I have come to enjoy Heather Peck’s Greg Geldard mysteries, and you can read reviews of earlier novels in the series by clicking this link. Yes, Geldard is just one of scores of fictional English coppers vying for our attention as CriFi readers, but the books are well written and the main characters are totally convincing. There is probably a PhD out there somewhere analysing fictional murder locations within the English counties but, quite unscientifically, I suggest that Norfolk would be high on the list. In addition to the Geldard series we have, in no particular order, the Peter Shaw novels of Jim Kelly, the Ruth Galloway mysteries by Elly Griffiths and the recently re-published DS David Smith storied by Peter Grainger.

For the avoidance of doubt, this book may have a rural setting but cosy crime it most certainly is not. Inquisitive old ladies, bumbling vicars and bucolic police constables are noticeable by their absence. Instead we have the skeleton of a woman discovered in an abandoned farmhouse. She is roped to a chair and has been dead for, perhaps, three years. Nearby is a cupboard full of sex toys and, in an adjacent bedroom, there are walk to wall mirrors. Geldard believes this is the stage setting for a snuff movie. His forensic advisors believe that the skull, found beside the chair, was severed while the victim was still alive.

The dead woman is eventually identified as that of a Ukranian film student who somehow found her way into the darker fringes of that particular art form. Diligent investigative work reveals a currently live victim of these perverted film-makers. She is located, and is found on a leaky semi-abandoned cabin cruiser hidden away on an isolated spur of one of the Norfolk Broads.

Here’s what may seem to be an odd analogy. I used to be an enthusiastic angler, and our fishing reels had a kind of clutch which, when playing a big fish, allowed a certain amount of line to be paid out, tiring the fish, but smoothly enough not to cause a line snap. So it is here. Geldard and his team have their quarry hooked, but reeling in their prey requires subtlety, patience and determination. With enquiries ranging from North London HMOs to villages in Ukraine ravaged by the Chernobyl disaster, the purveyors of this most despicable of entertainments are brought to justice.

One of the many joys of this book is that Heather Peck avoids narrative tricks which, in my opinion, disfigure too many modern crime novels. There are no flashbacks, no flash-forwards, and none of the ‘six weeks earlier’ chapters which I have come to know and hate. What we have here is terrific storytelling, intelligent writing, and a thoroughly immersive read. I was particularly delighted that the rather happy ending was graced by someone singing The Parting Glass, an evocative old Scottish song which, in younger days, I sang many times. Killing On The Norfolk Broads will be published by Joffe Books on 22nd September.