Accusations abound in the small, close-knit community, and ‘old’ religions spar against ‘new’ while fear runs like. Everything is complicated by demonstrations about fracting in the area, as well as lack of authopsy for a long while in the book. When the ancient waters of Lady’s Well in the rural village of Holystone begin to run red, it seems to be a nasty Hallowe’en prank and nothing more.

The death of one of the locals isn’t as clear cut as everyone seems to think and it’s great seeing the team working together as the case gets more twisted and complicated. Granted, I haven't read the rest of the series, but from this he seemed quite a tedious person whose best features were just a happy coincidence, and that said little about his character (does he have one? It makes you want to visit Northumberland and immerse yourself in the world described so well by the author. This is probably a matter of personal taste, but I disliked the constant references to Trump, Liz Truss, TikTok, influencers, etc.As always, there was an excellent mystery with many red herrings along the way before the solution was revealed. There were several long and very didactic paragraphs about (supposedly) the characters opinions on these topics. Lady’s Well is probably one of new favourites in the series with plenty of twists that had me hooked. However, the rest of it seemed lacking somehow – every other thread outside of the mystery was left hanging.

The banter between Ryan and Frank as well as Franks forced dieting adds some great humor with the case gripping the reader and have them trying to solve it before they do. As I said, these are all there, but they seem to be somewhat eclipsed - or at least interrupted - by references to tedious aspects of modern life. While the mystery was perplexing and well-delivered, the rest of the story was a series of loose ends with the major characters. I know kids are taught that spelling doesn’t matter as long as they make their point I’m old enough to have been taught how to spell and punctuate and this does detract from the story!The Cove" (the first book in her new Summer Suspense Mysteries series) was released in 2021 and followed up by "The Creek" in 2022. The question is whether the problems with the village's water supply caused his death and did Eco-protestor kill himself because he felt guilty for Fred's death? Yes, we get it, he is tall and handsome and upper class and white and privileged, but why does this need to be reiterated so many times? DCI Ryan’s North East Ever thought of retracing the footsteps of DCI Ryan and DS Phillips in the North East of England? I enjoyed it like most books, however the storyline felt a little thin as this just seemed to be a prelude to something more.