The body of a disliked villager is discovered deep within a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation is DCI Jim Oldroyd and his new partner DS Carter, recently transferred from London. The first question they must ask is how did the body get to such a remote section of the cave? As the team dig deeper, the secrets and lies of the close-knit community unravel into a mystery that is deeper and darker than the caves themselves.
THE BODY IN THE DALES falls into the category of a traditional British police procedural, in a similar vein to P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh series and the Inspector Lewis series on PBS. Ellis weaves a tale as twisted as the caves in which the first victim is discovered. His descriptions are rich with detail, and he paints vivid imagery that draw the reader deep into the setting fo each scene. It would have been easy for Ellis to spend a great deal of time discussing the in-and-outs of caving, or "potholing" as it is called in the book, he provides just enough detail to keep the reader informed without it becoming a lecture.
The protagonists are interesting and fairly well developed, but there are many secondary characters that feature in the story and keeping them all straight was sometimes a challenge. However, this played well with mystery and intriguing, leaving the reader with a plethora of suspects. Where the book fell flat with the depth of the secondary characters, it made up for with the protagonists of Oldroyd and Carter.
THE BODY IN THE DALES is a decent first entry in the Yorkshire Murder Mystery series. If you crave modern day British police procedurals, this book will definitely quench that craving. The plot twists and turns, and the identity of the culprit is well hidden until the very end.
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