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SensualPoet · 11-05-2010, 11:24 PM

This week I turned to Graham Thomas's first novel in the Erksine Powell series, Murder in the Highlands. It's pretty breezy -- with a welter of Scots idioms -- not too encumbered with deep character development and leaning heaviliy on dialogue and ample description of a fishing retreat in the Scottish highlands. Although Detective Chief Superintendent Erkine Powell of New Scotland Yard is 50-something and wondering if life has landed him quite where he wants to be, there is nothing of the darkly brooding character of Ian Rankin's Edinburgh-based Inspector Rebus. Thomas lays down short-hand markers ... and then gets on with is tale.

Powell, feeling somewhat burnt out, has taken an annual holiday -- away from the wife and two teenage boys -- trying his luck (again) at salmon fishing and meeting up with a colleague, Inspector Alex Barrett and an old friend, Pinky Warburton. Charles Murray, a Canadian mining promoter in the throes of retirement, has bought the local castle which controls the river rights of Powell's favourite hotel retreat. Before he's had a chance to get out his rod, the mining magnate turns up quite dead in the waters. With two police inspectors off duty but onsite, and a well-known Canadian dead on foreign soil, Powell's vacation comes to a screeching halt. We get to know the hotel staff, the castle staff, Murray's daughter and some of the ins-and-outs of penny stock mining business. (Canadians might recognise Murray Pezim in the murdered magnate ... I'm just saying ....) As with any good mystery, there are a couple of handful of characters who might have done it and, slowly, Powell eliminates one after another until, staring him in the face, is the one clue he refused to accept from early on.

I loved the atmosphere, and very much enjoyed the Scots idioms peppering the tale. Powell himself is pleasant enough that I'm intrigued to read the next in the series, although I can't say the character is drawn in nearly as compelling a way as Spenser, Rebus or Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. But entertaining? Oh, yes.

A reasonably cheap e-book read at both Amazon and Fictionwise; around $6.

11-05-2010, 11:24 PM	#137
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	This week I turned to Graham Thomas's first novel in the Erksine Powell series, Murder in the Highlands. It's pretty breezy -- with a welter of Scots idioms -- not too encumbered with deep character development and leaning heaviliy on dialogue and ample description of a fishing retreat in the Scottish highlands. Although Detective Chief Superintendent Erkine Powell of New Scotland Yard is 50-something and wondering if life has landed him quite where he wants to be, there is nothing of the darkly brooding character of Ian Rankin's Edinburgh-based Inspector Rebus. Thomas lays down short-hand markers ... and then gets on with is tale. Powell, feeling somewhat burnt out, has taken an annual holiday -- away from the wife and two teenage boys -- trying his luck (again) at salmon fishing and meeting up with a colleague, Inspector Alex Barrett and an old friend, Pinky Warburton. Charles Murray, a Canadian mining promoter in the throes of retirement, has bought the local castle which controls the river rights of Powell's favourite hotel retreat. Before he's had a chance to get out his rod, the mining magnate turns up quite dead in the waters. With two police inspectors off duty but onsite, and a well-known Canadian dead on foreign soil, Powell's vacation comes to a screeching halt. We get to know the hotel staff, the castle staff, Murray's daughter and some of the ins-and-outs of penny stock mining business. (Canadians might recognise Murray Pezim in the murdered magnate ... I'm just saying ....) As with any good mystery, there are a couple of handful of characters who might have done it and, slowly, Powell eliminates one after another until, staring him in the face, is the one clue he refused to accept from early on. I loved the atmosphere, and very much enjoyed the Scots idioms peppering the tale. Powell himself is pleasant enough that I'm intrigued to read the next in the series, although I can't say the character is drawn in nearly as compelling a way as Spenser, Rebus or Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. But entertaining? Oh, yes. A reasonably cheap e-book read at both Amazon and Fictionwise; around $6. Last edited by SensualPoet; 11-05-2010 at 11:29 PM.