Blog Tour Review: The Death Chamber by Lesley Thomson

The Death Chamber (Detective's Daughter #6) by Lesley Thomson

Published: 5th April 2018

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Pages: 400

Available in Hardback and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 5/5

Blurb

Queen's Jubilee, 1977: Cassie Baker sees her boyfriend kissing another girl at the village disco. Upset, she heads home alone and is never seen again.

Millennium Eve, 1999: DCI Paul Mercer finds Cassie's remains in a field. Now he must prove the man who led him there is guilty.

When Mercer's daughter asks Stella Darnell for help solving the murder, Stella see echoes of herself. Another detective's daughter.

With her sidekick sleuth, Jack, Stella moves to Winchcombe, where DCI Mercer and his prime suspect have been playing cat and mouse for the past eighteen years...

Review

The Death Chamber is the sixth book in the Dectective’s Daughter series and this time it sees Clean Slate owner and part-time private detective Stella Darnell and trusty sidekick Jack Harmon head to the Cotswolds village of Winchcombe to solve two murders which have been troubling DCI Mercer for almost twenty years.

June 1977, while celebrating the Queen’s silver jubilee Cassandra Barker spots her boyfriend with another woman and storms off home, never to be seen again. December 1999, Bryony Motson disappears after a night out with two friends. Charlie Brice the man believed to have abducted Bryony leads DCI Mercer to the body of Cassandra Baker, linking him to both girls but sadly admissible evidence meant he couldn’t be charged for either murder.

Seventeen years later and DCI Mercer is on his death bed and he longs for Charlie Brice to serve justice for the crimes Mercer believes he committed and for the mistakes which cost Mercer his glowing career. Daughter Lisa summons detective duo Stella and Jack to help solve the case once and for all.

Stella and Jack head off to the country, Stella reluctantly as she is a city girl who prefers the perks of London life including public transport, wi-fi and electricity and not to mention the distinct lack of mud.  Jack is more enthusiastic about their trip, been in love with Stella from afar for ever Jack jumps at the chance to play house with her alone in the country…plus it gives him time to think about the bombshell ex-girlfriend Bella has just dropped on him…he’s going to be a dad.

The Death chamber is a book which could be read as a standalone but after reading the previous novel The Dog Walker I think you will get much more enjoyment if you’ve read at one of the previous novels. The first third of this book was steady and centred more on the personal lives of Jack and Stella than the actual case. I enjoyed this as having read the previous book it was good to catch up with the characters, if you’ve not read the previous book then you may struggle.

Once the story heads off to the country it’s not long before Stella and Jack are fully immersed in the case and the pace picks up, with a growing number of suspects it turns out to be more complicated than they first thought. With the help of journalist Lucie can Stella and Jack solve the crimes? Who is behind the creepy activity with drones, crows and scarecrows? Will anything happen with Stella and Jack and what exactly is Stella’s secretary Jackie Makepeace got to do with everything?

I really enjoyed reading The Death Chamber, its one of those novels where you just keep reading a bit more and then discover something else so read a bit more and before you know it your husbands home and wondering where his tea is (true story).  I love the way Lesley Thomson has added depth to the story with each of the main characters having their own dramas going on which all tie into and enhance the main storyline instead of detracting from it, very cleverly written.  My favourite character in this book had to be Endora the budgerigar, just because of the witty one-liners she came out with which just made me smile.

I enjoyed everything about this book and really hope we have another instalment in this series soon. Thank you to Head of Zeus for sending me a copy to review and inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

Blog Tour: The Dog Walker by Lesley Thomson

The Dog Walker by Lesley Thomson

Published: 6th April 2017

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Pages:434

Available in Hardcover and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 4/5

Blurb

January, 1987. In the depths of winter, only joggers and dog walkers brave the Thames towpath after dark. Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her riverside cottage. Only her dog returns. 
Twenty-nine years later, her husband has asked Stella Darnell, a private detective, and her side-kick Jack Harmon, to find out what happened all those years ago.
But when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold...

Review

The Dog Walker by Lesley Thomson is the latest book in the Detectives Daughter series featuring Stella and Jack. This time Stella and Jack have been called to a row of terrace houses set along the Thames. Firstly they are called by Natasha Latimer the recent owner of number 1 who has renovated her basement and is now hearing strange noises she believes belong to the ghost of the long missing Helen Honeysett. Jack agrees to housesit and rid the house of its ghosts. Meanwhile Stella meets Adam Honeysett who is still searching for answers surrounding the disappearance of his wife over twenty years ago. Stella agrees to look into the case and soon it’s clear that everyone living in this small terrace along the river has something to hide. Will Stella and Jack manage to find out what happened to young Helen all those years ago or will they reach a dead end.

This is the first novel by Lesley Thomson that I’ve read and it was a book which was fairly easy to get lost in. There were a couple of times when I felt I missed something by not reading the previous books but overall this book works well as a standalone novel.

I liked the initial few chapters where we get flashbacks to 1987 before and after Helen Honeysett went missing as this gave a great insight into all the residents’ characters and how they reacted to the news Helen was missing. This was great to contrast with their characters later on in the novel when Stella and Jack meet them.

The things which struck me the most about Lesley Thomson was how good she is at creating an atmosphere. Almost instantly the little cottages by the Thames had a creepy almost sinister feel about them and I can imagine just how scary the towpath along the river could feel. This creepy atmosphere was definitely heightened when there were scenes at night, which there seemed to be a lot of.

I wasn’t overly keen on the ghost hunting aspect of this novel which Jack seems a big believer in but I guess it did add to the sinister feeling of the book and gives it a unique angle.

Stella herself is almost fifty, this was something I really struggled with. With so many mentions of her father and being around her mother so much I felt she was younger and every time her age was mentioned it threw me a little. 

Overall I found this book and enjoyable read with an engaging storyline which had a few little twists to keep me guessing. I loved the detail of all the characters and the setting which eerily brought this book to life. I’m now intrigued by the relationship of Stella and Jack I hope there is another book in the series to follow.

About the Author

Lesley Thomson grew up in west London. Her first novel, A Kind of Vanishing, won the People's Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel, The Detective's Daughter, was a #1 bestseller and sold over 500,000 copies.     


Thank you to Head of Zeus for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.