Grey Stones

I was struggling to find anything to read that would hold my attention after finishing Red House and eventually decided to just read the sequel. I stopped myself from reading series books back to back in the nineties when I did it one too many times and decided I was ruining good books that way. Back then at least series often had near cut-n-paste chunks of back story set up in them and that gets tedious and was draining my enthusiasm. I think that happens less often now. And I think authors have got better at writing their books to run together as well. This story was certainly set up in the previous book when Leo arranged to go on a weekend away with some university friends when he was collecting evidence from them.

So Leo, and now girlfriend Jess, are away with friends staying at a posh resort hotel in the Cotswolds. Leo has to run away to cover for a colleague and the case happens to involve the death of someone who works at the resort. It’s an obvious suicide and Leo can get back to enjoying his weekend… except he’s not entirely convinced of that so there’s a lot more to the story.

I really like the combination of Leo and Jess investigating. You can see the author’s background in romance writing as they are both great characters, not at all similar to each other but they have definite chemistry. I think Jess makes a fun investigator, her inability to shut up is the kind of thing I find infuriating but it works really well and isn’t a trait that just appears when it needs to further the plot. In this book she gets left with Leo’s old friends while he’s working and it’s fun to watch her stick her oar in and stir. And Leo is very much the opposite and doesn’t say what he should when he should. Some of the minor characters here were annoying but they didn’t seem unrealistic.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed all four books in this series and I don’t feel that the author tied up all the loose ends and couldn’t write any more. There was plenty that was tied up. And even though I think there were things here that could be read as being seeded ready for the next book in the series, well, if this is all there is to the series then I’m happy,