Holy Island – L J Ross

DCI Ryan is taking a break, on garden leave after a traumatic last case. He is on the idyllic Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, semi-attached to the Northumberland coast by a causeway covered twice daily by the tide. Then a body is discovered, laid out on an altar stone in the grounds of the ruined priory. The tide is in, and with no local police, DCI Ryan feels obliged to get back in the saddle and take charge.

There is potentially a ritualistic element to the killing, and against Ryan’s wishes an expert from Durham University, Dr Taylor, is sent in to assist. But when Ryan meets the attractive Anna Taylor, he is more than happy to tolerate her presence. For Anna it is also a chance to return to her childhood home where complicated baggage remains.

Ryan has to manage his demons, marshal his meagre resources, overcome the locals’ closing of ranks, and manage his romantic feelings for Anna, while solving the crime (which soon multiplies into crimes as further deaths occur).

The plot rattles along, bumping over a few ‘as if’ moments. The procedural element is strong and remarkably efficient in getting evidence processed and paperwork completed in no time at all. There are false leads and unreliable witnesses to contend with, and those pesky tides, before a climactic resolution in the castle on the hill.

But is it resolved? An epilogue hints not quite – and this is just the first of twenty and counting DCI Ryan books each centred on a Northeast landmark. The sites may be iconic, but based on this read I am not sure if the books will be able to make the same claim.

Still Life – Sarah Winman

The book-packing journey arrives in Italy at the back end of the Second World War.

Outside Florence, Private Ulysses Temper (Temps to his friends) and Captain Darnley have a brief encounter with 64-year-old Evelyn Skinner, who is assisting the Allies locate and identify looted art. Darnley won’t survive the war, but Temps will, despite numerous wounds and a dangerous impulsive rescue of an old man (Arturo) from his roof high above a Florence square.

Demobbed back in London, he finds his wife Peggy has had an affair with a long gone American GI and is with child. They remain amicable and Temps bonds with ‘the kid’, settling into a desultory life with mates Cressy, Piano Pete, Col, and Claude - Col is landlord of the Stoat and Parrot, of which Claude is the garrulous parrot.

Nine years on from the war, word arrives from Florence that Arturo has died and left his apartment to the soldier who rescued him. Temps ups sticks, and sets off to Italy to accept his inheritance, accompanied by the kid, mate Cressy, and Claude the parrot. Cressy has cash from an outrageous bet to invest and they develop the property into a pension for visiting tourists.

The narrative meanders down the next twenty-five years, set mainly in Florence with interludes in London with Peggy and Col, who now and then visit Florence. Meanwhile, Evelyn’s life goes forward in parallel, occasionally brushing up with the other characters without making a connection; her back story emerges. Personal dramas unfold, a highlight being the cataclysmic flood of Florence in 1966.

Descriptions of Florence and its art abound, giving a strong sense of place. The characters are endearing (save the parrot), and their relationships well drawn. Spending time with them makes for pleasant enough reading.

Emily Noble’s Disgrace – Mary Paulson-Ellis

It starts in Portobello, Edinburgh’s seaside, in 2019, at a disused boarding house. It is years since proprietor Isabella Dawson last had a paying guest, at least two years as that is how long her body has lain undetected in the upstairs bedroom. As well as being a recluse, she was a hoarder, and with no relatives to be found, the Office for Lost People get involved and engage specialist cleaners to clear the place.

Enter the first narrator, cleaner Essie Pound, who sifts through the old possessions with an acquisitive eye for the curious rather than the valuable. As she uncovers elements of Isabella Dawson’s life, she also reveals her own uncomfortable back story.

Later in the book a second narrator, or point of view, that of PC Emily Noble, is introduced. She is trying to work her way back into favour after making a couple of mistakes in her short career in the force, one professional and one personal, which just adds to the baggage she carries from traumatic childhood. She gets given many a rubbish job, and her latest directs her attention to the old boarding house.

Essie and Emily, unknown to each other, have a lot in common. Their pasts give them both issues and now each, independently, rummages in the debris of Isabella Dawson’s life, peeling back the generations and cycles of birth, death, comings together, splittings apart, and unsolved disappearances. If only they compared notes …

It has a feel of a Kate Atkinson, but not so well done (no shame there!). Attention is needed to keep track of the plot threads that deliberately mirror or echo each other, but that is rewarded with a satisfying denouement.

A good companion piece to the previous and excellent Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, and the heir hunter himself makes a cameo appearance here. (As does Margaret Penney of the Office for Lost People, who featured in Paulson-Ellis’s first novel – The Other Mrs Walker – which I now feel obliged to read).