“The Dark Road” by Luke Davis

The story starts with a flashback. Detective Inspector Gareth Benedict of the North Wales Police is on a holiday with his wife Heather. And he watches in his horror as his adventure-loving wife is soaring in the sky, paramotoring, until the motor fails, and she falls more than 300 feet into the sea, killed instantly. 

Flash forward seven years, Benedict and his team, based on St. David’s Island, are called to Reno Medical Logistics to investigate the death of one of the company’s financial executives. His body has been found in his office, seated and slumped over his desk. At first, it appears he’s the victim of suicide. But there’s no suicide note, and no explanation for the wound on his head. 

 

And down the investigation trail the police officers go. And it soon becomes clear that there’s nothing straightforward about the case. The man had apparently been investigating unusual activity involving three supply locations in southern France, but it’s unknown what that activity might have been. There’s a connection to the man’s ex-wife, a cafe owner Benedict knows well and who isn’t thrilled to be asked questions. The investigation also develops a sub-theme of romance; if Benedict hasn’t figured it out yet, we have – there’s more than a professional relationship developing with Rachel Griffith-Thomas, his detective sergeant. 

 

Then, in the middle of the investigation, Benedict discovers an unknown and unwanted truth about his dead wife, and it nearly wrecks him and the investigation.

 

Luke Davis

The Dark Road is the third DI Gareth Benedict mystery by Luke Davis. It’s both a solid and entertaining police procedural. It’s also a flat-out good story. Davis is an American, but the Gareth Benedict series read like they’ve been written by a lifelong and native Welshman. The place names, the highway directions, and the general sense of these stories seems so Welsh that I have to keep reminding myself that Davis lives in a suburb of St. Louis.

 

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017). He blogs at For Grace and Kingdom.

 

The Dark Road is a great story; that’s the simple fact of it. And I’m glad to learn that a fourth one, All Snares of the Enemy, is in the works.

 

Related: 

 

My review of Tides of Death by Luke H. Davis.

 

My review of Island Games by Luke H. Davis.

 

Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times by Luke H. Davis.

 

Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages by Luke H. Davis.

 

Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism by Luke H. Davis.

 

Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward by Luke H. Davis.

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

 

My review of Litany of Secrets.

 

My review of The Broken Cross.

 

My review of A Shattered Peace.

 

My review of Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

 

Some Tuesday Readings

 

An Offering of Breathing Poetry – poem by Rob Jones at Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

Winners and Rankings of the Great American Poetry Competition – Society of Classical Poets.

 

Loneliness and solidarity – Padraig O Tuama on The Dance: Poems by Christian Wiman.

 

The Sun – poem by David Whyte.

 

‘A Poet at the Tower’ and Other Poetry – Michael Paul at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Pink – poem by Carol Berrett at Every Day Poems.

“Restless Dead” by David Gatward

DCI Harry Grimm, somewhat “exiled” from the police force in Bristol to one in Yorkshire. And Yorkshire, even the idea of eating cheese with cake, is growing on Grimm. His team members are noticing the boss introduced as interim is sounding more and more like a local. 

Grimm is also very good at solving cases, tough, difficult, impossible cases. And he’s taken the step of making it permanent.

 

The call comes in. A sheep farmer, inf act the father of one of Grimm’s own team members, is reporting the theft of a prized herd. Since trouble, and cases, never arrives by itself, another case arrives – an elderly couple run off the run, and the wife has been killed.

 

David Gatward

The theft of the sheep will take the police team into barns and an auction yard, while the death of elderly woman will take them deep into a family’s passions and secrets – and possibly a ghost.

 

Restless Dead is the fifth DCI Harry Grimm mystery by British author David Gatward. It’s a bit different from the previous four, with a hint of the supernatural, which will eventually have a natural explanation. Mostly.

 

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.

 

The DCI Harry Grimm novels are well-written stories, well thought out and developed with additional aspects added to over the series. They’re good stories, entertaining stories, with regular characters you care about and want to read more about.

