Finished Cragside by LJ Ross over the holiday weekend. This was a quick read. It is book 6 in the DCI Ryan series. Not as intense as some earlier books in the series, but Ross keeps you engaged with a tight plot, characters you root for, and more exploration of places in Northumberland. Like most of LJ Ross’s work, not the deepest, but a relaxing, enjoyable read.
The primary location, Cragside, is National Trust site. It was built in its imposing setting, on a rocky crag above a gorge with an iron bridge, for the Victorian industrialist William George Armstrong (1810–1900), 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside, and further transformed by the architect Richard Norman Shaw in the 1870s and 1880s. In 1878, it was the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity and received a royal visit by the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1884. Here is a “book trail” for the story.
Cragside by LJ Ross
A DCI Ryan Mystery (Book 6)
“Are you afraid of the dark..?”
After his climactic battle with notorious serial killer The Hacker, DCI Ryan is spending the summer with his fiancée within the grounds of Cragside, a spectacular Bavarian-style mansion surrounded by acres of woodland. When they are invited to attend the staff summer party – a Victorian murder mystery evening – it’s all a joke until the lights go out and an elderly man is found dead. It looks like an unfortunate accident but, as the dead man’s life begins to unfold, Ryan and his team of detectives realise that all is not as it appears.
When a second body is found, terror grips the close-knit community and Ryan must uncover the killer who walks among them, before they strike again…