Tuesday, May 1, 2018

41. Crime on the Fens by Joy Ellis

DI Nikki Galena #1
listened on Audible
2010 Joffe Books
285 pgs.
Adult Mystery - Police Procedural
Finished 5/1/18
Goodreads rating:  4.19 - 3407 ratings
My rating:  3.5
Setting: Contemporary Lincolnshire, England

First line/s:  "A night wind blew along the alleyway, bringing with it the smell of ozone and red diesel. Nikki Galena leaned back against the rough brickwork of the derelict warehouse and wondered how many other women of thirty-six would feel quite so comfortable in such unpleasant surroundings."

My comments:  Read with a thick lilt and including a few references I was unsure of, (the cabra?  Cabra?  since I read it I didn't know if it was a proper noun place or an improper noun place) I enjoyed this mystery (not loved, but liked). Perhaps not the most exciting or surprising that I've ever read, but entertaining nonetheless, more in the characterizations than anything else.

Goodreads synopsis: 
THE DETECTIVE DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she’s seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She’s got tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she’s been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she’s out. 
HER PARTNER DS Joseph Easter is the handsome squeaky-clean new member of the team. But his nickname “Holy Joe” belies his former life as a soldier. He has an estranged daughter who blames him for everything that went wrong with their family. 
THEIR ADVERSARY is a ruthless man who holds DI Galena responsible for his terrible disfigurement. 
The town is being terrorised by gangs of violent thugs, all wearing identical hideous masks. Then a talented young female student goes missing on the marsh and Nikki and Joseph find themselves joining forces with a master criminal in their efforts to save her. They need to look behind the masks, but when they do, they find something more sinister and deadly than they ever expected . . . 
THE SETTING
The Lincolnshire Fens: great open skies brood over marshes, farmland, and nature reserves. It is not easy terrain for the Fenland Constabulary to police, due to the distances between some of the remote Fen villages, the dangerous and often misty lanes, and the poor telephone coverage. There are still villages where the oldest residents have never set foot outside their own farmland and a visit to the nearest town is a major event. But it has a strange airy beauty to it, and above it all are the biggest skies you’ve ever seen.

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