‘Laying Out the Bones’ by Kate Webb

Published by Quercus,
18 January 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-52942-128-6  (HB)

Cold case investigators are usually the poor relations of the police force, but in their first big case D I Matt Lockyer and D C Gemma Broad showed themselves to be a cut above the average by unearthing the truth about a case which had put the wrong person in gaol. But troubled Matt still has something to prove, not least to himself – and to his nemesis, D I Steve Saunders.

The pair are presented with a body which surfaced during recent heavy rain. It’s identified as Lee Geary, a man with borderline learning difficulties. At six feet nine, he looked pretty scary when he was alive, but everyone who knew him describes him as a gentle giant. A head wound suggests he was clubbed to death, but it’s also possible it was an accident.

From Salisbury Plain where Lee’s body was found, all roads seem to lead to Old Hat Farm, a New Age-style commune, which was also connected to the unsolved murder – or possibly suicide – of twenty-year-old Holly Gilbert a few years earlier. That case was investigated by none other than D I Saunders, and shelved because there was insufficient evidence against the main suspects, who are all now dead.

Matt and Gemma have their work cut out. Like their previous case, the investigation revolves around a cast of characters who seem to jump off the page, including Lee Geary himself. In the foreground are slightly fey Trish, damaged Jason whose synaesthesia colours his life, and Vince who is trying to escape from his past. Minor players also come to life; I especially liked – or enjoyed disliking – feisty Stef, stroppy Nina, and capable Jody who seems to appear out of nowhere.

The whole convoluted tale is vividly set against the tail-end of the Covid pandemic during the hottest summer on record; I sweated along with Matt and Gemma as I read in in mid-December! There’s a keen sense of real life going on outside work for both the protagonists. Gemma is coping with an uneasy relationship. Matt’s mother is seriously ill in hospital, his father isn’t coping well, and the long-ago death of his brother keeps raising its head. And his elderly and eccentric neighbour Mrs Musprat throws a large spanner in the works.

Several truths are revealed by the end, some unexpected, others inevitable. There’s even a hint of a happy ending for Matt, left as a teaser for the next in the series. I look forward to seeing how it works out for these two likeable characters.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Kate Webb was born in 1977 and grew up in Hampshire before reading History at Durham University. She has since spent time living in London and Venice, and now lives in the countryside near Bath, UK. Stay Buried is her debut crime novel and Book 1 in the DI Lockyer series. She also writes historical fiction under the name Katherine Webb, which have included several Sunday Times Top Ten Bestsellers and been translated into 26 languages around the world.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.