This feature is in association with NetGalley.
Many thanks to NetGalley and to Storm Publishing for letting me see an advance reader’s copy of Beautiful Remains by Gwyn Bennett. This is the second book in the series featuring Dr Harrison Lane, fictitious head of the police Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unit.
Dr Lane is called out to a murder investigation in Wicken Fen, but while it doesn’t take him long to start seeing connections to a secret society, the detective in charge of the case takes more convincing. When a second body turns up, in similar circumstances, the detective is forced to take the doctor’s suggestions seriously.
As with Book 1 in the series, there is some head-hopping, but it’s less severe in this instance. Saying that, there are a couple of slips of point of view here and there, particularly with the narrative describing something a viewpoint character would not know. There’s a lot of passive voice usage too and a fair bit of internal thoughts that slow the story down a bit.
This book finally came to life in Chapter 11. But we still had a few names that were too similar. We had two Marks, a Mark Jones and a Tanya Jones, not related, and a Mark James and a James, which can all become quite confusing. And then there are all the ‘which’s instead of ‘that’s. Perhaps a good proofread might have ironed all of these out.
If these kinds of things don’t worry you, then you have a romping good read ahead of you.
I *do* love Dr Harrison Lane, and I love Gwyn Bennett’s books. And I’m certainly looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
Four stars.
