Kate Ellis (1)Reseñas

Wesley Peterson is investigating a series of shootings but cannot see any link between the victims. Is another death previously dismissed as an accident related? Meanwhile Neil Watson is excavating what may be an anchoress's cell in an abandoned village.

Slight variation on the usual format with lots of twists at the end. Great fun.

When a tree is blown down in a storm a skeleton and a backpack are found buried underneath it. Could it be the body of a hitch-hiker who disappeared 11 years ago?

Enjoyable mystery with some atmospheric spooky goings-on near the beginning. I had worked out the mechanism that was revealed near the end quite early on even if I didn't know who exactly was involved.

When it comes to blending mystery, history, and an engaging ensemble cast, few authors are better than Kate Ellis. I have been a fan of this series since 1998's The Merchant House, and I eagerly await each new installment.

One of the things I always enjoy is the historical/archaeological element Ellis weaves into her stories, and I've learned a lot about English social history as a result. That said, I do have to admit that the historical element in The Killing Place is not one of my favorites. The eighteenth-century owner of Nesbaraton Hall was one of those entitled snobs who believed he was above the law and should be allowed to do anything he wanted: weird rituals, drinking to excess, and any other sort of debauchery with his chosen chums-- up to and including murder. This is modeled after the Hellfire Club in Buckinghamshire during the same period.

Although the historical element may not have been my cup of tea, there was still plenty to like about this latest installment of a favorite long-running series. The mystery was a strong one, as usual, and it is always a pleasure to catch up with the lives of this engaging ensemble cast. It is definitely a case of diverse personalities coming together to work to solve crimes. Peterson and his team never give up until they've solved the case.

If you happen to be a fan of Elly Griffiths' Dr. Ruth Galloway series, I highly recommend this one to you. If the thought of starting at the beginning of a twenty-seven-volume series scares the pudding out of you, jump in anywhere. In fact, The Killing Place has enough backstory for the characters that you shouldn't feel lost. Give it a try!

Good police procedural with a supernatural twist. Main reason for reading is to guess what street in York ms Ellis is thinking of. Boargate is Swinegate etc. Almost as interesting as the story. Ms Ellis has written one book several times about her city of Ebory

A skull is found in the cellar of what used to the home of a serial killer but is now being re-developed as part of a holiday resort. Did the skull belong to one of the victims whose body was never found or is a copycat starting up?

I certainly didn't see who the murderer was. I felt quite a bit of tension about the fate of a minor character who I hope we will see again. But when will people learn that being a friend or relative of a fictional detective is not safe?

Two people are shot dead in a field. An MP's daughter has gone missing. Wesley investigates while dealing with a crisis on the home front. Meanwhile Neil investigates an automaton buried near a local church.

It all came together nicely but although the extracts from Alcuin's thesis were interesting and kept my attention they did not convince as a piece of doctoral academic writing rather than a popular account of his research.½

Leanne Hatman has gone missing and soon after the man her father accuses of stalking her returns from Sicily her father is found dead. But Wesley Peterson has a more personal issue to deal with.

As usual, an interesting blend of past and present, though I did think one issue was wrapped up rather perfunctorily.

The Bone Garden by Kate Ellis is the 5th book in her Wesley Peterson series of detective novels. Each of the books is set against an archaeological background and combines a very old mystery with modern murder. In this outing skeletons have been found in the ruins of the old gardens at Earlsacre Hall. These gardens are in the process of being restored. The old bones can be dated back to the early 1700s, but meanwhile two recent murders seem to be connected in some way to this old manor house.

Wesley, along with his boss, Gerry Heffernan and other members of the team are stymied in their investigation as they can’t get a proper identification on one of the bodies. Eventually, they put all the pieces together and realize that both the historical murders and the modern murders are wrapped up in identity fraud and once the bodies have been properly identified, the case becomes clear and the murderer revealed.

This author excels in blending both the old and the new together and I thought The Bone Garden was very well presented. With each book a little more information about the characters is revealed giving the reader a better understand of the motivations that drives the narrative. I enjoyed The Bone Garden and look forward to reading more from this author.

