Broadchurch

July 21, 2014
A police officer haunted by failure gets a chance at redemption with a new case in this uninspired novelization of the hit British TV drama’s first season from Kelly (The Burning Air). Det. Insp. Alec Hardy, a newcomer to the close-knit Wessex community of Broadchurch, looks into the strangulation of 11-year-old Danny Latimer. As the position he takes over had been promised to Det. Sgt. Ellie Miller, fresh off maternity leave, there’s tension from the start, exacerbated by Hardy’s brusque personal style. Broadchurch is well off the beaten path, and Ellie, a long-time local, must confront the disturbing possibility than the killer is someone everyone in town knows well. Predictable red herrings abound, even if the solution will surprise many. In the fall, the series will be rebooted as Gracepoint in the U.S., with David Tennant reprising his lead role.

Starred review from August 15, 2014
Against all odds, Kelly's novelization of the eponymous British TV series, now being remade for U.S. television as Gracepoint, works as both a classic puzzle and an unnerving portrait of a little English town wracked by a young boy's murder. No one in Broadchurch can imagine why anyone would have wanted to kill Danny Latimer. No one can even imagine what the 11-year-old was doing out on his own in the middle of the night when he was strangled to death. His murder is a particular blow to DS Ellie Miller, whose son Tom was Danny's best friend. Ellie's just returned from a Florida vacation to find that the promotion she'd assumed would be hers has actually gone to DI Alec Hardy, an outsider whose last case, another child killing, ended with the presumed murderer going free-something he's not exactly eager to advertise. What he is eager to do, it seems, is model a frigidly disengaged attitude and lecture Ellie about her need to do the same, even though she's known everyone involved in the case forever. Clearly, the killer is someone she doesn't know nearly as well as she thought. Suspicion falls in turn on Danny's father, Mark, a plumber who can't give a convincing alibi for the night his son was killed; phone engineer Steve Connolly, who hears voices that provide clues to the mystery; newsagent Jack Marshall, who employed Danny as a paper boy; young vicar Paul Coates; truculent Susan Wright, who's got Danny's missing skateboard hidden away; and Mark's helper and would-be alibi Nige Carter. As journalists circle Hardy ready to expose his connection to his scandalous last case, Ellie reels under the sickening sense that each new suspicion is more devastating than the last. Kelly (The Burning Air, 2013, etc.) folds a loving portrait of rural Dorset and a well-made whodunit into a painstaking account of the grief and unimaginable pain that follow in the wake of one child's murder.

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Starred review from September 1, 2014

The seaside town of Broadchurch is rocked by the murder of 11-year-old Danny Latimer, a child well known in the community and a close friend to the children of DI Elly Miller. The case is sad and painful for all. Elly and her new boss DS Alec Hardy are not the closest of colleagues at the moment, and the friction between them hampers their interviews and complicates the investigation. She's been passed over for his position and he's licking his wounds from a spectacular failure on his last case. Police resources are stretched thin by the magnitude of the investigation and the press has pounced upon the case. As layers of evidence are revealed, everyone in town becomes a suspect and dark, painful secrets are revealed. The shocking climax rattles the careers of both Elly and Alec and changes the idyllic life in Broadchurch forever. VERDICT Based upon the screenplay by Chris Chibnall for the hugely popular British TV series and timed for the fall 2014 rollout of the U.S. version, Gracepoint, on FOX TV, this unusual novelization by an accomplished author (The Burning Air; The Poison Tree) is a surprisingly well-written and solid thriller. Complex and suspenseful, it stands well on its own and will certainly provide buzz for the upcoming local TV series. [Previewed in Kristi Chadwick's "Pushing Boundaries" Mystery Genre Spotlight feature, LJ 4/15/14.]--Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2014
This novelization of the immensely popular British TV series features DS Ellie Miller, who returns to Broadchurch from a sunny Florida vacation, only to have the proverbial rug pulled out from beneath her. Within 24 hours, she learns that her promised promotion has gone to another detective (an out-of-towner with a notorious past, no less), and the body of her son's best friend has just been found on the town's beach. Danny Latimer's murder is unthinkable in Broadchurch, a picture-perfect tourist spot. But Danny's death disturbs the multitude of secrets teeming beneath the town's placid surface, and Ellie and her new boss, Alec Hardy, have no shortage of suspects among her friends and neighbors, including Danny's father. Ellie thought she was ready to lead investigations, but nothing has prepared her for partnering with Hardy, whose manners reflect no desire to win over his new team and whose sharp observations are off-putting, to say the least. Although she follows the series plot, Kelly takes ownership of this novelization by exploring characters' relationships and unvoiced emotions; she's masterful at weaving unbreakable connections between characters, and then tainting them with fear, guilt, and suspicion. This novelization is a must-read for followers of character-driven police procedurals like those of Elizabeth George, Denise Mina, and Tana French. Those eagerly awaiting the release of the U.S. series based on Broadchurch, called Gracepoint, shouldn't fear spoilers, as the American series is planned to deviate from the British version.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)