Isn't this a lovely and evocative cover? If I saw this in a bookshop I'd pick it up just to see if the inside lived up to it. The Lake District is a part of England very dear to me, because I lived only an hour or so away from there for nearly twenty years. It was a great joy to be able to whizz up the motorway and spend the day wandering in a Wordsworthian sort of way among the lakes, rivers, mountains and waterfalls. Martin Edwards has cleverly chosen to set his latest series of crime novels in this lovely area, though he even more cleverly adapts the geographical location to suit his purposes, so that some bits of it are real and some invented.
This is the latest in what I have only just realised is a series of six. I've read the other five and enjoyed them enormously so I was pleased to be able to get hold of this one courtesy of the kind publisher. But it's the first one I have read as an e-book, on my iPad. And this brings me to the reason why I mention the cover -- because the version I was sent didn't have any kind of cover at all, though probably that's because it came from NetGalley. But this way of reading -- very far from my preferred choice -- really brought it home to me why I so much love real books. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it -- the plot, combining as all the novels in the series do, a cold case with a present day murder, is intriguing, and the relationship between Hannah, the cop, and Daniel, the academic historian, as always tantalisingly near consummation -- but I wanted to be able to hold a book in my hand, to muse over the cover, to flick back through the pages and check on things I might have missed. Oh yes I know you can flick away in Kindle too, but somehow it's just not the same.
Sorry -- just a hobby horse of mine, and perhaps one I should dismount pretty sharpish. Anyway, the novel is atmospheric, the beautiful, though here often gloomy and threatening locations well evoked, the story of a series of very similar and somewhat gothic murders stretching over almost a century properly puzzling, and the characters, as always, attractive and believeable. If you haven't read this series, do give it a go -- though I'd advise starting at the beginning with The Coffin Trail, the first of the series, to get a real understanding of the history of the characters and their somewhat complicated relationship. A quick and enjoyable read, ideal for curling up with on a rainy day.
