34. In the Blood - Steve Robinson

#1 Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Crime Mystery

read on my phone through Kindle each night on my trip east in June, 2014

2011

394 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Contemporary Cornwall, England, with flashbacks to 1783 - 1803

Goodreads Rating: 3.82

My Rating: 2.5 Some of the time it was okay, some it wasn't, others it was good....never great, unfortunately (sorry Mr. Robinson...though I will probably try another because I love the concept)

1^st sentence/s: PROLOGUE:  "1803.  Helford Passage, south-west England.  Mawgan Hendry was dying.  If he'd seen it coming then he might have had some chance to prevent it." 

 CHAPTER ONE:  "Air horns screamed!  The air inside the car resonated, buzzing the dash, forcing Jefferson Tayte's eyes wide open."

My comments:  I liked the protagonist, Jefferson (JT) Tayte, a thirty-something, slightly overweight loner who hates to fly and is a genealogist - a really good genealogist, which is his work.  He is self-employed and tracks down hard-to-find ancestors for people. He gets himself into all sorts of crazy, unbelievable situations and then gets out of them somehow.  The plot was a little thin, the characters predictable, the outcome unsatisfying because there were no surprises.  But this was the first in this series, I'll happily try another.

Goodreads Review: Two hundred years ago a loyalist family fled to England to escape the American War of Independence and seemingly vanished into thin air. American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to find out what happened, but it soon becomes apparent that a calculated killer is out to stop him.
          In the Blood combines a centuries-old mystery with a present-day thriller that brings two people from opposite sides of the Atlantic together to uncover a series of carefully hidden crimes. Tayte's research centres around the tragic life of a young Cornish girl, a writing box, and the discovery of a dark secret that he believes will lead him to the family he is looking for. Trouble is, someone else is looking for the same answers and will stop at nothing to find them.