Deadly Remains (2025) by Kate Ellis

Barry Brown came to South Devon to write a book. He had made a career ghost-writing celebrity autobiographies, but he has come into possession of some information that could give new life to his career. But rather than giving him new life, that information may well be what caused him to be murdered.

With Barry’s laptop stolen, DI Wesley Peterson and his team have precious little to go on. While they investigate Brown’s famous clients, Wesley’s son is helping Dr Neil Watson excavate a crashed fighter plane. As the excavations proceed, bodies are found nearby – but none of them died in the crash. As the two cases being to overlap, it seems that someone is determined to keep things buried.

Why is it so many of my favourite authors publish their new books in August? I know I have a Grand Puzzly at the end of the year, but sometimes I think that winning the Puzzly for August (or September) is a feat to be reckoned with. This is true by the way, I’ve already had one well-known author tell me that they’re waiting for the announcement of this month’s Puzzly. You see, I do have influence (of a sort).

But back to one of my absolute favourite authors, Kate Ellis, not just because she writes great books, but because she’s a lovely person too. The first author I met in person after starting blogging and one who never disappoints. This is the twenty-ninth in the Wesley Peterson series and it’s a winning blend of familiarity and originality.

I was reading another police procedural the other day and it just seemed so ordinary. A police team, at least one of which was an absolute a******e, there was a serial killer… who knows, it might have grown into something but I won’t be finishing it any time soon. With Kate’s series, you get a team of competent, likeable police investigators with a complex-but-followable plot that twists and turns in unexpected ways, with a second plot literally being unearthed about past events that ties into the main story.

You might be daunted by coming into a series at book twenty-nine. Yes, there is development in the lives of the lead characters across the series, but there’s no major traumas – apart from one fairly early on, come to think of it – so this really is a series that you can jump into at any point.

This one is a very good example of the series – as with the best of them, there’s a real sting in the tail – and it makes very good use of Michael, Wesley’s son. There’s plenty of misdirection along the way, and hints along the way as to what is really happening here. There’s a good distinctive selection of suspects – despite a large cast, I never found myself getting confused as to who was who. This might seem to be an odd thing to be pleased about, but trust me, for me this is a very important thing.

All in all, a very satisfying read. Fans of the series will love it and people new to the series will find themselves hunting out twenty-eight new books to read.

Many thanks to Kate and her publishers Little Brown for sending me a review copy in exchange for a review. It’s out now in ebook and hardback.

The Wesley Peterson Series: