Bloodline

See my review of the same author's Pale As the Dead.
This book deals with some of the nastier uses to which genealogy has been put. I thought it was very good and hope that the recent appearance of a more "literary" novel by Ms. Mountain doesn't mean the end of the Natasha Blake series. ( )

I have read a couple of books by this author and I enjoyed because of the family research aspect. Being a researcher myself.
This is the second novel in the series, the first being PALE AS THE DEAD.
"Natasha Blake, receives an anonymous note whilst she is researching the family tree for Charles Seagrove. He has asked Natasha to search into the background of his grandaughters boyfriend.
Charles Seagrove is shot dead at his isolated farm in the Cotswolds, and Natasha is the one to find him.
Obviously the Seagrove family has secrets which connect back to WW2. ( )

I was drawn to this book because the mystery involved genealogy and looking back to World War II as it impacted rural Britain, and on both counts Bloodline delivered a fairly good storyline. But I wasn't as enamored of genealogy detective, Natasha Blake, as I expected to be. Part of that, or maybe most of it, had to do with the constant references to her health (sleeplessness, headaches, tiredness, etc.), which, combined with the constant reminders that she was adopted, was what seemed to pass for character development. Neither added much of anything to the story as far as I was concerned.
On a more technical note, I was surprised at the number of typos in the edition I read (Orion trade paperback 9780752841137), and the number of run-on sentences and fragments in Ms. Mountain's "beautifully written and atmospheric storytelling." I think standard grammar and punctuation would serve her readers better, but that's just my opinion.
An okay book, but nothing I'd go out of my way to recommend. ( )

Natasha is employed to trace the family tree of the fiance of the granddaughter of her client. She gives him the completed tree, with a couple of skeletons in the closet, and the wedding is all but off. Soon after, the client is found dead, and Natasha is drawn deeper into the mystery.

There is a personal resonance for Natasha, when it becomes clear that the family is not all it appears to be. What are the links with a German WW1 soldier, met by the client's father in Nomansland? ( )

Having read and enjoyed Pale as the Dead, the first novel by Fiona Mountain to feature genealogist Natasha Blake, I was very keen to read Bloodline, also featuring the same main character. Although a loose sequel to Pale as the Dead, Bloodline can be read as a standalone story quite easily.

The story this time involves the death of a man for whom Natasha was compiling a family tree, except it wasn't his family that she was researching. She finds herself more and more drawn into the investigation as she is asked by the dead man's son and the police to carry on researching to help them try and solve the mystery of why he was killed.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Not quite as good as Pale as the Dead in my view, but still an excellent read. It's nice to read a crime book that features historical research and genealogy and I really wish Fiona Mountain would write more in a similar vein. I found it fascinating to read as the story unfolded and Natasha fitted together more and more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Recommended to anybody who likes history with a contemporary setting. ( )