As expected this was another excellent episode in what’s rapidly become one of my favourite series.

It doesn’t hurt that I live almost where the book is set; I know the roads and the villages and the scenery and I can pull out my local OS map to find out which bits Booth is inventing and which bits are for real. I’m pretty certain that there is no Withins village though the setting of Withins Moor is definitely there. Now I have to go and find out how much of the history is for real and how much is fictional. But I’ll enjoy crawling round the local library sussing that out.

As well as reading this book in the right place I also read it at the right time. The book is set in April/May and features a group of morris dancers very like the ones I’ve seen performing in Holmfirth this weekend. It’s not often that books collide so closely with reality as this! Whilst I love reading books set in places and cultures that are miles away in both time and space there is definitely something to be said for reading close to home too. Well there is when the writer gets everything as bang on as Booth does.

If forced to choose I’d still say Blood on the Tongue was my favourite of the series so far but this is still an excellent book. I love the way the two main characters are devloping and I like the way that their stories stay open ended and we don’t get to learn too much about either of them in a single book.

More please.