The Plague Maiden by
Kate Ellis
pbk out September 04
(Piatkus)
at £6.99
A pleaser for fans of the traditional English mystery with not a serial killer, string of
expletives nor sickeningly detailed autopsy in sight. Ellis draws on her personal
interest in history and archaeology in her crime series where plots combine current
day misdeeds and past wrongdoings. In this tale an archaeological dig in a Devon
village appears to have uncovered a mass grave. Archaeologist Neil Watson thinks it
is a plague pit but when a far more recent set of remains are found among the bones it
falls to his friend DI Wesley Peterson to find out who-is-it and then who-dun-it.
Peterson is already snowed under looking at an alleged miscarriage of justice as well
as a case of deadly food tampering involving the local supermarket chain. As the
diverse plots get first tangled together then unknitted we find as many as six possible
contenders for the killer. There's also plenty of understated sexual and domestic
tension to spice things up: Peterson is the unwilling object of a lovesick colleague's
affections, he has an ongoing reluctance to get home to his heavily pregnant wife and
their toddler even when the job allows and Neil Watson seems a little too comfortable
when he ends up staying with the family. These threads could perhaps have been
exploited even further, they aren't all resolved - to be continued in the next instalment
instead.
Manchester Evening News 31.1.04
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
The Plague Maiden by
Kate Ellis
