Series Update
Talk Book Discussion : The Skeleton Room by Kate Ellis
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2Carol420
Overall Series Avenge thru book 6 – 4.17
Most Popular Book: The Merchant’s House
Least Popular Book The Armada Boy
Overall Averages Thus Far
The Merchant’s House : 4.50
The Armada Boy: 3.50
An Unhallowed Grave – 4.07
The Funeral Boat - 4.25
The Bone Garden - 4.25
A Painted Doom - 4.45
The Skeleton Room -
The Merchant’s House - Kate Ellis
DS Wesley Peterson series Book #1
We meet Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, who has just been transferred from London to Tradmouth, an ancient coastal town.
He is married… has a degree in archaeology…and is black.
His boss is D.I. Gerry Heffernan, an affable widower.
Wesley and his teacher wife Pam have arrived at a stressful time in the village. Two-year-old Jonathon Berrisford has been missing for days and, almost as the Petersons arrive, the murdered body of a young woman is discovered by Dorothy Truscot on her daily walk to Little Tradmouth Head.
A more cheerful event is Wesley’s meeting with old friend and classmate Neil Watson, working for the County’s Archaeological Unit on a nearby dig.
He and his team have already unearthed two skeletons…one infant…one adult, from what was once the cellar of a 17th-century house.
Meanwhile, Wesley and D.C. Rachel Tracey, searching for the identity of the murder victim, have settled on local model Karen Giordino…until she turns up very much alive after a trip abroad.
There’s more success when the name of Shirley Carteret surfaces and proves to be the one they’re seeking.
Why had she deserted her apartment in the house of elegant Mrs. Hughs? Where is the steady boyfriend who wears an earring? Who was paying into Shirley’s bank account every month, and what was her connection with Mowbray Clinic and its Dr. Downing?
A flood of questions with intriguing answers…all made more meaningful by excerpts from a 17th-century journal heading every chapter.
There were 6 participants in the discussion
Overall Average : 4.50
The Armada Boy - Kate Ellis
DS Wesley Peterson series Book #2
Norman Openheim is an American veteran of the D Day Landings on a sentimental journey with his old unit to their West Country base.
His body is the last one archaeologist Neil Watson expects to find in the ruins of an old chantry chapel.
Neil naturally turns to his old friend from student days, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, for help.
Ironically, both men are looking at an invading force - Wes, the WWII Yanks, and Neil, a group of shipwrecked Spaniards reputed to have met a sticky end at the hands of outraged locals as they limped from the wreckage of the great Armada.
Local memories are retentive, and Wes is soon caught up in old accusations, resentments, and romances from fifty years before.
But the coolness of Openheim's wife Dorinda, and her reliance on a fellow veteran in the party, offers an all-too-familiar motive for murder.
As if that is not enough, a belligerent group of homeless youths are also under suspicion: then another veteran's wife disappears.
Wes's case grows more perplexing, while Neil uncovers a tragic story from the distant past.
Over four hundred years apart, two strangers in a strange land have died violently - could the same motives of hatred, jealousy, and revenge be at work?
Wes is running out of time to find out.
There were 5 participants in the discussion
Overall Average: 3.50
An Unhallowed Grave - Kate Ellis
DS Wesley Peterson series Book #3
When the body of a middle-aged woman is found hanging from a yew tree in Stokeworthy Churchyard, the police suspect foul play.
But the victim is an unlikely one. Pauline Brent was the local doctor's receptionist, respected and well liked. She seems to have no real enemies-and yet someone killed her.
Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, a detective recently transferred to the quiet, West Country English village, is determined to discover the truth and, once again, it is history that provides him with a clue.
For Wesley's archaeologist friend, Neil Watson, has excavated an ancient corpse at a nearby dig: a woman who had been buried at a crossroads, on unhallowed ground.
It appears that the body is that of the same woman who local legend has it was publicly executed in the churchyard centuries before.
A chilling echo of the fifteenth-century lynching, Pauline Brent's death forces Wesley to consider the possibility that the killer also knows the tree's dark history.
Has Pauline been "executed" rather than murdered-and if so, for what crime? To catch a dangerous killer, Wesley has to discover as much as he can about the victim. But Pauline Brent appears to have been a woman with few friends, no relatives, and a past she has tried carefully to hide.
