I often think this writer couldn’t write a boring book if she tried, and fortunately she never has.  At first I wondered why this story couldn’t have been set in Exeter with her usual cast of characters, but this is very much a book about York and has a different flavor to it.  It is still a procedural, and still has a link with the past, but this time also with the occult; although it is NOT a woo-woo story.

There is a hint of a haunted flat, but everything else is perfectly possible and even the haunting is atmosphere only, something which could be explained away.  As with all Ms. Ellis’ books, everybody seems to link to everybody else, which is curious in a large city with a floating population, but this is a story which grips with both hands from the first page.  It’s a real detective story with the case being center stage at all times, Joe and his colleagues follow up leads all over the place until they close in on the killer.  I couldn’t put it down, a combination of pacey plot, a highly readable style, plenty of human interest and whiff of the exotic world of those who dabble in the supernatural.  More please — but don’t abandon Wesley!