"Smart, beautifully balanced, and with a plot that blasts through defences, this start to a new detective series is an absolutely cracker."
This is one hell of a start to a new series, it’s bitingly sharp and provocative while also empathetic and thoughtful, and I was hooked from the get-go. Seventeen years on from a tragedy where a bus full of children drowned in an accident, the sole survivor turned police officer, teams up with a transferee from the city to solve a murder in the Peak District. I love the way author Sarah Hilary writes, she has the ability to take you into exquisite detail while throwing open doors to new thoughts. She sits on my list of favourite author’s and I can highly recommend her first series, which began with award-winning Someone Else’s Skin, and her following standalone novels. The Drowning Place takes you into a wormhole of possibilities, a chill of supernatural shivers through the pages and I wasn’t sure about its origins, yet I didn’t stop to think, I just put my trust in the fabulous writing and believed. There is an incredible sense of place, not only with location, but also the local population and the consequences of the accident. The characters are beautifully drawn, they felt oh-so real, and I found myself completely invested in their story. A unique partnership forms, and while I absolutely delighted in getting to know Laurie and Joe, the other characters are just as memorable. This is a fabulous introduction to a new policing team, and I have chosen this crime novel as both a Liz Pick of the Month and a LoveReading Star Book. Emotionally intelligent and compelling The Drowning Place is highly recommended as a satisfying and rewarding read.
| Primary Genre | Crime and Mystery |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
Every place has its ghosts.
Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since.
Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe's new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive.
Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present.
But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty…
The Drowning Place features in the following genres: Liz Robinson's Picks of the Month, Recommendations, Star Books, Crime and Mystery, Thriller and Suspense, Crime and mystery: police procedural, Contemporary horror and ghost stories, Crime and Mystery, Crime and mystery: police procedural
The Drowning Place is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Drowning Place was written by Sarah Hilary and published by Harvill Secker an imprint of Random House
The Drowning Place has 298 pages
Yes it is part of DS Joseph Ashe series
£15.29