There were 6 people in the discussion
Overall Average Rating : 4.07
The Funeral Boat by Kate Ellis
Wesley Peterson series Book #4
When young Carl Palister unearths a skeleton on a Devon smallholding, DS Wesley Peterson and his boss Gerry Heffernan are called in to investigate.
Heffernan is convinced that the remains are those of Carl’s father, a local villain who vanished from the Tradmouth area three years before.
Wesley isn’t so sure . He discovers evidence that suggests the skeleton is a good thousand years older than they first thought.
A talented amateur archaeologist, Wesley is intrigued by the possibility that this is a Viking corpse, buried in keeping with ancient traditions. But he has a rather more urgent crime to solve-the disappearance of a Danish tourist.
At first it appears that Ingeborg Larsen may just have gone away for a few days without telling her landlady, but Wesley finds disturbing evidence that the attractive Dane has been abducted.
Gerry Heffernan believes that Ms. Larsen’s disappearance is linked to a spate of brutal local robberies and that Ingeborg witnessed something she shouldn’t have.
But is her disappearance linked to far older events? For it seems that this may not have been Ingeborg’s first visit to this far from quiet West Country backwater.
There were 6 participants in the discussion
Overall Average : 4.25
The Bone Garden - Kate Ellis
Wesley Peterson series Book #5
Five bodies, two centuries, no waiting.
We have corpses… two buried under an 18th-century garden plinth, the one beneath a centuries-old shell grotto… one beside a cricket field…and one in a holiday caravan park.
All become the responsibility of DS Wesley Peterson… archeology buff and sidekick to DI Gerry Heffernan at the Tradmouth stationhouse.
The cricketer was timid solicitor Brian Willeby, who rang up Peterson for a confidential chat but died before they could meet.
Did his demise have anything to do with the ownership of venerable Earlsacre Hall, recently sold by Charles Pitaway…the last of his line… and now under renovation?
Did one of the working girls he was fond of photographing at their sexual tasks have it in for him?
While Peterson and Heffernan work the Willeby and caravan deaths, Peterson’s pal Neil Watson, an archeologist digging up the Earlsacre gardens, uncovers the ghastly events surrounding the three centuries-buried bodies: a serving girl, a transported noble returned from Barbados, and a Good Samaritan sea captain.
Poor DC Rachel Tracey, on an ill-advised romantic outing, will almost become victim number six before Peterson and Heffernan swoop down to stop the Earlsacre slaughter.
On the good side…Wesley and Gerry Heffernan, are promoted.
There were 6 participants in the discussion.
Overall Average : 4.25
A Painted Doom – Kate Ellis
Wesley Peterson series Book #6
Teenager Lewis Hoxworthy discovers a disturbing painting in a medieval barn; a discovery which excites archaeologist Neil Watson who is excavating an ancient manor house nearby.
But when former rock star Jonny Shellmer is found shot through the head in Lewis's father's field and Lewis himself goes missing after contacting a man on the internet, Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson and his boss, Gerry Heffernan face one of their most intriguing cases yet.
It seems that the Devon village of Derenham is not only full of resident celebrities seeking the rural idyll, but full of secrets, ancient and modern.
Lewis's distraught parents seem to have something to hide. Then the mysterious owner of a new age shop is silenced before she can reveal what she knows about Jonny Shellmer.
Is Jonny's death linked to Lewis's disappearance? And does Jonny's best known song, 'Angel' contain a clue?
As Neil Watson uncovers the story of Derenham's medieval past, it becomes clear that the Derenham Doom - a painted portrayal of hell and judgment more than half a millennium old - holds the key to the mystery.
As events reach a terrifying climax, Wesley Peterson has to act swiftly if he is to save a young life.
There were 6 participants in the discussion.
Overall Average : 4.25
Most Popular Book: The Merchant’s House
Least Popular Book The Armada Boy
Overall Averages Thus Far
The Merchant’s House : 4.50
The Armada Boy: 3.50
An Unhallowed Grave – 4.07
The Funeral Boat - 4.25
The Bone Garden - 4.25
A Painted Doom - 4.45
The Skeleton Room -
The Merchant’s House - Kate Ellis
DS Wesley Peterson series Book #1
We meet Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, who has just been transferred from London to Tradmouth, an ancient coastal town.
