The Healers

Another great mystery from Ann Cleeves. I love that I have not been able to guess the killer, in advance of the reveal, in a single Inspector Ramsay book. I look forward to reading The Baby-Snatcher to see if I can guess the killer once before the series ends.

Simon Mattacks continues to do a great job bringing the Inspector Ramsay books to life.

Well this did not end the way I thought it would. Which is a good thing. This takes a few months or even a year after the last book. We have Ramsay settled with Prue and investigating a couple of murders that do not seem tied together. When you eventually get to the who dun it and why it has you going how you could have missed such a thing. But honestly, I thought this was very clever and loved how Cleeves looped everything together.

"The Healers" follows Ramsay as he and Hunter are called in when an older farmer is found dead in his house. Two travelers live on his land and at first suspicions are that one of them had something to do with it. But when a woman ends up dead with ties to the wellness spot in town, Ramsay and Hunter start show more delving into a world of alternative therapies.

I love how methodological Ramsay is. He won't be rushed. Though Hunter and now another officer at times think he is too slow, they both end up admiring him because he is not going to be rushed. We saw how the events in the first book in the series still affect Ramsay and how focused he is on not rushing to judgement and not ruining people because the police turn up asking questions.

Hunter is still pretty awful though I ended up feeling for him at the end of this one.

The characters we follow in this one are definitely memorable. For once I wanted the book to go on since I was so curious about what happened to a few of the secondary characters.

The dialogue and inner thinking of the characters worked very well as did the flow.

I honestly had no idea at who dun it and why until the very end. Great resolution! show less

The 5th Inspector Ramsay that I have read in quick succession, in order, and it has been worth doing that for the character development of both Ramsay and his off-sider Hunter. The setting is once again a small community of fairly tightly knit people.

We start off with a bachelor farmer found dead on his kitchen floor, strangled, after a night when he went out on a blind date.

There is a range of quirky characters in this one, and a lovely lot of red herrings. I had my major suspect but I was wrong!
These are very satisfying reads. I'm just sad there is only one more in the series.

The Healers is Book #5 in the Inspector Ramsay series written by Ann Cleeves.
“News of the murder came to Inspector Stephen Ramsay early one Monday morning:
isolated farmer Ernie Bowles was found lying on his kitchen floor, gruesomely strangled.”
When 2 more suspicious deaths in the same locality occur, it seems more than a coincidence.
A very tenuous link between all 3 victims takes on a new importance - a link to the alternative Therapy Center in Mittingford. Could one of the healers be a killer?
This title and series is highly recommended. ****
This series is an early work of Ann Cleeves, published in the 1990s in the U.K. It is
currently (2025) available in the U.S.

Although this is the Kindle edition, read the ebook. I have the Kindle edition though.

Inspector Stephen Ramsay #5

Stephen Ramsey series