While on holiday in Whitby, Kate goes into a jeweller's to buy a gift for a friend only to find the jeweller dead on the floor. In the meantime, Kate's god-daughter has disappeared, possibly to find her father, who is separated from her mother, or possibly to elope. Fortunately Mr Sykes and Mrs Sugden are also holidaying not too far away.

The usual good fun. ( )

This is the second book I have read in the Kate Shackleton series. Last year I read the previous book for a blog tour, and I found myself quite liking Kate Shackleton. I had some problem with the story, felt it dragged a bit, to be honest, but I wanted to read this one to see what would happen next to Kate.

I found this book to be a bit better than the previous one. However, just like the one I was reading last year did this one loose a bit of steam in the middle of the book. It wasn't until Jim Sykes and Mrs. Sugden showed up in the story towards the ending that it returns to be interesting again. I think it has to do with the fact that it was by then everything finally started to unravel and the truth started to come out about the murder of the jeweler. As much fun it was to see Kate suspected of the murder, the story felt like it was moving forward a bit too slowly. Perhaps focusing on Kate POV instead of adding Alma's would have made the book a bit evenly.

Still, I did find this book enjoyable and this time, did I have some previous knowledge of the characters so that I did not to get used to the characters. I also learned some more about them. Also, I thought the addition of Chief Inspector Marcus Charles to the story was splendid. Kate and Marcus have some history together, he wanted to marry her and she turned him down. Yet, the spark is still there, even I could see that and I haven't read the book(s?) with him in them. I think the book just got a bit better when he arrived in the town. And, I hope he will be in the next book.

I want to thank Piatkus for proving me with a free copy for an honest review! ( )

When Kate Shackleton decides to take a holiday in Whitby to enjoy the seaside and to visit an old school friend, Alma Turner, and Alma’s daughter Felicity who is also Kate’s goddaughter, she does not expect to be caught up in a criminal investigation; yet within an hour or so of her arrival, what does she do but stumble upon the body of a murder victim, the local jeweler from whom Kate’s then-fiance had bought her engagement and wedding rings years before. As if that is not unsettling enough, it seems that Felicity has disappeared: she’s taken a boat with her boyfriend in order to find her long-absent father rumoured to be in Scotland. Alma asks for Kate’s help in locating Felicity, while the local constabulary views everything she does with suspicion, and all Kate really wanted was to spend a couple of weeks lying on the beach in the sun…. I’ve been basically “binge-reading” the Kate Shackleton books (albeit with occasional breaks to read something else), and this eighth book in the series is as entertaining as the rest. It’s odd from our perspective that there is only one very small mention of Dracula in the book, since Whitby is of course where he arrived in England, but in the 1920s the Bram Stoker novel was perhaps not as popular as it later became; otherwise, the descriptions of the town, both as a working fishing (and smuggling) village and as a tourist resort town, are very evocative, and the characters are, as usual, well-drawn and mostly sympathetic. I’ll say again that it’s not necessary to have read the previous books in the series to enjoy this one, although some of the relationships encountered here will be more fleshed out if one has the background from those stories; recommended. ( )

As August is a quiet month as far as business is concerned Kate Shacklteon decides to go on holiday to Whitby, unfortunately for her it doesn't take long before she comes across a body and her holiday turns into a spot of investigating.
An enjoyable easily read mystery with some well-drawn characters set in the 1920's.
A NetGalley Book. ( )

I hate to give the plot away by review so - If you like some clever twists and you can enter into the society of 1920's then this is a good read. I like that the novels are reasonably lengthy so you can get bedded into the plot.

I mention this because I read at 100 pages per hour and therefore can digest a book in a day or so. I have a strong suspicion that if you read this in snippets the characters and plot twists would require a lot of recall every time you pick Brody's novels up. Or it may be a flaw in me that for fiction I cannot spread the reading out too long because it seems to lose drive.I think it is probably liking watching a movie with lengthy adverts or news inserted at random times which destroys the flow. ( )