Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez brings his fiancée home to Fair Isle, a birder's paradise, where strangers are viewed with suspicions and distrust. When a woman's body is discovered at the island's bird observatory, the investigation is hampered by a raging storm that renders the island totally isolated. Jimmy has to find clues the old-fashioned way, and he has to do it quickly. There's a killer on the island just waiting for the chance to strike again.
This didn’t have quite as slow a start as some of the others.
A painful but solid ending. Best of the series so far, though perhaps because of knowing the characters so well now.
The ending was a bit of a gut punch even though I’d seen much of the end of the tv series, though I don’t think that Fran figured in any of it and Cassie was played as a teenager rather than a 6 year old. The writing was solid enough to rush us through some action pieces that might not have otherwise played out as logically looking back at things in a more quiet manner. In particular several characters could have blurted out some facts in the final minutes to prevent additional deaths.
Again Cleeves leaves us in just an interesting spot in the closing paragraphs to push us to read the next book.
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