too Many, Murder in the Mine, The Woods Murder, Error of Judgment, and Murder for Money, among others. The Eric Ward series, of which The Sedleigh Hall Murder is the first (and originally published as A Certain Blindness in 1981), includes 17 novels. Lewis lived in northern England. 

 

Despite the difference from the earlier books in the series, Lewis still tells a cracking good story. And Murder in the South of France is a cracking good story. I have four left in the series to read, and I’ll miss Arnold Landon and his colleagues when I finish No. 22.

 

Related:

Murder in the Cottage by Roy Lewis.

Murder Under the Bridge by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the Tower by Roy Lewis. 

Murder in the Church by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the Barn by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the Manor by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the Farmhouse by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the Stableyard by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the House by Roy Lewis.

Murder by the Quay by Roy Lewis.

Error in Judgment by Roy Lewis. 

Murder at the Folly by Roy Lewis.

Murder in the Field by Roy Lewis.

Murder at Haggburn Hall by Roy Lewis.

Murder on the Golf Course by Roy Lewis.

Murder on the Dawn Princess by Roy Lewis.

Murder in Wolfcleuf Woods by Roy Lewis. 

Murder at Abbey Head by Roy Lewis.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Murders for January – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

When All Your Stories Get Scrambled – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa.

 

The pseudoscience behind Britain’s open borders – Rob Bates at The Critic Magazine.

 

Orwell Saw This Coming – Charles Labe at The Free Press.

"The Alpine Christmas Mystery" by Benedict Brown

It’s 1929, and Lord Edgington, retired Scotland Yard superintendent, is taking his grandson Christopher Prentiss on the grand tour of Europe. But like their experiences in England over the years, murder seems to follow. 

The two are in Milan; Christmas is near, and they’re both surreptitiously trying to buy presents for each other. But mysterious and anonymous letters appear in their room; they’re asked to come to Switzerland to prevent one and perhaps more murders. They’re soon on their way, with Lord Edgington’s staff in tow.

 

It’s an Alpine hotel in Switzerland at Christmas, and a snowstorm is due that will cut all communications off. No soon do they arrive when Christopher saves a guest from being crushed under a family chandelier. Another guest on her way to the hotel is found dead on one of the last trains before the expected snowstorm. 

 

Benedict Brown

What they soon discover is that all the guests, including Lord Edgington himself, are tied to the theft of a tiara owned by the Princess Royale some 20 years earlier. And someone among the guests is planning to kill each of the others to eliminate any possibility of discovery.

 

The Alpine Christmas Mystery is the third novel in the Lord Edginton Abroad series by British author Benedict Brown. The series is something of an offshoot of the original series which was set entirely in England. It has all the trademarks of both Lord Edgington series – crimes largely among the upper class, Christopher getting himself in funny predicaments (this one has him skiing when he’s never learned), a little levity to lighten the serious crimes and investigations, and well-researched historical settings. 

 

In addition to the Lord Edgington stories, Brown has written eight Izzy Palmer mystery novels three novellas, and five Marius Quin mysteries. A native of south London, he lives with his family in Spain. The Lord Edgington mysteries are likely aimed at both the general reader as well as the young adult audience. And they’re well-researched stories, full of information about the mid-to-late 1920s.

 

Related:

Murder at the Spring Ball by Benedict Brown.

A Body at a Boarding School by Benedict Brown.

The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall by Benedict Brown.

 Death on a Summer’s Day by Benedict Brown.

The Tangled Treasure Trail by Benedict Brown.

The Curious Case of the Templeton-Swifts by Benedict Brown.

The Crimes of Clearwell Castle by Benedict Brown.

The Snows of Weston Moor by Benedict Brown.

What the Vicar Saw by Benedict Brown.

Blood on the Banisters by Benedict Brown.

A Killer in the Wings by Benedict Brown.

The Christmas Bell Mystery by Benedict Brown.

A Novel Way to Kill by Benedict Brown.

The Puzzle at Parham Hall by Benedict Brown.

Death at Silent Pool by Benedict Brown.

Murder in an Italian Castle by Benedict Brown.

“The Swansea Marina Murders” by Stephen Puleston

Detective Inspector Caren Waits of the West Wales Police Service and her team are called to the marina in Swansea. The body of a young woman has been found floating in the marina docking area; the post-mortem will show she’d been brutally strangled. Her identity is quickly determined: a university student who also worked at a marina pub. The site of her murder takes a bit longer to discover, and the crime scene investigators find it. 

The victim shared a flat with three other students, and everything seemed normal on the surface. That is, until the investigators find five thousand pounds in cash stowed in her room, a connection to a former boyfriend who tended to the violent, and an affair with one of her professors who doesn’t seem to be as forthcoming as he should about his own background. Complicating the case is that the victim’s phone is missing and presumably tossed into the marina waters.

 

Then a second murder happens; a friend of the first victim is found with her head bashed by a winch from a yacht. In this case, the victim’s small rooms are found ransacked; someone was looking for something and apparently didn’t find it. Waits and her team discover that there’s a possible connection to a spate of burglaries aboard marina boats and residences; someone had very good information when yacht owners would be sailing and away from home, or out of town and away from their boats.

 

Stephen Puleston

The Swansea Marina Murders is the third in the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It is a classic police procedural story, accented by Waits having to deal with the settling of the estate of her dead husband, the discovery that he had another relationship and child, and trying to raise her own young son with an almost impossible work schedule (parent to the rescue!). 

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Puleston has been setting the keyboard keys afire. This third DI Caren Waits novel is the third published in 2025, and a fourth one was recently issued. A fifth one is set to be published next year. Like its two predecessors, The Swansea Marina Murders is very methodically told; the focus is on police procedure. All three have been entertaining reads, and I’m looking forward to reading the fourth, The Pembroke Castle Murders.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

When a House Is Not a Home – Matthew Walther at Commonplace.

 

Why we love Jane Austen more than ever after 250 years – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Amahl and the Night Visitors”: The Classic Christmas Opera – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.