"Dr Nell Ward is in the lush, emerald-green hills of Ireland to attend the wedding of two dear friends at a picture-perfect farmhouse. But family tensions are running high in the days before the happy couple tie the knot. And when Nell hears a fox kill a hare in the early morning, the bad omen sends shivers down her spine. Almost like it is a sign of something to come. Then one of the locals makes a gruesome discovery in a nearby peat bog. The habitats are famous for the ancient bodies they can preserve for thousands of years. This woman, however, died much more recently and was clearly a victim of foul play. Nell and her friends are suddenly in the middle of another murder case. Can they trace the truth to unmask a long-hidden killer and save the wedding, before it's too late?"
We are back with another great installment of the Dr Nell Ward Mystery series. Yarwood-Lovett really seems to be finding her groove with these mysteries and each one is more intricate than the last. I loved that this book is centered around one of the side characters fro the previous books and not Nell herself. We are in a new setting, with some fresh characters, and there are new secrets to be revealed.
Yarwood-Lovett does a fantastic job at large group murder mysteries. She has a real knack for being able to introduce the reader to a large cast of characters in such a way that I have no trouble remembering who is who and how they are all connected. Being able to keep track of characters is a frequent issue I run across in books with large casts and I know it is primarily a me-problem. However, there is something about the way Yarwood-Lovett writes that really works with my brain and helps me remember which makes the reading experience so much more smooth. We have a good mix of characters we know and love as well as some new ones mixed in. There is a good amount of family tension due to some secrets of the past and Nell and her group, as newcomers, had a bit of catching up to do which allowed the details to be given to the reader without feeling overly info-dumpy.
The mystery itself was expertly plotted and we get a good amount of ecology/science coming into play to crack the mystery which is a main draw of the series for me. I loved that we started with just some family tension and animosity and this wasn't a murder mystery from the get-go. Instead, thanks to the build up and background info, when the body does drop, the reader already knows the stakes and what this body means to our characters. Solving the mystery was half hard science, half behavioral analysis which I liked very much and found it to be a good balance. Since we were in a new location, it was interesting to see the group be more on the outside of the investigation than in previous books in the series but they sure didn't let that stop them from investigating anyway.
Thanks to NetGalley and Embla Books for the ARC. Publication was March 27, 2024.
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