I did mention this book briefly about a year ago. It’s by Charlie Robinson, blogger, runner and Yorkshireman. To quote Meatloaf, “two out of three ain’t bad”

I’ll be honest, it didn’t start well. I opened it, the binding cracked and a page fell out. The opening didn’t feel good and the proofreading wasn’t great. Then, still suffering from the after effects of Covid, I put it down and didn’t pick it up again, though I kept meaning to. I bought the paperback last year. started it but became ill and never finished it.

It was the first book I bought for my new Kindle after Christmas and the first thing I noticed as I started it again, was that the proofreading seems to have been tightened up. Unfortunately the first section doesn’t really give an accurate impression of the rest of the book.

The other criticism I’d make is that the plotting is a bit complex for my tastes in certain respects (I’m trying to avoid giving anything away here) and it’s a bit too tidy at the end, though I’d still like to see what happens to the characters in a later book..

However, once it gets going it’s brilliant. Characterisation, storytelling, dialogue – all spot on. Great sense of time and place. He says his next book is going to be a romance, which is a shame as his writing style would be perfectly suited to crime. I really feel this paragraph should be longer to balance the length of the criticism I made earlier, because it’s quite clearly a great book. Buy it. Read it. You won’t regret it.