Castle Kidbury, like all small towns, hums with gossip but now it's plagued with murder of the most gruesome kind. Jess instinctively believes that the hippyish cult camped out on the edge of town are not responsible for the spate of crucifixions that blights the pretty landscape. Her father, a respected judge, despairs of Jess as she infiltrates the cult and manages, not for the first time, to get herself arrested.
Rupert Lawson, a schooldays crush who's now a barrister, bails her out. Jess ropes in a reluctant Rupert as she gatecrashes the murder investigation of DS Eden. A by-the-book copper, Eden has to admit that intuitive, eccentric Jess has the nose of a detective.
As the gory murders pile up, there’s nothing to connect the victims. And yet, the clues are there if you look hard enough.
Thank you to Sian at ED Public Relations for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour, I'd previously bought the Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death eBook so it was the perfect opportunity to finally get around to reading it.
I really didn't know what to expect when I started reading Jess Castle an the Eyeballs of Death, I mean the title alone is a bit macabre, but what I didn't expect from a crime novel was to laugh so much!
Jess Castle really was a quirky character who just couldn't help herself but get caught up in the middle of the police investigations especially when they appear to be Paganistic rituals which is her area of expertise. When we first meet Jess she is returning home to Castle Kidbury, it's clear that she's running away from something but equally it's a reluctant return to her family home as she has a strained relationship with her father but she hasn't anywhere else to go. But what a return, she had no sooner pulled into the village when she could see police activity on the hill and just has to drive by and take a look to see what's going on.
Castle Kidbury was your typical small country town where nothing much normally happens and everybody knows everyone and their business so as you can imagine one death causes waves so when it looks like there's a serial killer on the loose then of course the talk of the town goes into overdrive. Everyone appears to have a variation on how they were killed and the bodies were left, some of the explanations were simply so absurd. I couldn't help myself but laugh out loud at their descriptions, the comedic writing of these scenes was pure genius and certainly lightened the mood.
Despite the gruesome nature of the killings thankfully the details from the authors wasn't too gory, there was just enough description to paint a picture and set the scene. The whole storyline was so well crafted that anyone could have been a suspect and I was constantly on the lookout for clues trying to figure out who the killer was and their motives.
As for the characters they were a colourful bunch and we were certainly introduced to a fair few of the town's residents, some had a more prominent role to play than others but I suspect that we may see the others coming to the fore in the future books in this series. From Bogna, Judge Castle's housekeeper, who has changed everything about the household that Jess was used to, to the Judge himself who took a little time to warm to, and Rupert, a friend of her brothers and her childhood crush.
Add into the mix the town's mayor Patricia who HAS to know everything, to Mary, Jess's outgoing Irish friend, who is a hoot; locals Danny and Squeezers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and find themselves chatting to DS John Eden and DC Karen Knott. Then of course there are the people and local businesses that are the lifelines of small towns, such as Richard and Doug in the charity shop where Jess decides to volunteer, Graham at Dickinson's Books and Meera and Morya who run the local cafe The Spinning Jenny.
The authors M.B. Vincent, a husband and wife writing team, have written the perfect book for fans of cosy crime novels as it has everything you could expect and want from this genre, bizarre killings, mystery and intrigue, red herrings to throw you off track, characters that you will love and hate, with a dash of romance for good measure. Bring on book 2 in the Jess Castle series
I really didn't know what to expect when I started reading Jess Castle an the Eyeballs of Death, I mean the title alone is a bit macabre, but what I didn't expect from a crime novel was to laugh so much!
Jess Castle really was a quirky character who just couldn't help herself but get caught up in the middle of the police investigations especially when they appear to be Paganistic rituals which is her area of expertise. When we first meet Jess she is returning home to Castle Kidbury, it's clear that she's running away from something but equally it's a reluctant return to her family home as she has a strained relationship with her father but she hasn't anywhere else to go. But what a return, she had no sooner pulled into the village when she could see police activity on the hill and just has to drive by and take a look to see what's going on.
Castle Kidbury was your typical small country town where nothing much normally happens and everybody knows everyone and their business so as you can imagine one death causes waves so when it looks like there's a serial killer on the loose then of course the talk of the town goes into overdrive. Everyone appears to have a variation on how they were killed and the bodies were left, some of the explanations were simply so absurd. I couldn't help myself but laugh out loud at their descriptions, the comedic writing of these scenes was pure genius and certainly lightened the mood.
Despite the gruesome nature of the killings thankfully the details from the authors wasn't too gory, there was just enough description to paint a picture and set the scene. The whole storyline was so well crafted that anyone could have been a suspect and I was constantly on the lookout for clues trying to figure out who the killer was and their motives.
As for the characters they were a colourful bunch and we were certainly introduced to a fair few of the town's residents, some had a more prominent role to play than others but I suspect that we may see the others coming to the fore in the future books in this series. From Bogna, Judge Castle's housekeeper, who has changed everything about the household that Jess was used to, to the Judge himself who took a little time to warm to, and Rupert, a friend of her brothers and her childhood crush.
Add into the mix the town's mayor Patricia who HAS to know everything, to Mary, Jess's outgoing Irish friend, who is a hoot; locals Danny and Squeezers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and find themselves chatting to DS John Eden and DC Karen Knott. Then of course there are the people and local businesses that are the lifelines of small towns, such as Richard and Doug in the charity shop where Jess decides to volunteer, Graham at Dickinson's Books and Meera and Morya who run the local cafe The Spinning Jenny.
The authors M.B. Vincent, a husband and wife writing team, have written the perfect book for fans of cosy crime novels as it has everything you could expect and want from this genre, bizarre killings, mystery and intrigue, red herrings to throw you off track, characters that you will love and hate, with a dash of romance for good measure. Bring on book 2 in the Jess Castle series
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