Deadman's Pool by Kate Rhodes

I'm delighted to share my review of Deadman's Pool by Kate Rhodes as part of the blog tour. Big thanks to Anne Cater for the invitation and to the publisher for my review copy. 

Kate is a new author to me and I raced through this. 

The Blurb

The islands’ secrets run deeper than the sea…

Winter storms lash the Isles of Scilly, when DI Ben Kitto ferries the islands’ priest to St Helen’s. Father Michael intends to live as a pilgrim in the ruins of an ancient church on the uninhabited island, but an ugly secret is buried among the rocks. Digging frantically in the sand, Ben’s dog, Shadow, unearths the emaciated remains of a young woman. The discovery chills Ben to the core. The victim is Vietnamese, with no clear link to the community – and her killer has made sure that no one will find her easily.

The storm intensifies as the investigation gathers pace. Soon Scilly is cut off by bad weather, with no help available from the mainland. Ben is certain the killer is hiding in plain sight. He knows they are waiting to kill again - and at unimaginable costs.

My Review

This was my first book by this author and I read it in two days. The discovery of a dead body on an uninhabited island opens a murder inquiry but Ben and his team soon find there is more to it than that, and it becomes a race against time which pushes Ben to his limits.

Scilly is an area I knew nothing about until I read this book so that was a plus point straight away. Ben travelling to work on a boat and sailing between the islands was great, as were the descriptions of the individual islands, the desolute beauty of some of them, and the weather battering all the islands and the residents on the inhabited ones. There is just a small police team, a close knit group, with the exception of Ben's boss who seems to loathe his DI, which I didn't understand. The rest of his team, though, look up to Ben and all work well together playing to their respective strengths. 

I liked Ben. He's a nice, straight up guy who loves his family, his dog, his job and his islands. It was nice to have a straightforward police person as a main character, no drink or drug problem, no dodgy ex, etc. Just a loving, supportive wife and a baby son. He is well drawn, and we can see he is a man full of good and integrity. It doesn't mean, though, that he doesn't make the occasional unwise, rash decision! 

Alongside the police investigation we hear another point of view, that of a young woman who fears for her life and that of her family. It was great to have this alongside the main storyline and to learn her significance as the book progresses. The denouement is exciting and full of tension with the occasional heartstopping moment. I really enjoyed Deadman's Pool and look forward to reading more in this series. 

The Author

Kate Rhodes is an acclaimed crime novelist and an award-winning poet, selected for Val McDermid’s New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for her debut, Crossbones Yard. She has been nominated twice for the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library award, and is one of the founders of the Killer Women writing group. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, the writer and film-maker Dave Pescod, and visited the Scilly Isles every year as a child, which gave her the idea for the critically acclaimed Isles of Scilly Mysteries series.