He is married… has a degree in archaeology…and is black.
His boss is D.I. Gerry Heffernan, an affable widower.
Wesley and his teacher wife Pam have arrived at a stressful time in the village. Two-year-old Jonathon Berrisford has been missing for days and, almost as the Petersons arrive, the murdered body of a young woman is discovered by Dorothy Truscot on her daily walk to Little Tradmouth Head.
A more cheerful event is Wesley’s meeting with old friend and classmate Neil Watson, working for the County’s Archaeological Unit on a nearby dig.
He and his team have already unearthed two skeletons…one infant…one adult, from what was once the cellar of a 17th-century house.
Meanwhile, Wesley and D.C. Rachel Tracey, searching for the identity of the murder victim, have settled on local model Karen Giordino…until she turns up very much alive after a trip abroad.
There’s more success when the name of Shirley Carteret surfaces and proves to be the one they’re seeking.
Why had she deserted her apartment in the house of elegant Mrs. Hughs? Where is the steady boyfriend who wears an earring? Who was paying into Shirley’s bank account every month, and what was her connection with Mowbray Clinic and its Dr. Downing?
A flood of questions with intriguing answers…all made more meaningful by excerpts from a 17th-century journal heading every chapter.
There were 6 participants in the discussion
Overall Average : 4.50
The Armada Boy - Kate Ellis
DS Wesley Peterson series Book #2
Norman Openheim is an American veteran of the D Day Landings on a sentimental journey with his old unit to their West Country base.
His body is the last one archaeologist Neil Watson expects to find in the ruins of an old chantry chapel.
Neil naturally turns to his old friend from student days, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, for help.
Ironically, both men are looking at an invading force - Wes, the WWII Yanks, and Neil, a group of shipwrecked Spaniards reputed to have met a sticky end at the hands of outraged locals as they limped from the wreckage of the great Armada.
Local memories are retentive, and Wes is soon caught up in old accusations, resentments, and romances from fifty years before.
But the coolness of Openheim's wife Dorinda, and her reliance on a fellow veteran in the party, offers an all-too-familiar motive for murder.
As if that is not enough, a belligerent group of homeless youths are also under suspicion: then another veteran's wife disappears.
Wes's case grows more perplexing, while Neil uncovers a tragic story from the distant past.
Over four hundred years apart, two strangers in a strange land have died violently - could the same motives of hatred, jealousy, and revenge be at work?
Wes is running out of time to find out.
There were 5 participants in the discussion
Overall Average: 3.50
An Unhallowed Grave - Kate Ellis
DS Wesley Peterson series Book #3
When the body of a middle-aged woman is found hanging from a yew tree in Stokeworthy Churchyard, the police suspect foul play.
But the victim is an unlikely one. Pauline Brent was the local doctor's receptionist, respected and well liked. She seems to have no real enemies-and yet someone killed her.
Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, a detective recently transferred to the quiet, West Country English village, is determined to discover the truth and, once again, it is history that provides him with a clue.
For Wesley's archaeologist friend, Neil Watson, has excavated an ancient corpse at a nearby dig: a woman who had been buried at a crossroads, on unhallowed ground.
It appears that the body is that of the same woman who local legend has it was publicly executed in the churchyard centuries before.
A chilling echo of the fifteenth-century lynching, Pauline Brent's death forces Wesley to consider the possibility that the killer also knows the tree's dark history.
Has Pauline been "executed" rather than murdered-and if so, for what crime? To catch a dangerous killer, Wesley has to discover as much as he can about the victim. But Pauline Brent appears to have been a woman with few friends, no relatives, and a past she has tried carefully to hide.
There were 6 people in the discussion
Overall Average Rating : 4.07
The Funeral Boat by Kate Ellis
Wesley Peterson series Book #4
When young Carl Palister unearths a skeleton on a Devon smallholding, DS Wesley Peterson and his boss Gerry Heffernan are called in to investigate.
Heffernan is convinced that the remains are those of Carl’s father, a local villain who vanished from the Tradmouth area three years before.
Wesley isn’t so sure . He discovers evidence that suggests the skeleton is a good thousand years older than they first thought.
