DCI Maxwell Ryan – Ryan to his friends, enemies and anyone who knows him really – has taken a sabbatical following a devastating case where what he saw as his failure caused a devastating personal loss. Retreating to Lindisfarne – otherwise known as Holy Island – he has been seeking nothing but solitude and peace. But a few days before Christmas, that peace is shattered when a young woman is found dead in a ruined Priory – at a time when the island was cut off from the mainland, meaning the killer must be living amongst the inhabitants.

Pulled back to duty, he finds himself allied with Dr Anna Taylor, a former resident of the island who specialises in pagan rituals, something the marks on the victim’s body point towards, But as more deaths occur and the islanders close ranks, Ryan finds himself on the verge of another tragedy…

Miss me? It’s been a whole two days without a post after what WordPress told me was a seventeen day streak – it even offered me a streak-freeze yesterday, as if blogging was a game… it’s far for serious an occupation! Well, I’m back at work and my summer holiday reads are all but reviewed (apart from a couple of upcoming releases) so it’s back to a more human release schedule.

Not sure how this appeared on my Kindle – probably a 99p offer – but it’s the start of a long series, so if I like it, it’ll give me some more to read. Apparently LJ (Louise) Ross is one of the biggest sellers on Kindle, and I can see why from this.

Ryan is an interesting character, and Ross does an interesting job of setting up his past trauma. It almost feels as if you’ve missed a book, but we are drip-fed aspects of the Hacker case throughout the story as we get to see the extent of what happened that broke Ryan. There is a prequel book later in the series, so maybe that goes into more detail.

Anna is a similarly strong second lead, also having things in her past to deal with, as well as something pretty traumatic in her present as well. What I did think was impressive is that while there were times when I kind of wanted to throw a bucket of water over the pair of them – this isn’t exactly a will-they-won’t-they relationship – but there seems to be real chemistry between them and their personal story is rather touching.

As for the plot, it’s more of a thriller than a clued mystery. I can’t imagine the Lindisfarne Tourist Board were too chuffed about Holy Island being somewhere on a sliding scale from Summerisle to Sandford, as there’s more than one person on the island with some dodgy religious ideas. The plot does include some clichés – two individuals are arrested as the murderer when they aren’t the baddie (or in one case, the main baddie) and the race to the rescue at the end – but to be fair, Ross pulls it off very effectively.

And then there’s an absolute killer of an epilogue…

All in all, I enjoyed this one. Very interested to see how the series progresses, so I’ll probably be back for more soon.