On her first day back at
Cowley station following a period of extended leave, Detective Inspector Susan
Holden has a suspicious death to investigate.
An elderly lady in Sunnymede Care Home has died from suspected heart
failure, but the autopsy has revealed a high level of morphine.
With Sergeant Fox, Susan
Holden heads off to speak to the staff at the care home. On the surface the
home looks reasonably well-run and normal, but as Susan and her team dig deeper
they find that things are not as they initially appeared. One of the staff has been suspended, and
certain staff relations are strained.
And when they speak with the family of the deceased they meet with
hostility and anger, much of it directed at Fran Sinclair, the assistant
manager of the care home.
Whilst the team’s initial enquires were tentative owing to the
possibility of accidental death, the second death is definitely murder, so the
direction of the investigation changes.
For all you lovers of the ‘whodunit’, this is a must read. As Susan Holden and her team delve into the
lives of the family, the care home and the visiting doctors, surprising things
come to light. As the reader becomes gripped with the investigation, we also
learn more of the lives of Susan Holden and her team, Sergeant Fox, and the
police constables Lawton
and Wilson. A well-rounded, cleverly
plotted mystery, set in that capital of crime – Oxford.
The story is
told by multiple voices, interspersed by a first person narrative by David
Wright. Blood on the Marsh is the third in the series, and I eagerly await
the fourth.
-----
Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes
Earlier
books in the Oxford
series are, Blood on the Cowley Road,
and Blood in Grandpont.
Peter Tickler has
lived and worked in Oxford
for nearly thirty years. He also studied at Oxford,
reading classics at Keble
College. Previously a successful non-fiction author, Tickler
turned his hand to novels in 2008.
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