The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle - Nick Louth - ★★

AUTHOR: Nick Louth

SERIES: Detective Jan Talantire, #1

GENRE: Police Procedural.

PUBLICATION DATE: May 2, 2024

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: The first book of a new police procedural series. Not so impressed. While the mystery is dark and the plot contains enough twists, the lead detective is incompetent, much of the plot is extremely coincidental, and the ending has one of the most illogical infodumps I have ever read. I don’t think I’ll continue with this series. This is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

Ilfracombe, England. DI Jan Talantire has been called to a little cottage where a senior citizen has been murdered, impaled with a crucifix. When she discovers that the name of the victim is Ruth Lyle, she is stunned. Almost exactly fifty years earlier, sixteen-year-old Ruth Lyle had been murdered, also impaled with a crucifix, at exactly the same location. The old evidence is now inaccessible due to the passage of time and the shoddy maintenance of paper documents, and the new evidence suggests that the victims are the same. How is this possible? Is someone copying the earlier murder? Was someone else killed earlier and the body misidentified? How can one woman die twice?

The story comes to us in the shifting third person perspectives of various characters, but mostly from Jan Talantire’s point of view.

Bookish Yays:

✔ A great premise and title – eye-catching and creating an instant hook.

✔ The setting of Ilfracombe – loved how the location was used throughout the plot.

✔ The focus on the racism and sexism within the force.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

⚠ Some interesting supporting characters in the police team, but they do not get enough page space as the spotlight is mainly on Talantire.

⚠ The plot routinely mentions the personal lives of the detectives, be it struggles with a new relationship or marital issues or the aftermath of a divorce. While this adds to their character, the information is too scattered to be relevant. Some things are left dangling, especially with Jan’s potential suitor. (Might be tackled in the next book of the series; who knows!)

⚠ The plot goes at a steady pace without feeling rushed. Until the final few chapters, which zoom by at F1 speed.

⚠ The struggles to find the paper documents of the original investigation felt so real. But some of the later reveals about what happened to the evidence of the historical crime were ridiculously farfetched.

⚠ There are a couple of twists and red herrings that caught me by surprise. However, when the rationale for these twists is later established, they seem exaggerated. Also, one of the major reveals is just outlandish, and, I think, fairly offensive to the group in question.

⚠ The police procedural parts have a mostly realistic feel. However, many of the decisions lack common sense and most members of the police team (both past and present) commit clumsy mistakes along the way. When the team succeeds at the end, it seems more a result of luck than brains.

⚠ This is just something I found odd. The initial few chapters randomly switch between ‘Jan’ and ‘Talantire’, but later, the DI is called only Talantire. However, the rest of her team and most other characters are referred to by their first names. Given that Talantire is the protagonist of the series, calling her Talantire kept her more distant from me.

Bookish Nays:

❌ I didn’t like DI Jan Talantire. For someone in her late thirties and with so much experience in the force, she comes across as impulsive, naïve, shortsighted, presumptive and careless – none of which are preferred attributes for the DI lead of a series.

❌ The crucifix that has a main role in both murders is used to generate a dark religious undertone to the crime. But this potential is almost entirely wasted. It felt like some magical realism was being forced into the story, but it just didn’t work.

❌ There are big chunks of fact dumps at times during the conversations connected to the historical background of the crucifix and the cottage. It felt like a Wikipedia entry was being thrown our way.

❌ The investigation is intriguing at the start but soon gets too convoluted and relies too much on coincidences. There are also logical loopholes and plot gaps unexplained till the end. Talantire takes some investigative decisions that just don’t make sense, until we see that the identity of the culprit lies in that direction. Sorry to say this, but it felt like very lazy plotting.

❌ THE ENDING! Tanked the overall experience! I hate infodumps with all my heart, but this is among the worst infodumps I have read, especially considering the background of the person revealing everything. The person’s actions during the finale as well as the revelations made defy all logic. What an anticlimactic climax!

All in all, I was sure at the start that this would be a winner for me. I enjoy police procedurals far more than regular thrillers or cosy mysteries for they often have the best combination of investigation, action, and resolution. In this book though, the investigation is a mixed bag of coincidences, the action is almost non-existent until the end, and the resolution merits no mention. Even if the rest of the book was above average, the ending could have elevated it. But sadly, the finale turned out to be a disappointment of mammoth proportions.

For most of the way, I had been shuffling back and forth between 3 and 3.5 stars as my rating, but the ending made my decision easy.

If you look at the other reviews though, you will see that most readers are highly impressed with this work. So please go through them before you take a call as I am quite the outlier in this opinion. My journey with this series will stop here.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through The Pigeonhole. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.