The Shrine

A DCI Ryan Mystery

By: L. J. Ross

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the number-one international best-selling author of Holy Island and Impostor. 

A murder for the history books.

After a long and eventful winter, DCI Ryan and his team are looking forward to the joys of spring. But, when one of their colleagues is shot dead on her own doorstep and the brass think it’s an inside job, Ryan finds himself drafted in to investigate.   

He’s barely scratched the surface when reports flood in of a terror explosion at Durham Cathedral. Chaos descends on the sleepy, historic city and, when the smoke clears, they find a priceless artefact that once belonged to Saint Cuthbert is missing.   

With tensions running at an all-time high, unable to trust the local police, can Ryan and his team bring a killer to justice — and restore Cuthbert’s cross to its natural resting place?   

Murder and mystery are peppered with romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunit set amidst the spectacular landscape of County Durham.

©2020 LJ Ross (P)2020 Audible, Ltd

The Shrine

Wow, another great DCI Ryan book, I am absolutely hooked! Already can't wait for the next one! I am going to reread them all, so wish they could make a TV series out these books, would definitely be a success. The narration is as always, excellent.

Half a book

I wish I had known that this was half a story. Although five hours is rather short for a novel, I thought the mystery would be resolved. So many questions were left unanswered regarding before the story begins and after it ends, it appears to be a few middle chapters. The narration was very good.

Excellent..

Another wonderful book about Ryan, Anna, Frank and MacKenzie. This time Anna is caught in an explosion and she’s hurt pretty badly, and Ryan is out for blood. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end with this book. It’s not a cliffhanger but the story will go on about Cuthbert’s Cross in the next book.

No romance and no swearing.

As to the narration: Love, love, love Jonathan Keeble.

Bewildered

This story had a lot going for it but was Spoilt by a rediculous ending.

cliffhanger

This was an engaging police procedural with a totally unsatisfactory conclusion. I dislike cliffhangers.

The shrine is excellent!

I had read The Shrine when it first came out. My husband and I were driving home from Denver to Wisconsin—1,000 miles—and I thought he would enjoy this book! I’ve read all the DCI Ryan books but my husband hasn’t read any. We have a fond spot in our hearts for Durham Cathedral and figured that this was the one to listen to! We both enjoyed it! Thanks, LJ Ross!

Too short

This audio started off well enough but ended too quickly seemed like half a story. Otherwise great writing as usual.

So short

I used to love this author and buy all the books. Now they are around only 5 hours and are part of a 2 parter, so you end up having to buy 2 very short books at full price to read part 2 . This is just greed. I am going to stop buying them now. What a disappointment . Now looking for a new series

Where is Part 2?

Without researching whether there is a second book to continue the story, I can only register some frustration at the short length of this book and the lack of a conclusion.
I don’t generally purchase books with a duration less than 8 hours because I tend to finish them in a few days!
This was an exception because the Author’s other DC Ryan stories have been excellent and the Narrator is one of my favourites.
If there is more to the story, then I would have preferred a longer book. Most of LJ Ross’ books are around the 8 to 9 hour mark.

Excellent Mystery - Great Characters

OMGoodness – I have found a wonderful new-to-me author and mystery series. I came into the series at the sixteenth book, but I fully intend to go back and start at the beginning because I enjoyed this one so much. I loved the characters; I loved the setting; I loved the mystery; I loved the writing style, and I can’t believe I’m just discovering them.

I used the Whispersync feature with this book, so I listened to the audio of some of it and read some of it. I liked the narrator’s voice as it was very smooth and flowed nicely. However, he didn’t seem to have a very wide range of voices – the females sounded like males with high voices and the male characters just sounded kind of raspy rather than distinctive. That said, I still enjoyed the listen – just not as much as I would have if there were a wider voice range.

