Review:- Jim KELLY – “The Water Clock”

Year Published: - 2002
Where the book was from:- My own – ex-library
ISBN: - 9 780141 009339
Pages: - 313pp
Genre: - Crime
Location:- Cambridgeshire Fens
How I came across it: - Serendipity
Rating: - *****

One sentence summary:- An atmospheric crime thriller in which forensic evidence links a modern murderer body from a car winched from a frozen river and a corpse from the 1960s.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:- The setting is bleak and snowbound and the characterisation quite good as local reporter Philip Dryden investigates the link between a body discovered in a frozen river and a corpse of an apparent suicide found near the top of Ely Cathedral as refurbishment work is undertaken.

General comments:- Enjoyable and kept me interested but the villain was slightly predictable.
This was the first of a Philip Dryden series
1. The Water Clock (2002)
2. The Fire Baby (2004)
3. The Moon Tunnel (2005)
4. The Coldest Blood (2006)
5. The Skeleton Man (2007)

Quotations:
Kathy invaded his personal space – on Dryden’s case as area slightly smaller than Norfolk.
The town was insular and insulated. A multicultural event in the Fens was a phone call from London.

AUTHOR Notes:- Jim Kelly is a British author born in 1957.