Genre: Comedy, crime, mystery, errrrrrm

Stars: 4

Links: Amazon UK, Amazon US, and Waterstones.

 

The Blurb:

Ghost and Ragman Roll is Book 4 in the bestselling Kind Hearts and Martinets crime series, featuring the eponymous Portsmouth detective DCI Jack (Jane) Austin.

DCI Jack Austin is trying to enjoy his honeymoon with Detective Superintendent Amanda Bruce. But it soon becomes a busman’s holiday (or the crime busting equivalent) with news of a turf war in Portsmouth, a missing obese gangster who turns up skinny, and the seemingly unconnected murder of a banker in Paris.

When an ambitious new detective arrives on Jack’s patch and starts making waves, he knows the time has come to get back to Southsea and protect not just his rather tarnished reputation, but those who truly matter to him.

Ghost and Ragman Roll is another criminally funny romp with the world’s greatest – or is that worst? – police detective, DCI Jack (Jane) Austin.

 

My Review:

Comedy crime is incredibly hard to get right, but Pete Adams does it again in this latest installment of DCI Jack Austin (for my review of A Barrow Boy’s Cadenza, see here). Although part of a series, this can be read as a standalone.

When Jack’s honeymoon is disrupted multiple times by members of various spy communities, it is time to return home. Throw in a new detective, a few dead bodies, a couple of mysteries, and some strange undercurrents, and things go from bad to worse…

Hilarious yet thrilling, fast-paced yet character-focused, this is a book of extremes, and all the better for it. Slapstick comedy on the page, with the occasional overdose of slang, this had me laughing out loud and hiding behind my hands in equal measure. The suspense was slow-burning, yet the mysteries were not. A fun, thrill of a ride. Recommended.