The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

Here is my review:

I now know why I had avoided this series in spite of many elements that would normally have attracted me. The story is told in the present tense. I really have an aversion for this. I've tried and failed to like it. I simply cannot read anything written by Patricia Cornwell, for example, since she changed tenses. Very rarely have I read a book told in the present tense that I have enjoyed. I know the various arguments for using the present tense such as immediacy, power, intensity. Stories in the present tense feel clumsy, narrow, jumpy, lacking in emotion, thin on description and rather claustrophobic. For me it's like peering at a glorious view through a porthole rather than a picture window. I only persevered with this one as I'd promised myself to review all my reads from now on.

I was around a third of the way through the book before I settled down to enjoy the story without being conscious on every line of that pesky tense!

The story is set amongst the fenland marshes of East Anglia where Forensic Archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway provides her expertise to DCI Harry Nelson, initially to determine the age and gender of the buried bones of a child whom he thinks may be that of a missing schoolgirl.  There are plenty of twists and turns to carry the story along although I guessed the identity of the "bad guy" rather earlier than I would have liked. Perhaps my detective skills are well honed following a lifetime of reading novels in the genre!

By the time I reached the end I had come to believe in the two central characters although Ruth goes on about her weight too much and Harry seems to be a bit of an odd mix even for a policeman! However I finished wanting to know more and keen to read the next in the series which I will be doing soon in spite of the dreaded tense.


A note to publishers:

I really, really hate being given the first chapter(s) of the next book in the series at the end of the one I'm reading. It completely destroys the growing excitement of nearing the climax knowing how much there is still to go. You reach the end quite deflated thinking there was one more twist to come. I keep forgetting to check and in any case this is a bind on the Kindle unless I make an effort to read the contents list if there is one. It's almost enough to put me off reading the sequel.