Review - "Death Ship"

Death Ship DI Peter Shaw & DS George Valentine #7
by Jim Kelly
rating:☆☆☆
published: 1st December 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

Death Ship is the first Jim Kelly book that I've read, and it's a well-constructed, compelling mystery story. On occasion it felt a little slow, and overdone on the description, and once or twice it veered into purple prose territory, but on the whole it was well-written and held my attention easily.

The book is very detailed, and it's clear the author has done copious research, but sometimes it felt over-detailed, more like an information dump than a story. Those parts were few enough and far enough between that the story didn't drag overly. That being said, I'm not entirely sure that those chapters about the dogfish in the wreckage of the boat were entirely necessary, and I did mostly skim read them.

I had another couple of irritations with the book. For one, they didn't seem to do all that much police work. They interviewed several people, and in doing that seemed able to piece together all that had happened, but there seemed scarcely any work like investigating crime scenes or watching autopsies. But then again, I suppose in the context of the mystery, there was little opportunity for that.

There was also the part where a child aged somewhere between 7 and 10 (I'm not entirely sure), gives a measurement in feet. I know this is being somewhat picky, but I know at that age I wouldn't have been able to give an estimated distance in feet. Maybe metres, but not feet. No one even teaches feet, or feet-to-metres conversion, any more.

Then there was a point where Shaw says something to Jan about her "old man's manor" which immediately makes me think he's referring to her father. But then he goes on to say "he's the father of your children". At which point it occurred to me that he was talking about her ex (?) husband. I would have said "old man" refers to your father, not your husband, but I guess it could sometimes be used in that context.

Overall, this was a solid mystery story, with all loose ends being tied up, villains getting their comeuppance (looking at you Tana French) and with a generally satisfactory ending. Basically all I need.