Death Ship

October 17, 2016
The Norfolk resort town of Hunstanton faces the prospect of major change due to the construction of a new pier, in Kelly’s clever seventh police procedural starring Det. Insp. Peter Shaw and Det. Sgt. George Valentine (after 2015’s Death on Demand). An active group of protesters, who believe that the project has been “hijacked by big money and vested interests,” have resorted to vandalism and arson to stop it. Shaw and Valentine must determine whether the opponents are willing to take matters even further after a huge explosion on the beach, which exposes a diver’s net bag that may belong to a missing Dutch electrician. Meanwhile, an elderly woman is caught in the act of handing out chocolates laced with strychnine to strangers at a bus stop. This is the second time that the woman has done so, and Shaw and Valentine are troubled by the absence of any motive. Fully realized characterizations complement the carefully constructed plot. Agent: Faith Evans, Faith Evans Associates (U.K.).

October 1, 2016
The construction of a new seaside amusement pier brings out every activist in Hunstanton Beachalong with every officer in the West Norfolk Constabulary.Its perfectly obvious whos been distributing poisoned chocolates to what seem like random travelers on city buses. Former volunteer nurse Esther Keeble, 72, has been caught red-handed and clapped into a cell. But she stubbornly refuses to tell DI Peter Shaw or DS George Valentine (Death on Demand, 2015, etc.) why she was indulging in scattershot homicide or how she chose her targets. On the other hand, Valentine and Shaw can find no shortage of suspects for an escalating series of crimes surrounding the construction of a controversial new pier: graffiti, arson, anonymous threats, a bomb buried beneath the sand, and the murder of Dutch electrician Dirk Hartog, a recreational diver who never resurfaced from his last dive. Nor is there any mystery about motive: someone clearly disapproves of the project and wants to kill it off. But where to find the malefactor among all the environmentalists and demonstrators like Tom Coram and Anna Roos of Stop the Pier, each of them convinced that the promised development will be a blot on the face of the Norfolk coast, employees like Tad Atkins, manager of the Waterworld pool, whose livelihood is threatened by competition from new concessions, and conspirators desperate to cover up the particulars of an abortive salvage operation two generations ago? Kellys regular cast of coppers, so thick on the ground that they outnumber the suspects, are overshadowed this time, with the emphasis on the shadows cast by some memorably sad souls only halfway motivated to survive their past sins.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2016

Embarking on their seventh case (after Death on Demand) DS George Valentine is investigating an older woman who may be a serial poisoner, while DI Peter Shaw seeks a missing Dutch electrician. Then, an explosion on Hunstanton Beach rips through the air. Is it a World War II UXB (unexploded ordnance) or is it related to the building of a new pier? Everyone in Hunstanton has something to hide.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2016
Part of the pleasure of reading the Shaw and Valentine series, now in its seventh installment, comes from Kelly's use of setting, the way he transforms an actual town, Hunstanton, on the Norfolk coast of England, into a landscape awash in beauty, peril, and hiding places. Watching the detectives' very different personalities and uneasy relationship is another reward. Detective Inspector Peter Shaw, Detective Sergeant George Valentine's superior, once worked for Valentine's father on the West Norfolk Constabulary. Shaw hates and fears water, while Valentine swims, dives, and volunteers on Old Hunstanton's lifeboat. Both Shaw and Valentine have to confront the vagaries of the sea and Norfolk's strange coastline many times in this episode, in cases that strangely inform each other. First, two boys digging on the beach set off an explosion during the crowded summer season. Was it an unexploded bomb from WWII, or a recently planted explosive device? Second, one of the people to whom an elderly woman gave candy at a bus stop dies shortly thereafter. A forensic analysis shows the candy was laced with rat poison. Most chillingly, construction workers in an offshore underwater chamber become dangerously ill. As usual, Kelly laces his mystery with fascinating details about the coastline; here, he's especially adept at portraying the dangerous work within the caisson chamber. This all leads to the discovery of a mystery lying at the bottom of the sea for 60 years. Engrossing and wonderfully atmospheric.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)