I've been a devoted fan of this series since the very first book, and by this time, the entire cast has become family. I love the dual timeline aspect of each book. In Serpent's Point, readers follow along with Wesley and Neil in the present day, but they're also treated to the journal entries of wannabe famous archaeologist Dr. Aldus Claye who lived at Serpent's Point in 1921. Claye's journal entries gave me delicious little shivers because they reminded me so much of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess".

I really enjoyed Serpent's Point because Wesley's friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, has a larger role. When two teenage girls take their metal detectors to a field close to the old manor house, their find brings Neil into what could very well be a monumental discovery. Neil not only gets to dig around in the attic for old documents, but his work in the field also garners the attention of nighthawks, and that leads to a stay with Wesley and Wesley's wife, Pam, who gave me the biggest laugh in the book. The three have been good friends since their university days, and it doesn't take much for Pam to realize that she chose the right man: "...at least Wesley left his work behind once he was home. If she'd opted for Neil, she'd have taken permanent second place to a hole in the ground."

While it's great to catch up with what has been happening with all the characters and get down and dirty in Neil's trenches, I always love trying to put all the pieces together to solve the mystery. This is extremely difficult to do because author Kate Ellis is one of the best at supplying some first-class misdirection. No matter how hard I try, I never figure it all out when I read one of her Wesley Peterson mysteries, and that makes the entire experience such a joy.

If you're a fan of Elly Griffiths' Dr. Ruth Galloway series, I think you'd really enjoy Kate Ellis' Wesley Peterson. Although I recommend starting at the beginning, I can see where doing that with a (so far) twenty-six-volume series could be daunting. You could easily slip into this series with Serpent's Point because Ellis does a good job of supplying enough backstory to answer questions without bogging down the plot. Either way, I do hope you'll consider giving this series a try. It's a winner!

On her way home from the pub on a foggy night, somewhat the worse for wear, Debby Telerhaye is convinced someone is following her. Trying to hide from the stalker she finds a body but by the time she raises the alarm it has disappeared. Despite the police's general scepticism a body of an actress in a stage production of "The Devils" is found in the nearby abbey ruins the next day.

Not as spooky as other entries in the series, but still full of twists and turns. Rather sad that eight years on it is presumably the last in the series but without any sense of closure.

A former hospital for the criminally insane has been converted into flats. In one of them Lydia has repeated nightmares. There are spooky goings-on in the basement. And somebody is reviving the MO of a deceased serial killer inmate. Does Lydia need the help of a policeman or an exorcist?

Exciting despite the use of a technique I think is cheating:
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sometimes giving the killer's thoughts and feelings without letting on that they are the killer rather than relying on outward observation of the characters by the sleuths

This was my Mystery & Suspense group's March group read on LibraryThing. It's always fun with friends that have different opinions, but all agree that reading is loads of FUN!!! In all the books in this series a modern mystery is always investigated by DCI Wesley Peterson and the local police, while his friend Neil, sorts through a historic mystery that is tied to his local archeological work. Much of this book deals with a cold case for Wesley. The cold case was not unsolved, but new evidence comes to light when a witness provides a convincing alibi that may exonerated the man who had been imprisoned for the murder. One of the main strengths of this series is that there are almost always multiple on-going investigations. This one has someone who is poisoning food on the shelves of the local supermarket. The multiple investigations hold your interest and keep Wesley and crew busy, and the pacing is quick enough to keep you turning the pages. The premise of intertwining the historic mystery with the present-day mystery may be a gimmick, but hey, it works! This series is one that can be read out of order, but you see the growth of all the characters much better if you read them in order. My only negative comment is that someone needs to tell Rachel that her unprofessional romantic dithering is unprofessional and becoming tiring.½

I found the historical element in this instalment even less interesting than normal. The present day crime related to the murder of two girls 18 years ago and the two additional time frames made for confusing reading sometimes. The release of the murderer from 18 years ago led on pretty swiftly to the assumption that she might not have been guilty after all, in a way that didn't seem warranted. The resolution was fairly well clued, but the very ending felt unnecessary.½

