The Skeleton Room

The entire series is slow going but the rewards are fairly good if you just stick with it. One thing we... (we’re reading this series as a group read on LibraryThing)... have found out is that the solution always relates to a modern police case handled by DI Peterson of Tradmouth and draws parallels with an archeology dig handled by his friend Neil Watson. The older story is usually just a paragraph or two at the beginning of the chapters and doesn’t take long to read but sometimes is harder to remember the important facts. There are a lot of characters to sort out and we have a skeleton tied to a chair in a walled up portion of a renovated schoolroom to add into them. If you enjoy a mystery that is generally a complicated tale of show more good and evil with a satisfying end…although you have to wait for…then Kate Ellis is for you. show less

Another cracking story.

I love the way that these stories are pure fiction but, interlinked with some real history. I had heard of wreckers, but did not realise that they killed potential survivors so that the booty was legally theirs!

The story starts with the discovery of a young woman sealed up in a room, in a house that once was a manor house and then a girls school the police aren't sure of the age of the body. Later that day they're callled to a case of a woman drowned near a shipwreck, she apparently fell of a treacherous cliff but not everything adds up for the police.
The clues suggest a connection between the two sets of murders, but are they, and when did it happen? Kept me interested the whole way through and I was still guessing until near the end. Definitely an author I'd read more of.

A skeleton is found in a sealed room as a former girls' boarding school is being renovated to become a hotel, a body is found in the sea near an 18th century wreck, and a lorryload of computers is hijacked and the computers stolen.

Some people's roles were fairly obvious right from the start but there were still enough surprises. There were hints of drama to come in Wesley's private life later in the series, which I hope are not realised.

This was a very strong instalment, which kept me guessing to the end. Glad to see poor Pam getting a few nights off from making Wesley's dinner...