A Meditation on Murder: A gripping and uplifting cosy crime mystery from the creator of Death in Paradise: Book 1 (A Death in Paradise Mystery)

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His second in command Camille Bordey, a beautiful woman with the intelligence to match that, is always annoyed by her so quintessential English boss who at tropical temperatures still wears his woolen suit and who is so incredibly smart and a fickler for details. Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean's most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. As a big Agatha Christie fan myself, this book reminded me of her style, and I’m eager to continue with the rest of the series. And in true fashion, I read it in the voices and mannerisms of each of the other Monore Police officers.

This comes up in Poole’s investigation: ‘Someone he couldn’t quite see, but who was still influencing events.

One with an intelligent but peculiar and eccentric detective inspector who invariably solves the murder crime in the end. Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life as leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean's most unspoiled islands, Saint Marie.

We follow the island detective team in this well paced story as it moves forward to a classic “Agatha Christie-ish” showdown finale wherein Richard and his team confront all the usual suspects, with Richard going through them one by one, outlining why he thinks each person could have done it, but why he thinks they are innocent – until he gets to the guilty party. I think my only main criticism of the book was that it was a bit long, so at times my attention would temporarily flag.Let me start by saying that I haven't seen nor do I know anything about the BBC series this book is based on. The characters from the show, particularly Richard, are recreated absolutely perfectly, their voices and individual quirks completely intact. This odd group of talents always get underestimated but at the end of the case anybody still doubting their talents has probably not paid attention. The comedy is handled really well, and plot twists are clever but gentle: just the way cosy crime should be. It wasn't until after I finished reading A Meditation on Murder that it occurred to me: Thorogood is still working on Death in Paradise, so he's unlikely to develop Richard and Camille's relationship in the books, given that the series appears to be persisting in trying to make Camille/Humphrey a thing.

She confesses to his murder – but can’t explain how she did it, or how the knife came to be in the room. As a classic whodunnit, some clues reveal themselves to our detective team slowly and we try to solve it through the book. If you're at all familiar with the formula of the show you'll probably know who the killer is almost immediately. In other words, can anything happen in these stories that hasn't already happened in the series (say, vis-à-vis Richard and Camille's relationship.To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. Sent to this small Caribbean island from England to fill in for another inspector, Poole is still there, stuck somewhere that he loathes.

It definitely kept me guessing throughout the story and the revelations were very gripping and satisfying. Information is often repeated in dialogue, in a way that would probably make sense spoken aloud, but looks like unnecessary padding when written down. One murder victim, five suspects and a room no person entered or left; the classic murder in a locked room conundrum. Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: Leader of a Spiritual Retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean’s most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. Now if only Thorogood can keep writing Death in Paradise novels forever with Inspector Poole and Sergeant Bordey, that would just fine with me.I am the author of The Pocket Detective, The Pocket Detective 2 and How to Survive a Classic Crime Novel. I'll be honest it is difficult to be objective about the characterisation in this book because I'm unsure how much of my prior knowledge I used while reading, but suffice to say Richard Poole a detective dispatched from Croyden to police the island was instantly recognisable, as was the rest of the team. I only figured out it was based on a TV show when I read it and saw the faces of the actors on the back of the novel (It didn't occurred to me to study the covers prior to reading it). I enjoy how Poole quickly shows using logic and physical evidence that a seemingly straight forward crime is a more complex one and that we don’t have endless pages of the sleuth basing their actions on a vague hunch before finding something more tangible to support their ideas with.