This book contained so many kidnappings and planned kidnappings that it all got a bit ridiculous. The police were so incompetent in their efforts to get Leah back that I was surprised they didn't all get demoted. Neil's storyline bored me for most of the book, although of course everything came together at the end. I didn't feel the author gave any good explanation of the appeal of Joan Shiner, which made things seem a bit under-motivated.½

SPOILERS

This one was a disappointment. The bogus wedding storyline was obvious from the opening pages, but it took the police 60% of the book to work it out. The extracts from the play which began each chapter were confusing and added nothing for me. The solution to Kirsten's murder was a bit ridiculous - surely it would have made far more sense for Dr Creston to tell his son what he had done and get him to break things off, rather than him telling Kirsten about it - how did he know she wouldn't report him?

And then there's Pam and Wesley and their unhappy marriage... They deserve each other, it's beginning to seem to me. And there was Neil being all disapproving, when he and Pam kissed in an earlier book.

There was a fair bit of repetition in the middle of this book. An officer would be told something by a witness and then repeat it all to a colleague. I didn't really connect to the plot this time for some reason, and I so very tired of Wesley treating Pam as if she and her needs/wishes/career are less important than his.½

I found the various crimes in this novel slightly less compelling than usual - they all seemed a bit distant somehow. Also, when a man is at home with his children, that's called parenting, not baby-sitting.

This was a very strong instalment, which kept me guessing to the end. Glad to see poor Pam getting a few nights off from making Wesley's dinner...

I had a few niggles with this one - Wesley still regarding his son as an inconvenience for his teacher-wife to manage between work and housework, the character of Lewis (specifically what happened to him after he disappeared - really?), and the fact that a large part of the solution to the mystery was so evident from the halfway mark that waiting for the police to catch up was frustrating.

SPOILER

I also found it unbelievable that no one recognized James - he was 17 or 18 when last seen - men don't change that much after that age...½

Another solid instalment, well-plotted with the historical/archaeological mystery mirroring the present-day one. It is irritating the way Pam is expected to bear the brunt of the childcare and housework, despite the fact that both she and Wesley have jobs...

This was well-plotted with likeable characters and a strong Devon setting. The extracts dating from 997AD were directly relevant to the current day investigation and slotted in well. The archaeology was far better integrated than in the recent Elly Griffiths series.

One indication of how much I enjoy Kate Ellis's Wesley Peterson series is the fact that I stay caught up with it. Now that I've read and enjoyed The Stone Chamber, I'm ready for the next book to be released. This is a book-- and a series-- to be savored for its criminal investigations, for the history it uncovers, and for the ever-evolving lives of its characters.

In The Stone Chamber, we learn about anchoresses, devout women who willingly sealed themselves for life into a room attached to a church, although archaeologist Neil Watson and his team learn during their excavation that-- even in the fifteenth century-- there were exceptions to the rule. Readers also learn about the running of asylums in the 1950s, and this was a subject of particular interest to me since a close family member endured some of the same "advanced" treatment during her brief stay in a sanitarium. (Sounds better than asylum, doesn't it?)

I really enjoyed how there was more going on than what met the eye in both stories, while at the same time I worried about Wesley's sick child and wondered if his sergeant was ever going to give birth to her own child. Character-driven readers like me will enjoy this series precisely because there is an excellent cast to concern themselves with.

There were only two slight "head shakers" in The Stone Chamber. One, for the first half of the book, the author mentioned the characters' weight. A lot. (It had to be a lot for it to begin to annoy me.) And two, learning that "...the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act allowed unmarried mothers to be categorized as 'moral imbeciles' and confined in asylums." (I'll see them a moral imbecile and raise them a dozen pompous ignoramuses.)

If you love a book (and an entire series) with an excellent cast, first-rate mysteries to solve, and fascinating tidbits of history to learn, you can't do better than Kate Ellis's Wesley Peterson series. Although it's probably best to begin with the first book in the series, The Merchant's House, it shouldn't be any problem at all to jump in here with The Stone Chamber. You can always go back and read the others once you're hooked.

