Each chapter is narrated from a particular character's pov and the author has focused more on what's going inside their heads rather than concentrating solely on the story.

She lives in Birmingham with her wife, three kids and two cats but spends as much time as she can in Dorset, where she spent all her childhood holidays. This author, whether a rising star or a seasoned veteran, has crafted the pages that whisk readers away on this series' journey.They are really easy reads with interesting characters and fantastic storylines with all the usual twists and turns that make a good crime novel. Book 9, The Ghost Village Murders – the final instalment in which the mystery of DCI Mackie’s death is solved. I have to say that I have been seriously distracted by her handling of character mannerisms - shuffling of feet, wrinkling of noses, balling of fists. Altogether there are 20 tales ranging from the Bronze Age warrior dressed in furs and riding bareback who haunts Cranborne Chase to the discovery of a mass grave of mutilated bodies near the Dorchester to Weymouth relief road in 2007. As ever, police have urged anyone with information about any of the cases to contact them on 101 or the free and anonymous Crimestoppers line on 0800 555 111.

If the next book in the series carries on in the same vein I shall be saying "I don't care who killed Mackie" and stop reading the series. These include arguments between lovers with fatal consequences, family murders, child murders and mortal altercations at Dorset’s notorious Portland Prison. On Alice’s death, Richard Parmiter, who was living in Berryman’s house at the time and working as his servant, claimed “he never heard any of them use any speech of sorrowe or otherwise for the said murder”.

McLean’s debut novel was “Thicker Than Water,” which she published in 2018 to much critical acclaim. I have only come across your books recently and have read two of your Dorset mysteries and part way through the first Zoe Finch novel. However, what became of Mrs Green’s money is a little clearer- on one document it is noted that all Green’s goods went to Berryman but “now King Charles is to have all by Mr Melledy(a Sheriff of Poole)his seising thereof which ‘a quod non capit christus rapit fiscus ‘ “ – roughly translated ‘what God does not take, the exchequer seizes’. The main character is very like Helen Mitten in Prime Susoect and hopefully the personality will fill out in future books in this Dorset crime series. She has a reputation for being a straight talking police officer that swears a lot and does not mince her words.

A newborn baby girl found washed up in a bag on Weymouth beach, in 1981, died from compression of the neck, although she was judged to have been healthy when born. BENJAMIN RUMNEY: The body of Benjamin Rumney was found in a wardrobe in his Gillingham flat following a fire there in February 1996. It is evident that Hill, a tailor and a possible suitor of the servant Agnes Beard, did not carry out the crime alone. At the same time, a local journalist has been investigating the death of Lesley's predecessor - and claims to have key information. Even though some people in her team do not like her or the way she talks, nobody can dispute the fact that her methods work.This may well relate to the original trial for the double murder, but nothing else can be found from this period.

JOHN GREEN: Numerous appeals for information have failed to shed any light on the brutal murder of John Green, a 36-year-old stabbed in a frenzied attack in his Branksome office in February 1991. The case opens to Simone who works at the National Trust, being discovered dead in the Poole Harbor nature reserve. In 1856, Elizabeth Browne rid herself of a husband and, in doing so, became the inspiration for Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'.The story gains depth as the new DCI shakes up the team, so each person works with another , varying each day.