Patrick Lennon

The first as well as the best so far of the series set in Cambridge and the fens. DI Tom Fletcher is brought in when an incident which at first appears to have been a horrific accident turns out to be one of murder.An employee at a farm machinery outlet is found half-consumed by a tree-shredder. Several other deaths occur in quick succession and it soon becomes apparent that someone is out to exact a terrible revenge on members of the local fen-land community.
A local pagan festival called 'The Thinbeach Wedding' seems to be the magnet for the killer,who is planning something rather different than the villagers are expecting during the event.
The writing describes the countryside around Cambridge wonderfully and most of the characters are suitably weird. An original idea which keeps you reading to the last page.… (meer)

By rights this book should have been first-rate. It has the atmospheric setting of Cambridge and the fens. It has Witches and the Witch-finder general killing and torturing them in an earlier age It has a Second World War American air-base which was engaged in top-secret weapon experiments. in the present day there is a maniac who kills with a specially adapted crowbar. It's all there folks. Why then does it not work?
The main reason is that although the setting is well described,the characters most certainly are not. Tom Fletcher is merely a cypher and the other main characters are little more than shadows.
The story of a man in search of his past is fairly well done but by golly by the last couple of chapters I was left thinking ' Oh,for goodness sake,get on with it !'
Such a shame,as I really wanted to like this book.… (meer)