Death on Clevedon Beach - Betty Rowlands

Death on Clevedon Beach: An absolutely addictive English cozy mystery novel by Betty Rowlands
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ten books into the Sukey Reynolds series and we've seen quite a few changes. I mentioned in my review of the last couple of books that they marked a change of direction for the amateur detective, as she finally managed to join the ranks of the CID and become a 'real' detective. This book was in many ways, much more like the first few with Sukey now firmly established with a reliable and returning cast of supporting characters. From that point of view, I enjoyed it much more than her first couple of mysteries as a member of the police.
This time we see Sukey involved in the investigation of a suspicious car crash and a body that has been chopped to pieces and washed up on a local beach. At first glance, there seems to be no connection between the two crimes, but as Sukey looks into them further, there are a couple of things that suggest that there might be a link.
Although the story does revolve around a fairly gruesome discovery, the book still has a level of lightness which means that it isn't particularly hard to read. It doesn't rely upon the horror of the crime or focus upon the stomach-churning aspects of the murder.
On the whole, I enjoyed the mystery, as I always do with this series. I will say that this one did seem slightly looser than the previous stories. There were a couple of leaps that I felt pushed it even for a detective book. There were also a couple of things that didn't quite make sense. A friend of a character in the night club appearing from nowhere for no apparent reason and I'm sure that Sukey's son Fergus was attending a different university in previous books. These are just small niggles and as I've read so many of the books in the series already and so feel Sukey to be an old friend I'm happy to let them go. There aren't many more of these books to come, I'll be sad when I get to the end.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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