I've been reading the more recent of Kate Ellis's Wesley Peterson books back-to-back before starting on her latest one (The Mechanical Devil). The drawback to doing this is that some authors write to a pattern and it soon becomes easy to work out their plots. Not the books by this author! It never fails to amaze me how Kate Ellis can take several, apparently unconnected, murders (in this case over several time periods) and link them all up at the end. Genius!
This one starts with the body of a young woman being found floating out to sea in a dinghy. What is the connection between her death and Jenny Bercival's disappearance almost exactly one year ago? And is there any link to the Palkin Festival, celebrating the life of a local 14th century pirate?
I always enjoy stories with pirates and smugglers, although with Kate Ellis's books the characters are never quite what they seem! I also liked the appearance of DCI Heffernan's daughter, who soon got herself into trouble. I completely failed to guess the identity of the villain but enjoyed tying my brain into knots trying to do so. The only negative for me was that I couldn't quite get my head around the 'Shipworld' website, and wasn't sure if it was supposed to be an interactive game or a blog or both.
Thoroughly recommended, particularly if you enjoy traditional detective stories.
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