Detective Chief Inspector Maxwell Finley-Ryan and his wife, Dr. Anna Taylor-Ryan are happily awaiting the arrival of their first child. As Ryan muses, “For all the tragedies he’d known, Ryan considered himself a lucky man and never more so than the day he’d found Anna—the other, better half of himself.” Now, they are bringing a child into the world.

Never do they expect two tragedies to befall them – almost at the same moment. Are they related, or are they just coincidences? Detective Chief Inspector Joan Tebbutt is brutally gunned down right at her front door. “She heard the motorbike before she saw it and, when she did, there was no time to react. The first shot penetrated the side of her neck and, as the pathologist would later remark, she might have survived that.” At almost that exact same time, Rose is gravely injured in a bombing at Durham Cathedral. “In addition to the head trauma, your wife has several broken bones in her right arm and ankle. She’s also suffering from moderately severe smoke inhalation.” With two of their own dead and injured, DCI Ryan’s team will leave no stone unturned – there will be no hole deep enough to hide, nor any corner far enough away to hide these despicable criminals. The team will find them and see that they are punished – fully – under the law.

The best way to handle both cases is to divide and conquer, so the team divides up and each part takes a different case. Their leads lead them all over the place – from terrorists to fraud, to vendettas, to – well, you name it and there is some of it in the story.

While we see who the murderer is, we don’t see the mastermind in the wind-up of this story. I assume the next book will see more of his/her machinations and then, maybe his final punishment. So, it isn’t exactly a cliffhanger, but we don’t get a total wrap-up of the story either.

I definitely enjoyed this read and cannot wait to get started on the first fifteen that I missed.

Last season of GOT esque.......

I love the DCI Ryan book series and am usually on tenterhooks over the plots. The story is made more gripping by the brilliant Jonathan Keble. Whom incidentally I believe ought to narrate everything on Audible. This book however reminded me of Game of Thrones final season. In fact when it said epilogue I thought the audiobook had skipped to the end of the story missing out the remaining chapters. I double checked and nope it wasn’t the app that had skipped the rest of the story, it was the author. I’d rather wait longer for a full book instead of several lesser works. I just hope that this isn’t going to set the tone for future books.

well talk about 'letting it hang there' !

This book started really well , although a little predictable (LJ is nothing if not predictable). The story was bobbing along then stop, the end. I thought at first it had not downloaded properly and that there was another dozen or so chapters because the story didnt end it just stopped ? i won't say much more about the plot because you may read/listen to it yourself .
I don't doubt there is a 'sequel' but I feel ' I was robbed ' ! Books are too expensive to be short changed in such a dissapointing way .

not value for money

A tired format,. Also we pay a lot of money for these books and they shorter and shorter

No resolution.

I'm not sure that ending the book on a cliff hanger is satisfactory. Is it a way of getting people to pay more by cutting a book in half, I presume another book will come along to finish the story. I really don't like this in a book or on TV, which is where you usually see these kind of tactics, in fact it's irritating more than anything.

Where’s the rest of it ?????????

Like a lot of other reviewers, I feel cheated by this book. It doesn’t even pretend to be complete. At a little over 5 hours it’s clearly only half a book, but this is not reflected in the price. LJ Ross has done this before with her DCI Ryan novels. Frankly, I’ll stop buying them if she continues to do so. The story is the usual fast paced DCI Ryan and the characters are developed a little further, but I would have liked an end to the story.

incomplete story

i have been a big fan until now but left confused by ending. It felt like a first instalment. Am feeling disappointed....

poor story

Felt as though it was churned out in no time, just to publish yet another DCI Ryan story

Crime, what crime?

Gave up after first five chapters - all about personal relationships between detectives. No sign of any detecting.

DISAPPOINTING

Stumbled to an uninteresting conclusion. Had promise initally. Too bad as writing was quite okay.

Brilliant

I loved everything about this book, can’t wait for the next part!
I’ve given it five stars for everything,great story,favourite characters and wonderful narration, couldn’t ask for anything more