Easter bank holiday weekend looks like it might be a relaxing time for DCI Ryan, but when he’s called to a crime scene in a Newcastle cemetery, a bizarre murder sets him off on the trail of a killer. Meanwhile, Lowerson and MacKenzie take a trip up to Rothbury to check out what appears to be the natural death of an older woman. However, the case isn’t all it seems and it begins to look as if they could be looking for a second killer. When another body is discovered in a cemetery, Ryan and his team face growing pressure, and to make matters worse, a name from the past is lurking on the horizon—someone is plotting revenge…
This is the fourth book in the DCI Ryan series and as with the others, is a stonking good tale, though the writing isn’t quite as tight as the first three books. Throwing poor Ryan into yet another murder mystery with a bit of a twist, Ms Ross gives him lots to think about as he searches for the killer in a series of bizarre murders. In this volume, there’s a new Chief Constable, who naturally wants results yesterday. And while Ryan’s love interest takes a bit of a back seat, the focus moves to redhead Mackenzie who is the recipient of a number of unsettling messages. As always, the author weaves a clever plot that kept me guessing all the way to the end, and just in case we thought it was all going to be alright, she brings Ryan’s past terrors back to haunt him. Nice.
NB It’s worth saying that the plot involves a bit of Catholic-bashing, which I didn’t mind at all, but some folk might find offensive.
Colin Garrow 
A great review, Colin.
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