{"id":5595,"date":"2024-03-18T05:34:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T12:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5595"},"modified":"2024-03-18T05:34:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T12:34:22","slug":"nicholas-george-a-deadly-walk-in-devon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/nicholas-george-a-deadly-walk-in-devon\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicholas George: A Deadly Walk in Devon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Debut<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This charming cozy is set in Devon, but features a group of Americans who have gathered there for a walking tour of England.\u00a0 Our hero, Rick Chasen, or \u201cChase\u201d, is a recently retired, recently widowed police detective.\u00a0 The loss of his husband, Doug, has caused him to rethink his life and search for things that will keep him active and engaged.\u00a0 He\u2019s meeting up with his friend Billie for the trip, who is an optimistic soul and knits with enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

The rest of their tour group \u2013 or shall we call them the suspect pool? \u2013 is nicely varied and interesting.\u00a0 There\u2019s a wealthy man and his trophy wife; there\u2019s a couple who create environments for the elderly (who are dissatisfied with their room d\u00e9cor); there\u2019s a sister and brother who are fulfilling the sister\u2019s life long dream of a trip to England; and there\u2019s the required curmudgeon, rounded off by the tour guide and driver.\u00a0 While I really enjoyed this novel my enjoyment would have been heightened by the traditional cast of characters at the beginning of the book.\u00a0 This book seemed well suited for that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

From the start, it\u2019s obvious that the wealthy man is going to be the bane of their trip \u2013 he\u2019s unpleasant and complains about everything.\u00a0 Once he susses out that Chase is a retired cop he confides in him that he\u2019s sure someone is looking to kill him and begs Chase to take on the job of protection.\u00a0 Chase begs off, saying he\u2019s on vacation, but soon various things begin to happen, coupled with threatening notes that the man has shared with Chase.\u00a0 He does keep his eyes open but of course, he cannot prevent the man\u2019s death on a foggy day as the group skirts the edge of a cliff.<\/p>\n

Chase is \u2013 or was \u2013 apparently a good cop, and it\u2019s not long before he\u2019s invited to sit in with the Inspector who\u2019s taken on the case.\u00a0 He refuses to make assumptions and gently guides the Inspector\u2019s thinking without being overbearing (in short, he\u2019s the perfect co-worker or boss).\u00a0 As the pasts of the various members of the group are revealed, providing possible motives for the murder of a man none of them had met before, the past and emotional life of Chase is also gently uncovered.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what the \u201csecret sauce\u201d is for books.\u00a0 In every way this is a standard traditional detective story, with an amateur\/not quite amateur at the center of things.\u00a0 Even the fact that Chase is a widower is not unexpected.\u00a0 But there\u2019s some kind of magical algorithm that a good book simply possesses.\u00a0 This novel, while traditional and even expected, unfolds beautifully, is paced well, and is full of interesting characters who, in the best Agatha Christie fashion, seem familiar.\u00a0 They could be people you\u2019ve met or encountered yourself.<\/p>\n

Chase himself is appealing but not too plain vanilla to be dull.\u00a0 He\u2019s simply a nice guy, trying to do what\u2019s right, and he obviously is a careful thinker and intelligent discerner of secrets and lies.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing not to like, and the whole book is enhanced by the Devon setting \u2013 I felt I was on the walk with the group.\u00a0 The trip, though sadly truncated for the book\u2019s characters, sounded wonderful, and the Devon countryside, as brought to life by the author, is beautiful.\u00a0 All in all a nice debut. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debut This charming cozy is set in Devon, but features a group of Americans who have gathered there for a walking tour of England.\u00a0 Our hero, Rick Chasen, or \u201cChase\u201d, is a recently retired, recently widowed police detective.\u00a0 The loss of his husband, Doug, has caused him to rethink his life and search for things … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1598,162,1597,1276,1436,1599,362],"class_list":["post-5595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-deadly-walk-in-devon","tag-kensington-books","tag-nicholas-george","tag-robin-agnew","tag-traditional-detection","tag-walking-through-britain","tag-widower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5597,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595\/revisions\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}