"Stone Cold Dead" by Stephen Puleston

For some time, freelance journalist Jack Holt has been investigating the Peel Foundation, supposedly devoted to well-being and personal wellness but more resembling a religious cult. Once you enroll in their program, it isn’t long before you’ve signed over your entire net worth. He has arranged to meet with someone at a park with inside information late one evening. The next morning, a park attendant finds Holt’s body. He was hit from behind several times with a rock, and his body was pinioned to the ground with croquet wickets. 

Detective Inspector Ian Drake and his team are called in to investigate. The people at the Peel Foundation deny any involvement and have alibis. The man’s partner has an alibi. The police team is frustrated at every point, finding blind alleys and considerable stonewalling from just about everyone. But then a second murder happens, much like the first with the same signature croquet wickets. And what looked like cast-iron alibis begin to unravel for all the suspects.

 

Stephen Puleston

Stone Cold Dead is the eleventh in the DI Ian Drake series by Welsh author Stephen Puleston. It’s a good story with a solid premise (and something of a relief that it’s not a religious cult that’s involved). There’s a bit too much detail in the scenes (“He got up from his desk, he walked out of the building, he walked to the car park, he got in his car, he turned on the ignition” kind of descriptions), which is something I hadn’t noticed in the previous 10 Ian Drake novels. It’s almost as if the way some scenes are written reflect the main character’s obsessive-compulsive disorder). This isn’t a major issue, but I noticed it several times.

 

Puleston publishes two series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, and Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South 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 hero lives and works.

 

I like the Ian Drake novels. Puleston has brought his detective inspector a long way from where his OCD had him in the first book. And Stone Cold Dead is a solid story of how intense police procedure is critical to solving crimes.  

 

Related:

 

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.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Murders for November – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Anti-Semites Scream. And I Stiffen My Spine – Batya Ungar-Sargon at The Free Press.

 

Poet Laura: Trees, Seasons, and Plantings – Michelle Rinaldi Ortega at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Civil War Art: Drummer Boys – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.