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What starts as an innocent game turns sinister, when a young woman’s bones are discovered. And Jake is thrust once again into the role of detective, as he tries to unearth a dangerous killer in this most unlikely of settings. Find the hottest teen books, connect with your favorite YA authors and meet new friends who share your reading interests! As you know I’m always on the lookout for debut Crime Novels and when I saw Death Under A Little Sky, I was immediately drawn in by the beautiful cover and the premise. And to be honest, the premise of being left a property in the middle of the countryside, sounded like a wish come true to me, but maybe not with these happenings!
Tense but patient, fast but thoughtful, and twisty but substantial – this is a truly excellent debut, and I want the next installment now’ Lee Child It’s told in the third person but almost entirely from Jake’s perspective. There is a prologue that is dark, atmospheric and intriguing, and I was immediately hooked. As a woman stands atop a flight of crumbling stairs, the reader is swept round the neighbourhood, peering through the windows at the various inhabitants…
Talking about one of the characters in the book, the writer explained: “Livia, this wonderful vet who I really like and Jake ends up liking, is also a bit of a nod towards my wife.” Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
It is quite a journey to get to his new home and finds that there is no shower or bathroom but the nearby lake to wash in and the only entertainment he has is the several bookcases of books mainly crime novels and classical music to entertain him. But he grows accustomed to his surroundings and the new way of life. When the bones of a young woman turn up during a treasure hunt, it is among these people that Jake will have to seek for answers. Strangers at first, he and the reader will gradually come to know them, to see their connections to each other – the loves and jealousies, the kindnesses and brutalities, the secrets and the fears. The depth of the characterisation is wonderful, layer built on layer. Many of the characters are eccentric, but none are caricatured – I found each one credible in his or her own life, seeing how the claustrophobia of isolation affects both individuals and community. Stig Abell loves detective novels above any other literature, films, plays or television. This is the first one he has actually written. Away from books, he presents the breakfast show on Times Radio, a station he helped to launch in 2020. Before that he was a regular presenter on Radio 4’s Front Row and was the editor and publisher of the Times Literary Supplement. At one time or another he has written for almost every newspaper in Britain, and one or two in America as well. He lives in London with his wife, three children and two independent-minded cats called Boo and Ninja (his children named them, obviously). Talking about putting together his first fiction crime novel, Stig - who co-presents the Monday to Thursday breakfast show on Times Radio with Aasmah Mir - explained: “I wrote the whole thing before considering publishing it, just for the joy of it really. I wrote 2000 words a day, every lunchtime and afternoon. I wrote it after I finished the radio. Firstly, let’s set the scene, Jake has given up his detective job following a letter from his uncle, leaving him a property in a beautifully depicted rural escape. Jake leaves for a fresh start, but everything isn’t quite as beautiful as it seems following the annual treasure hunt and he winds up pulled into old boots to assist with solving the mystery of an uncovered death!
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Firstly, let's start with the setting.. the countryside.. the author made this superbly atmospheric.. throw in a murder and you've got the perfect story. The fact that the small village was completely isolated from any real civilisation made it a whole lot more eerie. Second in the military crime series featuring Special Agents Scott Brodie and Magnolia "Maggie" Taylor, after The Deserter (2019). I think it was a great debut, i would recommended it to anyone who likes a good detective with a side of realistic reality for the main protagonist, I felt the author normalised the character which made it real for me. I’m interested to see what’s in store for Jake moving forward. Dodelijke Afloop is een Whodunit met persoonlijke sfeer. Je speurt als lezer met Jake mee. Zijn angst wordt levens echt beschreven. Het voelt alsof je hetzelf ervaart. Dit geeft het verhaal body en kracht.
There is also some odd dialogue, very stilted ways of talking even from the policeman Watson (!) And some of the exchanges between the couple made me cringe at times. Jake himself is at the centre and in a sense the whole book is a character study of him, seeing how he retreats gratefully from a world that has become difficult for him, embracing the isolation absolutely but also wondering if this is a temporary healing process or how he wants to live for ever. He is damaged, but so much more authentically than the drunken angst-ridden detectives who bore their way through contemporary crime fiction. Introspective and aware of his own emotional state, he is also empathetic and kind, and those qualities mean that he gradually starts making tentative connections of his own. And he finds in himself a love of nature, of the joy of growing his own food and making things from wood, and of watching the weather and the seasons; all of which Abell writes about beautifully. The pacing was glacial. The character development was non-existent (unless you count getting a tan and growing a beard...) The plot was thin and incredibly dull. The mystery wasn't much of a mystery, the "detective" basically does nothing of value to solve it, and the solution lands in his lap in a last-minute sequence that contained the only real action in the book.There was a mix of characters.. you're usual country folk, the single mum and her daughter.. the criminal tough guys and of course.. the young retired detective [Jake] who has never experienced country life before. I really enjoyed getting to know him, and I hope we will be seeing our off the books detective more in the future. To say there wasn't a huge number of characters, the author did a great job at bringing them life and fulfilling the realistic sense of community you get in a small village. Still overall it’s a decent effort. The writing is pretty good, if a little over descriptive. It did feel a somewhat padded story but the main character was pretty interesting. We have a love interest as well that bulks the book out and some very stereotypical nasty villager types. In het begin moest ik even wennen aan de schrijfstijl, daar het niet als een thriller overkwam, maar meer als een roman die op gang moest komen. Wel is er direct heel beeldend geschreven, waardoor je het idee hebt dat je in het verhaal aanwezig bent. Geleidelijk aan begint er meer spanning te komen in het verhaal en gaat het meer op een thriller lijken. De spanning wordt na ruim de helft van het boek goed opgebouwd en je wordt nieuwsgierig wat er nu gebeurd is en wie dan uiteindelijk de dader is.
The isolated setting worked well, although it was fairly unbelievable that you could have a whole house and modern extension, with some modern fittings, without any kind of access road or lane. There seemed to be no issue with vehicles travelling across anybody’s land (and the locals are hardly amenable.) Het nieuwe leven bevalt Jake prima en hij weet zich goed te vermaken zonder alle luxe van zijn leven in London. Dit zorgzame leven verandert alsl hij tijdens een jaarlijkse speurtocht een tas met menselijk botten vindt. I was looking forward to this novel, I listen to The Times radio so had heard a great deal about it .Stig Abell is a successful and well-known British journalist and this is his first venture into fiction. He has apparently been a fan of crime fiction since his pre-teen years, having followed the same trajectory as so many of us have, via Holmes, Christie, Sayers, etc., and then on to contemporary crime. I wondered if this was going to be a kind of homage to the golden age authors he clearly reveres, but although he references many of them entertainingly, his style is very much his own. And he writes like a dream, making this pure pleasure to read (despite being in the present tense) with a distinctly literary feel. I really enjoyed Death Under A Little Sky, it is a very accomplished well written thriller and was refreshingly different to the norm.
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