Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  Old Sins

SERIES:  Lindenshaw Mysteries #4

AUTHOR:  Charlie Cochrane 

PUBLISHER:  Riptide Publishing

LENGTH:  209 pages

RELEASE DATE:  February 11, 2019

BLURB:  

Detective Chief Inspector Robin Bright and his partner, deputy headteacher Adam Matthews, have just consigned their summer holiday to the photo album. It’s time to get back to the daily grind, and the biggest problem they’re expecting to face: their wedding plans. Then fate strikes—literally—with a bang.

Someone letting loose shots on the common, a murder designed to look like a suicide, and the return of a teacher who made Robin’s childhood hell all conspire to turn this into one of his trickiest cases yet.

Especially when somebody might be targeting their Newfoundland, Campbell. Robin is used to his and Adam’s lives being in danger, but this takes the—dog—biscuit.

REVIEW:  

I don’t know if there is a better way to relax, after a long day, than a cup of tea, a twisty-ol’-mystery, and maybe a dead body or two.

Adam Matthews and Robin Bright are back in action, in this fourth book of Charlie Cochrane’s Lindenshaw Mysteries Series. With wedding plans in the (far, far, far off) future, and a new case on the horizon, Robin and Adam must work together once again to get to the bottom of the newest murder in town. However, the case is a bit too close for comfort for Robin as he comes to find a much-disliked person from his past landing right in the middle of the mystery. Now he will have to battle the demons of this school-years, as well as delve deep into a decades old death that is somehow connected to not only a dead body, but a poor dead canine as well. With suspects who couldn’t tell the truth to save their lives, and someone who seems dead set on murdering to hide the truth, it could be another decade before they pull this one together. Too bad they might not have that long…

I’d not realized that there was even a fourth book in this series coming out any time soon till the release date was just about upon me. But I am glad to see that Cochrane hasn’t lost their touch for these two, or the mysterious murders they get themselves tied up in. The romance is a bit low-key, what with Adam and Robin firmly comfortable in their relationship now, but I find that it is nice to have a couple that is not a constant barrage of breaking-up and making-up. Especially in longer running series. The sweet familiarity they have with each other (and that they both have with their intrepid Newfoundland, Campbell) let me sink comfortably into this English-countryside murder mystery without having to worry all that much.

As for the mystery, well I have to say it surely kept me guessing till the last second. Which is always fun. It was a tad slow at certain points, which dragged down the pacing a few times, but I never stopped asking “what next” so it wasn’t a huge deal for me. If you go into this story looking for a fast-paced action thriller, you are going to be sorely disappointed, but I’m not entirely sure how you would get to book four with that expectation still intact. And while I think this book can be read as a standalone if all you were looking for is a mystery, I think you’d lose quite a bit of character development that has been building over the course of the last three books. These books don’t really have a world-ending crises that solving the mystery hinges on. Instead I would say that you want the mystery solved because you become so invested in the characters that you want them to finally get some closure. Without that investment in character, I’m not sure these book would play as well with readers.

Reviewing mysteries (despite my unending love of the genre) is a bit hard, since you have to balance giving a truthful review and not spoiling a majority of the story. All I think I can say in the end is that I truly enjoyed this story, and that the mystery kept me involved the whole way through. The bits that tend to drag might turn a few people off who are more drawn to a faster-paced mystery, but the way the story digs into all facets of the murder and the various suspects makes for a fuller and more complete mystery to unpick. Great story for a rainy day…though you’ll have to bring your own tea.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

Riptide Publishing

Amazon