‘Cragside’ by LJ Ross

My Review (5 stars out of 5)

In need of somewhere to live, DCI Ryan and his partner Anna have moved to temporary accommodation within the grounds of Cragside, a country mansion near Rothbury, Northumberland. Invited to a Victorian murder-mystery event, Ryan’s detective skills are called upon when the lights go out at the house and a member of the staff is found dead. Though it at first appears to be an accident, Ryan and his team are baffled to discover the dead man’s belongings have gone missing. And then they find another body…

This is book six in the DCI Ryan series and as soon as I started reading it, I knew it had been too long since my last foray into the canny cop’s adventures. As a native Northumbrian (ie Geordie), it’s many years since I visited Cragside, but I still fondly remember the house and it’s magnificent gardens and surrounding woods, so it was a treat to read about a mystery set within its grounds. After Ryan’s previous case – the hunt for the Hacker – the DCI’s concerns are taken up with the possibility of his new boss being someone from his distant past, so an apparent accidental death looks like it won’t take up too much of his time. But, as usual, things take a sinister turn and Ryan is soon hunting down a possible killer.

Ms Ross has a knack for writing vibrant scenic descriptions and the setting for ‘Cragside’ gives her plenty of opportunities to do just that in between bouts of CSI antics and evidence-gathering. The mystery is a clever one, with lots of suspects and a myriad of possible solutions, and from the first page, I couldn’t put the book down.

A great read from the Mistress of Geordie Noir.

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