Review: MURDER IN ADLAND, Bruce Beckham

• 
  this edition on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B009T93NO8
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lucius; 2nd edition (October 18, 2012)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 239 pages
• Inspector Skelgill series #1  

Synopsis (Amazon)
WHEN A HIGH-FLYING ADMAN is stabbed to death on a company weekend in the English Lake District, local detective Daniel Skelgill finds himself wrenched from his rural Cumbrian comfort zone.

As the investigation unfolds, DI Skelgill is led a merry dance between London and Edinburgh, at every turn confronted by uncooperative suspects – colleagues, wife and lovers of the deceased – each of whom is possessed of motive and opportunity.

Is this a crime of passion, a professional hit, or a cleverly calculated killing borne out of greed and jealousy?

In this traditional-style whodunit, the case can only be solved by carefully piecing together the essential clues – but Skelgill is running out of time. The patience of his superiors wears thin, while the actions of an anonymous agent provocateur serve only to advance the moment when the killer must strike again.

My Take

There seem to be a number of British crime fiction authors publishing multiple titles in rapid succession on Kindle recently, so I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to start another series. However I was pleasantly surprised although there were a couple of quirky features which other reviewers have also remarked on: most of the narrative is in the present tense (which some have found annoying); the author has attempted to put some of the dialogue in local Cumbrian dialect. There seemed to be less of the latter as the story progressed, or maybe I just got used to it.

However Skelgill is an interesting character, the mystery was well constructed, with a few red herrings, and we got there. Under pressure by his boss to get a "result", Skelgill has a number of redeeming features, and a reasonable amount of intuition.

There were times when I thought the narrative was a bit long winded, a bit too descriptive, but perhaps I was just , like Skelgill's boss, for progress, and the identification of the murderer.

I've another waiting for me on my Kindle.

My rating: 4.4

About the author
Bruce Beckham is an award-winning Amazon best-selling author. A resident of Great Britain, he has travelled and worked in over 60 countries. He is published in both fiction and non-fiction, and a member of the Society of Authors.
You can contact him via his publisher, at this address: lucius-ebooks@live.com or directly at brucebeckham@live.co.uk
His series 'Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates' now extends to 20 standalone murder mysteries and 6 boxsets, and sells across five continents, from Japan and India to Brazil and the United States of America. Over one million copies have been downloaded worldwide.