After reading The Death Season, last year was I pleasantly surprised to receive The House of Eyes a while back from Piatkus. This was a book I really looked forward to reading, I just needed to get some other books done first. The story seemed interesting; A young girl goes missing and her father goes to the police to file a missing person report. But, is she really missing or did she just ditch her job at Eyecliffe Castle to go to London to become a model that she dreamed of and just not tell her parents about it? Or, has something bad happened to her? Could there be some truth in what the father says that a photographer has been stalking her before she disappeared? That's what DI Wesley Peterson has to find out.

Everything sounds interesting, and yet, I just couldn't get into the story. The intro chapter was interesting and hooked me right away with a baby being kidnapped, and then the story just fell flat for me. I couldn't for me life get pulled into the case with the missing girl. I put the book down several times reading other things instead until I finally just sat down to finish the book. And, still, the case just didn't work for me. Oh, there were things here and there that worked, but that mostly was related to the past with the missing girls from the 50s and the kidnapped baby. The last 60 pages or so were where I felt the book truly become a bit better for me and I started to enjoy reading the book a bit more. The conclusion of the book was good, and I loved that the ending felt open for a future book. But, still, I'm really sad that this book just didn't work out for me since the previous book was so good.

One thing that I had a problem with that definitely didn't do this book any favors was the diary notes at the beginning of each chapter. I don't like cursive fonts in books, ever! It's hard to read and frankly, I tend to just browse through the text just to get on with it.

So, despite my love for the previous book, was this just not for me. The story isn't bad, I just felt disconnected with it and the characters. Wesley's wife Pam has some personal problem for instance and I just couldn't muster any concern for her. I do think that readers will like this book, it's not badly written, it just wasn't for me.

2.5 stars

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy for an honest review.

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DI Wesley Peterson is summoned to investigate a possible murder in a hotel room. It looks like routine matter, but then it is revealed that the man used a fake name and the man in question is linked to a cold case; the murder of a child in 1979.

This is the first book I have read by Kate Ellis and I admit that starting with book 19 in a series doesn’t feel like a perfect start. But I never really had a problem with that because I was so enthralled with the story and the characters that I never had any real problem with not having read the previous books. Sure there is a lot of back history, but instead of being hindered by that I just found myself more curious about reading the previous 18 books.

The plot was really good, there were lots of different things going on at the same time, the cold case murder, the murder at the hotel and an archaeological dig at a ruined village that tumbled in the sea during WW1, but all these happenings had connections to each other and let to a thrilling ending.

I liked Wesley Peterson, he is a good police that knows he is spending too much time working and too little with his family and feeling guilty about it. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will go for him in the future, especially since he is working with a DS Rachel Tracey who has feelings for him. He seems to be happily married, but a close working relationship with a woman attracted to him can be dangerous, especially since his wife seems to be a bit jealous of Rachel… no smoke without fire...

I'm really looking forward to reading the previous books in the series since I want to know more about his past and how it must have been coming to a little community as a black police after working at the MET. This crime novel was terrific, great story, great characters. Couldn't find anything with it that I didn’t like!

Thank you Piatkus for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!

The Mermaids Scream is the third book I have read in this series and since this is book 21 have I missed a couple. However, they are perfectly alright to read stand-alone. The cases are closed after each book and the private lives of the characters are easy to figure out and follow.

In this book must DI Wesley Peterson try to figure out why someone would want to kill a young writer, Zac Wilkison, who was writing a biography of the legendary recluse author Wynn Staniland. As that is not enough is Wesley caught up in the case when he and a young friend stumbles over the dead body of Wilkison.

The Mermaids Scream plot sounded more interesting than it was. To be honest, was I not sure that I could finish this book because I found the story to be a bit slow. However, I decided to keep going and see if it would get better. But, alas, this is a story that just never got either really interesting nor thrilling. However, I did find the ending to be OK. And, that is at least something that the book was wrapped up nicely. The historical flashback to the murder of Mary Field through diary notes also something I found more in the way rather than a gain to the story. It felt more like an unwelcome interruption to the story. Personally, I think my biggest problem is that I have a hard time connecting to the characters in the books, which is strange since the first book I read in the series, The Death Season, was fabulous. The two after (including this) has just interested me as much as that one did.

Hopefully, the next one will be better!

I want to thank Piatkus for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!