A Good Way to Go

March 2, 2015
In British author Helton’s diverting third mystery featuring Det. Insp. Liam McLusky (after 2012’s Four Below), the Bristol police detective looks into the murder of an unidentified woman, whose body is found chained by the neck to a buoy in a canal lock. The discovery of another corpse adds to McLusky’s soaring stress levels, the result of trouble at work and a separation from his wife, Laura. In an attempt to give up cigarettes, he takes up eating candy bars, but ends up consuming both, sometimes at the same time, along with a healthy supply of comfort food, such as ready-made Indian meals and fish and chips. In a parallel plot line, Det. Insp. Kat Fairfield investigates a mysterious man who purloins women’s underwear for nefarious purposes. Helton’s knack for humor and the imperfections of humanity, both exemplified in the hapless, affable McLusky, winds up being far more interesting than the efforts to catch either the killer or the women’s clothes fetishist.

November 5, 2012
British author Helton's amusing fourth Chris Honeysett mystery (after 2008's Rainstone Fall) takes the bumbling PI and artist from cold, wet Bath to sunny Corfu, at the behest of a supermarket mogul worried about a valued employee, Kyla Biggs, who disappeared there while on holiday. Afraid to fly, Honeysett sets out in a dilapidated motor home with a stowaway cat, a postcard sent by Kyla from Corfu's Niko's Taverna, and Greek language tapes. Once on the island, Honeysett manages to locate fellow artist and friend Morva Lennox, who's living in a remote, abandoned village. Honeysett's aimless search for Kyla nets him a tail from someone in a blue Toyota, warnings from numerous sources, and increasingly weird and dangerous "accidents" at Morva's place. When lover Annis Jordan arrives and Honeysett finds Niko's Taverna, things heat up and the puzzling pieces fall into place in a dizzy, ditsy fashion that matches Honeysett's investigative techniques.

January 1, 2013

Artist and PI Chris Honeysett welcomes the chance to work in Corfu but finds the idyllic setting isn't quite paradise. This is the fourth case (after Rainstone Fall) for the idiosyncratic sleuth.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2015
The third Liam McLusky procedural finds the British detective inspector looking into the apparently ritualistic murder of a woman. There's not a lot to go onthe body was found in the water, weighted down, which doesn't leave a lot of forensic evidencebut when a second body turns up, McLusky is convinced there's a connection between the victims, although, at first, he doesn't have a clue as to what that connection might be. A serious story with more than a sprinkling of humor (although the tone here is overall heavier than that of the author's better-known Chris Honeysett series), this is the kind of book that stands or falls by the strength of its lead character. Fortunately, McLusky is such an engaging, well-rounded character that we will gladly follow him wherever he leads us. The story is well crafted, but it's McLusky, whose determination and wits make him a first-rate investigator, who keeps us turning the pages. This could be a long-running series, if the author can keep up this level of excellence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)