As per usual, Kate Ellis grabs my attention on page one and keeps me on tenterhooks to the final full stop.

Great crime writing. ( )

While the Petersons are on holiday in the South of France, Wesley is asked by someone he knew at uni to check up on the guy's girlfriend when he gets back to Devon. When he does get back, Wesley's focus is on a body burnt alive in a field due to be developed into a housing estate.

Twisty fun but there were some interesting tangents that weren't followed up which I would have liked to have seen developed. ( )

While DI Wesley Peterson is holidaying in France with his wife he runs into an old acquaintance from his university days. Ian Rowe asks Peterson to help him investigate what’s happened to Nadia Lucas, a woman he knows back in England who has suddenly stopped phoning and emailing him. Before Peterson can talk to him further Rowe disappears and Peterson heads home not thinking much more about the issue. Back at work (in a fictional town in Devon) he’s soon in the thick of a murder case involving a woman who was deliberately burned to death in a nearby field. Due to imminent property development on the site an archaeological dig is being carried out there, led by Peterson’s old college friend Neil Watson. He discusses with Wes the legend associated with the site, that a woman was burned to death there in the 13th Century, and they visit a professor who has some history with the site and a sinister habit that might have implications for the case. There are death threats, affairs, unexplained deaths, a Richard Branson-esque character and in what is virtually a text book example of the English police procedural.

I did enjoy the way the plot unfolded in this one. It’s a labyrinth of twists and turns and those moments when you think you have it all worked out only to find that you’re wrong again. Ellis kept it all hanging together beautifully though, tying up the loose ends and linking things together in an easy to follow way. Rather than a single build up of tension from beginning to end the book has several arcs where things build up then one element of the story is resolved (or so you think) and then it all starts building up again.

I think perhaps I suffered from having read none of the earlier books in this series as the characters seemed a bit distant to me. Peterson for example seems quite detached from his personal life as I only ever remember him referring to his children a kind of amorphous blob known as “the children” rather than by name and he has virtually no interaction with them. And other than his boss, a somewhat tactless and outgoing DCI, we really don’t see enough of anyone else to develop a strong picture. But it’s probably unfair to judge character development in a long running series only by what you can pick up in a book so late in the series.

Overall I found this an enjoyable read with a plot that kept me interested from start to finish. There was so much going on, including interludes of an ancient mystery, that there wasn’t a single moment to get bored. Ellis is a fine writer and I will be investigating her other series featuring DI Joe Plantagenet which is only 3 books old and looks like something I might be able to sink my teeth into.

What about the audio book?

Peter Wickham is a new narrator to me but hopefully this is not the last book I listen to of his as I found him terrific. I don’t think I would recommend this book to audio book novices though, with such a complex plot and so many characters I think it might be a little difficult to follow if you’re not used to using your listening skills (I know I had to work my way up to really complex books, otherwise you tend to spend a bit of time re-winding). ( )

First Line: "This is the place."

While on vacation in the south of France at Carcassonne, Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson and his wife Pam meet someone Wes went to university with but hasn't seen since those days. The man, acting cloak and dagger, says that he's worried about a woman in the Tradmouth area, but when he asks for a private meeting with Wes, he doesn't show up. Wes, marking it down to the man being as unreliable now as he was in university, tries to put it out of his mind. For some reason however, the whole thing has caught the imaginations of both him and his wife.

When they return home, Wes is immediately drawn into the murder of an unidentified woman who was burned to death in a field-- which ties into a local legend of a woman who was burned to death in the same area in the thirteenth century. An archaeological dig was conducted there twenty years ago, but all the records of it have disappeared. Now another dig must be done before a housing development can be built. Slowly but surely, all the threads of secrecy and murder are drawing together in one dangerous knot that Wesley Peterson has to untie before anyone else dies.

Having been plagued with reading some mediocre books in the recent past, I turned to Kate Ellis to bring me out of my mini-slump. My ploy worked like a charm. Through thirteen books in this series (I'm lagging two books behind-- on purpose), I've come to know and care for these characters, and I always love Ellis's trademark blending of an ancient mystery with a present-day one.

It was good to see a copper actually take a vacation, and what made the vacation even more special was the fact that Wesley's wife, Pam, was drawn into the investigation. Pam has always been the character that I've liked the least due to her seemingly willful misunderstanding of her husband's job. But in A Perfect Death, she was interested in what her husband was doing, and I'm hoping that her fledgling understanding will continue to grow in future books.

The only thing that was a bit off for me was the length. Even though the plot kept my interest and the pace maintained a steady flow, the length of the book just felt a bit too long. It could be residual funk left over from the bloated books I've read recently, but I don't think so.

Even with that one small complaint, I greatly enjoyed this book and consider the entire series to be one of my favorites. The characters do evolve, and none of them are bullet-proof, so if you're wondering if you can read them out of order, the answer is yes, but you're going to miss out on the full effects of Ellis's well-drawn characters. ( )

I'd pretty much given up on this series. Despite enjoying reading the books I was finding the closely coupled present day and historical mysteries a bit much. Find my previous write-ups for more detail!

However I was trawling the library for books to take on holiday - to Dartmouth - and though it'd be fun to read another of these and see what the characters were up to. The books are set in a thinly veiled version of Dartmouth known as Tradmouth in the story. And indeed it was fun to read a story set in the place I was staying and not get my knickers in too much of a twist about plotting coincidences. Fun, and I'll probably dip back into the series in future. ( )