‘One More To Die’ by Joy Ellis

Published by Joffe Books,
18 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-80573155-9 (PB)

The sight of a new Joy Ellis book always gives me happy glow because I know that it will be a good.  The fact that One More To Die appears to be a non-series book is also tantalising.

Our first encounter is at Sunday morning breakfast when we meet the Carter family, father Tom, son Eddie, daughter Chloe, and Timmy, the youngest.  A telephone interruption calling mother, Detective Inspector Kate Carter of the Serious Crime unit, into work has young Chloe Squealing ‘Get Carter’.

The incident she’s called to, initially looks as though a drunken driver has miscalculated the sharp bend on the fen lane, but a closer look reveals that the number plate is fake, the driver’s licence doesn’t belong to the dead man, and the car tyres don’t match. Even more interesting is a 1960’s pop record in the glove box. Then a neat puncture mark in the driver’s neck says this was no accident.

The following day the body of a young woman is found who it is established has been dead at least two years. The really weird thing is that placed on the body is another vintage pop record.

Clearly, there is much to investigate and DS Geraldine Wilde, Kate’s detective sergeant is quick to admit they need to know a lot more, and here comes the forensic pathologist Colin Winter, nicknamed Cold Colin as he is reputed to be as cold as one of his own cadavers. 

Then the telephone calls start, with a man singing Kaa-tie, Kaa-tie, and Kate recalls that she had found a note on her windscreen but thrown it away thinking it just a prank. Then a mysterious package arrives at the station addressed to Kate with a chilling note ‘One More to Die’. Kate realises that she's being pursued by an obsessive stalker.

One does hear about ‘stalkers’ but I had not really taken on board the damage to a family they can do. One can’t let ones’ children out of one’s sight, but parents have to work.  So, their whole life has to change. As I read the disruption one person can make to a families’ life, I found it terrifying. Is Kate in the killer’s sights?

On a different note, we meet Barney Capstick, who rents a not too good room from his landlady. Miss Enid Houghton who owns the large house where he and several other's live. As a gardener he would love to restore the grounds of Enid’s house, but Barney barely has the courage to say Good Morning to Miss Enid Houghton. Could he possibly overcome this? Probably not. 

Marvellous characterisation. Cleverly plotted.  A complex mystery that kept me turning the pages. Thanks so much, Joy Ellis, for yet another gripping, fascinating and absorbing story.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Joy Ellis was born in Kent but spent most of her working life in London and Surrey. She was an apprentice florist to Constance Spry Ltd, a prestigious Mayfair shop that throughout the Sixties and Seventies teemed with both royalty and ‘real’ celebrities. She swore that one day she would have a shop of her own. It took until the early Eighties, but she did it. Sadly, the recession wiped it out, and she embarked on a series of weird and wonderful jobs; the last one being a bookshop manager
Joy now lives in a village in the Lincolnshire Fens with her partner, Jacqueline. She had been writing mysteries for years but never had the time to take it seriously. Now as her partner is a highly decorated retired police officer; her choice of genre was suddenly clear. She has set her crime thrillers in the misty fens.   

www.joyellis.info