 

Related: 

Grimm Up North by David Gatward.

 Best Served Cold by David Gatward. 

Corpse Road by David Gatward.

Shooting Season by David Gatward.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Revolutionary History: Gordon Wood’s Idea of America – Scott Spillman at The Point.

 

The Walls Have Ears – Mark Rothschild at Accidental Wisdom.

 

Congress Establishes the Board of War and Ordnance – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Festival of Britain and the South Bank – 75 Years Later – A London Inheritance.

 

Britain: How the Southport riots broke Starmer’s government – Mike Jones at The Critic Magazine.

“A Summer Shadow” by H.L. Marsay

The summer is unusually and rather miserably hot for York in northern England. Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow of the York Police is attending a cricket game. Cricket happens to be about the only sport he enjoys watching. And being outside has the advantage of catching whatever cool breezes might unexpectedly arise. His detective sergeant, Jimmy Chang, is there as well. 

And the during a break in the game, the elderly man who’d been serving as scorekeeper is discovered dead in the scorekeeper’s shed. And rather gruesomely murdered, in fact. At first glance, Shadow wonders who could possibly have wanted to kill an elderly man who was simply keeping score.

 

 H L Marsay

As Shadow and Chang will learn in A Summer Shadow, the ninth DCI John Shadow mystery by H L Marsay, the list of suspects is longer than one might initially think. It turns out that the man, a retired city planning officer, had something of a habit of expecting bribes from developers, and then, after retirement, expecting payment from people he was blackmailing. It almost becomes a case of who isn’t on the list of suspects.

 

It’s a fast-paced, entertaining story, with enough twists and turns to keep a slalom skier on constant alert. The case takes on an entirely different turn when a skeleton is discovered in the basement of the former newspaper building – and it might possibly be related to the death of the cricket scorekeeper.

 

A member of the Crime Writers Association, Marsay lives with her family in the city of York in England. She’s also published The Secrets of Hartwell trilogy and The Lady in Blue mysteries. 

 

A Summer Shadow shares a number of characteristics with its eight predecessors – a DCI who is curmudgeonly on a good day, an irrepressible detective sergeant who keeps his bubbly charm intact no matter what his boss throws at him, and a stop at one if not several York restaurants. It’s great fun.

 

Related: 

A Long Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Viking’s Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Ghostly Shadow by H L Marsay.

 A Roman Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

A Forgotten Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Christmas Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Stolen Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

A Saxon Shadow by H L Marsay.

Betrayal at the Old Hall by H L Marsay.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Calvin Coolidge, Christianity, & the American Founding – Nathaniel Urban at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why did police handcuff Henry Nowak? – Andrew Tettenborn at The Spectator.

 

Soiled Work – Adam Gustine at Comment Magazine.

 

Ground Zero in the Reading Crisis – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Whistler in Wapping – Spitalfields Life.

"The Burning Glow" by Luke H. Davis

Cameron Ballack is back. And he’s traipsing all over where I used to bike. 

Ballack is the fictional wheelchair-bound detective created by St. Louis-based writer Luke H. Davis. In previous books (and there’s been a gap of some years), he and his team were based in St. Charles County, Missouri, part of metropolitan St. Louis. In his new outing, entitled The Burning Glow, Ballack is now the lead detective for the Special Investigating Department, which operates across the metro St. Louis region. (St. Louis actually does have something similar that operates across jurisdictional lines called the Major Case Squad.)

 

What Ballack and his team are pulled into is a car bombing in the part of the city of St. Louis known as “Little Bosnia,” home to numerous immigrants who fled the war in the 1990s. 

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

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Want to Find Yourself? Volunteer in Your Church Nursery – Cameron McAllister at Front Porch Republic.

 

Facts About Euthanasia in Canada – Tim Challies.

 

Growling in a corner: Samuel Johnson’s lost years – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Defining Ideology – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

“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.

"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.

“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.