#BlogTour-‘Murder In The Fens’ by Clare Chase

About the book…

When the body of twenty-year-old Julie Cooper is found – her pockets stuffed full of wilting flowers – in an iron-age hill fort on the edge of the fens, Detective Tara Thorpe and her team are called in to investigate. The evidence points to an illicit affair gone wrong… but is there more to the story?

As always at the Cambridge constabulary, the case turns personal. Detective Blake is exhausted after the arrival of a new baby with wayward wife Babette, and Tara is keen to put as much distance between herself and Blake as she can – both at the station and on the hunt for the killer. Charming rookie officer Jez is the perfect distraction… but is he a little too good to be true?

Then Tara makes a startling breakthrough when she finds an unsettling family heirloom hidden in the late victim’s bedroom – a golden statue of a sinister-looking cat with emerald eyes. As she traces its origins, Tara begins to realise that Julie’s murder is no one-off crime, but a sinister plot with its roots in a terrible secret that was covered up decades earlier.

An unputdownable page-turner, perfect for fans of Faith Martin, Agatha Christie and Joy Ellis.

After loving ‘Death Comes To Call’, when Noelle Holton of Bookouture was looking for blogtour reviews for book 4 in the Tara Thorpe series, I was there like a shot!
The Cambridge setting is instantly familiar as we , the readers, find ourselves walking through shady woods and coming across a body.

We share the dismay and horror that Tara and her team feel at the waste of such a young life, Julie is on the final leg of her university years, a passionate political and environmental activist who is about to be involved in some exciting research with her uni fellow.

But was this openly political figure making too much of a name for herself in the small town? Was it her ex-boyfriend, who has been suspended from the rest of the academic year,or had Julie been involved in too deep with her protests…and is there any significance to the flowers that the had on her person?

Alongside this, the characters of Tara, her sidekicks Max Dimity and Jez are developed in  a way that builds on the previous 3 novels whilst not excluding an incomer. This is what I like about the Tara Thorpe mysteries, she is immediately relatable and yet not a cardboard cut out detective, she is very much her own person with a back story that is yet to be fully revealed. Her long term stalker has resurfaced and sleep is not coming easily…

On the other hand, the developments in Blake’s marriage with his errant wife is giving me cause for concern-is he being used or does his wife really want to be back with him? There are more secrets to be teased out here yet you never feel that Clare palms the reader off with a ‘we’ll pick this up next time’ approach that other writers do when they reach a dead end in the plot.

She skillfully juggles personal and professional lives, builds up the suspense which neatly contrasts with the expectations of what life in a university town is like whilst leaving the door open for future plot developments. It reminds me of the Ruth Rendell Wexford mysteries or Midsomer Murders, in that on the surface these places appear quaint, charming and steeped in tradition.

However, scrath the surface and something rotten stirs underneath….

Thanks to wonderful bookpusher Noelle Holton and the Bookouture team for my gifted ebook copy of ‘Murder In The Fens’!

About the author…
Clare Chase writes women sleuth mysteries and recently signed a three-book deal with Bookouture for a new crime series set in Cambridge. The opening book, Murder on the Marshes, is available for pre-order and will publish in July 2018. The mystery follows investigative journalist Tara Thorpe as she teams up with Detective Garstin Blake to solve the murder of a young female professor at Cambridge University. The case takes them through the dark underbelly of Cambridge and in to the murky fens that surround the centuries-old city. The second and third books in the series are out now!

After graduating from London University with a degree in English Literature, Clare moved to Cambridge and has lived there ever since. She’s fascinated by the city’s contrasts and contradictions, which feed into her writing. She’s worked in diverse settings – from the 800-year-old University to one of the local prisons – and lived everywhere from the house of a Lord to a slug-infested flat. The terrace she now occupies, with her husband and teenage children, presents a good happy medium.

As well as writing, Clare loves family time, art and architecture, cooking, and of course, reading other people’s books.

Clare’s debut novel, ‘You Think You Know Me’, was shortlisted for the Novelicious Undiscovered Award 2012, and an EPIC award in 2015. It was also chosen as a debut of the month by Lovereading.

Links-http://www.clarechase.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClareChase_

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10204574.Clare_Chase

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClareChaseAuthor/

Purchase Links-https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Fens-utterly-gripping-English-ebook/dp/B07Q36TPG8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NFGNU8YLNH6X&keywords=murder+in+the+fens&qid=1561448514&s=gateway&sprefix=murder+in+the+fens%2Caps%2C269&sr=8-1

http://www.bookouture.com/