It’s DI Caren Waits first day on the job at the West Wales Police Service. She wants to make a good impression, but the first thing that greets her is a murder investigation.
A drug dealer is founded dead at the foot of Paxton’s Tower, an abandoned structure known for its spectacular seacoast views and notoriety for being a drug distribution site. It’s a death with few clues, no witnesses, and leads that have to be eked out. One thing it does have is controversy – a local anti-drug activist is soon organizing public meetings to claim the police aren’t doing their job and could be doing far more.
Waits worked for DI John Drake in the North Wales Police Force, and she sticks to procedure and protocol. She’s determined to solve the murder. But then a second murder in the same place puts the investigation – and the protests – on steroids.
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| Stephen Puleston |
Despite her newness to the job, Waits demonstrates intelligence, experience, and grit. She’s a single parent, with her husband having been killed in an automobile accident a year before, although there’s some murkiness about both the husband and the death that promises new twists in the future.
The Paxton’s Tower Murders is the first is the new DI Caren Waits crime series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It’s an auspicious, well-plotted story for beginning a series. (And a second novel in the series is due to be published in a few days.) It’s part of Puleston’s writing style to develop the story so that the reader always knows what’s going in the narrative and the characters’ minds.
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:
My review of Written in Blood.
My review of Another Good Killing.
My review of Against the Tide.
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
The World is in Love with America – Chris Arnade at The Free Press.
Kurt Vonnegut’s Ambivalent War on AI – Hoel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.
Magazine.
Does Nick Clegg believe in original sin? – The Critic Magazine.
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