REVIEW:- Kate ELLIS - “A Cursed Inheritance“

Year Published: - 2005 Piatkus Books Ltd
Where the book was from:- My own copy - ex-library
ISBN: - 0 7499 0725 8
Pages: - 360pp
Genre: - Crime
Location:- Annetown (Jamestown), Virginia, and Devon
How I came across it: - Serendipity
Rating: - ***** **

One sentence summary:- A brutal massacre at a Devon hall was 'obviously' carried out by the housekepper who then killed herself but twenty years later a reporter investigating the crime seems to have other ideas – and gets murdered for them.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:- The hall in which the massacre took place has become a New Age healing centre which DI Wesley Peterson suspects is not all it seems – nor are its visitors. The hall was already notorious for a crime committed centuries earlier and the novel tracks the history of that piece of villainy as well, leading Peterson's friend Neil to the ruined remains of an English settlement in Virginia.

General comments:- This was the ninth in the Wesley Peterson series:-
Wesley Peterson
1. The Merchant's House (1998)
2. The Armada Boy (1999)
3. An Unhallowed Grave (1999)
4. The Funeral Boat (2000)
5. The Bone Garden (2001)
6. A Painted Doom (2002)
7. The Skeleton Room (2003)
8. The Plague Maiden (2004)
9. A Cursed Inheritance (2005)
10. The Marriage Hearse (2006)
11. The Shining Skull (2007)
12. The Blood Pit (2008)
13. A Perfect Death (2009)
14. The Flesh Tailor (2010)
15. The Jackal Man (2011)
16. The Cadaver Game (2012)

I enjoyed this book - especially with its flashbacks to the 1600s - but I'm not sure I'll actually seek out any more Wesley Peterson novels. The plot was good but I didn't particualrly identify with the hero.

AUTHOR Notes:- Kate Ellis was born (1953) and brought up in Liverpool and she studied drama in Manchester. She worked in teaching, marketing and accountancy before first enjoying writing success as a winner of the North West Playwrights competition. Crime and mystery stories have always fascinated her, as have medieval history and archaeology which she likes to incorporate in her books. She lives in North Cheshire, England, with her husband, two sons and an overweight cat called Vivaldi!