A Murder of Crows

De: Ian Skewis

Narrado por: Ian Skewis

The most violent thunderstorm in living memory occurs above a sleepy village on the West Coast of Scotland. A young couple take shelter in the woods, never to be seen again....

DCI Jack Russell is brought in to investigate. Nearing retirement, he agrees to undertake one last case, which he believes can be solved as a matter of routine. But what Jack discovers in the forest leads him to the conclusion that he is following in the footsteps of a psychopath who is just getting started.

©2017 Ian Skewis (P)2018 W. F. Howes Ltd

A Challenge!

I found myself changing my mind several times about who the murderer was in this book! With the dysfunctional police and townsfolk at odds with one another and the victim’s mother crippled by Alzheimer’s anyone seemed capable of being the culprit. The narration was wonderful and added richness to the story. Anxious to read more about the dogged detective.

Go for it - this book is worthy of your time!

The Murder of Crows - a personal review

Quite often a technically clever story can feel contrived, unnatural, improbable. Not so in this case.

The story flows nicely, yet it surprises the reader again and again.

Skewis knows his characters, and they are three-dimensional, true, coherent, and many-faceted. You’ll end up caring about every single one of them. There are no ”extras”, seat fillers among them.

I suspect a lot of life experience has been available to the author, prior to writing The Murder of Crows. And as we all know, acquiring life experience isn’t always a barrel of laughs.

Consequently this book leaves the readers a bit wiser than they were before, and not merely entertained.

The book is not just ”read” by the author - his warm accent gives additional depth and authenticity to the auditory experience.

If I were Ian Skewis, I’d be extremely proud of this work. As I’m not, I’ll just have to be either envious (am a writer myself) or grateful (am also a reader).

I think I’ll choose grateful ;)

MK

where to begin

The author has a lovely voice, and it goes well with his word skill. Normally I find changing speakers offputting, but he handles that well. The story though... well it needs work. Each individual vignette is moving, but the parts are so much greater than the sum. I assume that this book is a lead in to the coming one, and hopefully it will be more cohesive. That I will risk a credit on it(should it materialize) says much about his potential.

4

I did not know what to expect with this book. There was a nurder, apparently, I'm still not sure about this. A hat full of
villagers popping in and out people the pages, Loch Ness makes an appearance, a crow flies in with startling evidence,
dementia takes a bow and a fine detective story appears. A cut above the usual and I recommend it. it should probably be a 5. I'm off to see if Audible has any more by this fine author.

Some irritations

I think that might be the first time ever that a Detective Constable has been promoted straight to. Chief Inspector. I struggled with the story throughout really. Listening as I was walking it was sometimes hard to follow the time frame, the internal monologue of the characters and the general lack of connection which didn’t really build to a crescendo. Thus it was necessary to have a discrete epilogue which revealed all - to no end really.