This short novel is branded as Fenburne Murder Mysteries 2. I did not read book 1, but picked this up during a free promo.

Fenburne refers to a small town in the UK, where retired detective inspector Sam Hyatt arrives to investigate a cold case murder at the invitation of a school friend whose wife and daughter were the victims of the year-old unsolved crime. This set-up was good, as Sam meets up with the town’s current DI, a woman who trained under Sam. Jodie Walsh was tepid about Sam swooping in, but became his partner in the investigation.

Despite being a short read (listed as 192 pages, but feels shorter), the pace is slow as we follow Sam’s musings about cold cases in general and this one in particular. Sam immediately notices something the original investigation missed and interviews the witnesses, including the man his old friend thinks is the killer. Sam, however, sees something bigger – a possible serial killer.

The plot is linear and moves along in an orderly way as Sam follows the evidence. The reveal is only a mild surprise since there are only a few possibilities.

The writing is a tad repetitive and at times unnecessary dramatic. I was annoyed by the author’s repeated use of the full fist and last names of the characters in narration, long after they were established as the main players, as if we might forget. There were a few copy editing errors, but the prose was pretty good when not suffering from the above issues.

In the end this was a reasonably pleasant story for a long train ride, but without anything outstanding that will make me want to run out and buy the author’s other books

Keep in mind that I am American and this is a British story, so perhaps a Brit reader would like it more.