A talented amateur archaeologist, Wesley is intrigued by the possibility that this is a Viking corpse, buried in keeping with ancient traditions. But he has a rather more urgent crime to solve-the disappearance of a Danish tourist.
At first it appears that Ingeborg Larsen may just have gone away for a few days without telling her landlady, but Wesley finds disturbing evidence that the attractive Dane has been abducted.
Gerry Heffernan believes that Ms. Larsen’s disappearance is linked to a spate of brutal local robberies and that Ingeborg witnessed something she shouldn’t have.
But is her disappearance linked to far older events? For it seems that this may not have been Ingeborg’s first visit to this far from quiet West Country backwater.
There were 6 participants in the discussion
Overall Average : 4.25
The Bone Garden - Kate Ellis
Wesley Peterson series Book #5
Five bodies, two centuries, no waiting.
We have corpses… two buried under an 18th-century garden plinth, the one beneath a centuries-old shell grotto… one beside a cricket field…and one in a holiday caravan park.
All become the responsibility of DS Wesley Peterson… archeology buff and sidekick to DI Gerry Heffernan at the Tradmouth stationhouse.
The cricketer was timid solicitor Brian Willeby, who rang up Peterson for a confidential chat but died before they could meet.
Did his demise have anything to do with the ownership of venerable Earlsacre Hall, recently sold by Charles Pitaway…the last of his line… and now under renovation?
Did one of the working girls he was fond of photographing at their sexual tasks have it in for him?
While Peterson and Heffernan work the Willeby and caravan deaths, Peterson’s pal Neil Watson, an archeologist digging up the Earlsacre gardens, uncovers the ghastly events surrounding the three centuries-buried bodies: a serving girl, a transported noble returned from Barbados, and a Good Samaritan sea captain.
Poor DC Rachel Tracey, on an ill-advised romantic outing, will almost become victim number six before Peterson and Heffernan swoop down to stop the Earlsacre slaughter.
On the good side…Wesley and Gerry Heffernan, are promoted.
There were 6 participants in the discussion.
Overall Average : 4.25
A Painted Doom – Kate Ellis
Wesley Peterson series Book #6
Teenager Lewis Hoxworthy discovers a disturbing painting in a medieval barn; a discovery which excites archaeologist Neil Watson who is excavating an ancient manor house nearby.
But when former rock star Jonny Shellmer is found shot through the head in Lewis's father's field and Lewis himself goes missing after contacting a man on the internet, Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson and his boss, Gerry Heffernan face one of their most intriguing cases yet.
It seems that the Devon village of Derenham is not only full of resident celebrities seeking the rural idyll, but full of secrets, ancient and modern.
Lewis's distraught parents seem to have something to hide. Then the mysterious owner of a new age shop is silenced before she can reveal what she knows about Jonny Shellmer.
Is Jonny's death linked to Lewis's disappearance? And does Jonny's best known song, 'Angel' contain a clue?
As Neil Watson uncovers the story of Derenham's medieval past, it becomes clear that the Derenham Doom - a painted portrayal of hell and judgment more than half a millennium old - holds the key to the mystery.
As events reach a terrifying climax, Wesley Peterson has to act swiftly if he is to save a young life.
There were 6 participants in the discussion.
Overall Average : 4.25
3EadieB
>2 Carol420: Thanks for the update!
4Carol420
>3 EadieB: You're welcome. Doesn't seem possible that we could be on book #7.
5EadieB
>4 Carol420: Time flies when you're having fun!
6Carol420
>5 EadieB: That is true...and I am having fun.
7Olivermagnus
Thanks >2 Carol420:
8Carol420
>7 Olivermagnus: You are so very welcome.
9Andrew-theQM
Thanks Carol, the one with the lowest rating was one of my favourites. 👏👏👏
10Andrew-theQM
>4 Carol420: It surprised me that we were on book 7! 😳
11Carol420
>9 Andrew-theQM: There was 6 of us in the discussion but you were the only one that gave it a 4. The rest of us gave it 3.5. It always surprises me how close we all are to agreeing sometimes and then how far apart we are at other times.
12Andrew-theQM
>11 Carol420: I think I enjoyed this one more because set in a place I know well and where spent a few holidays, Slapton Sands.
13Sergeirocks
Thanks, Carol 🙂
