Always good to find another detective series that I like and so I am very grateful to Martin Edwards for sending me a couple of these for me to try out.
First of all, being set in the Lake District, an area I have visited several times, but not recently and of course now want to do again, really helps in that I have a good idea of where the stories are set. Mentions of Kendal and Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's house at Sawrey, mean I know exactly where this particular character is at that moment. Not saying of course that I hve to know every location of every book I read, that would be silly, but it just adds somehow.
Two good strong characters in this series: DCI Hannah Scarlett, recent appointed head of a cold crimes unit dedicated to further research of old unsolved murders to see if any new light can be shed on them. She views this as a demotion and being sidelined after a case she was involved in collapsed in court, but despite her reluctance Hannah is soon drawn in and deeply involved in solving the murder of young woman found dead on the Sacrifice Stone, an ancient pagan site up on one of the fells (The Coffin Trail).
In the second (The Cipher Garden), an anonymous letter is sent to the unit accusing a wife of murdering her husband years before, the culprit for which had never been found. A landscape gardener, digging trenches and hacked to death with his own scythe. Nasty.
Hannah meets up with Daniel Kind, an Oxford lecturer and historian who, tired of his academic life moves up to live in in the Lakes with his partner Miranda, also wishing to escape from her past. His long estranged father was a policeman and Hannah Scarlatt's senior officer and they had become close friends. Hannah and Daniel's lives, both working and personal, begin to impinge on each other as Daniel seeks to find out more about his father, and also becomes involved in the investigations.
I enjoyed both these books very much. I did my usual trick of casting the two main protagonists as if I 
was planning a film, a habit I can never break, so now don't even bother any more and, for some reason, I felt Daniel Craig would be perfect casting for Daniel Kind. Not because of James Bond, but simply because I have seen shots of this actor in the recent Phillip Pullman film and feel in that persona, he suits this part beautifully. Hannah has to be a bit feisty and determined, the name Scarlatt really is a give away as far as her character is concerned, somebody like Kelly Hawes would be good.
So, recommended reading if you enjoy a good mystery, both of which have a twist at the end. In both cases, I thought they had ended up a bit neat and tidy but lo, last few pages and there was the correct answer which I had not guessed. I shall now hunt out more of Martin's work. Please do nip over and look at his blog Do you write under your own name? and read more about his thoughts on crime writers and the genre.
And, finally, just a note that Hannah's partner is a bookshop owner and seller and lovely description of a bookshop in the Lakes complete with cafe, coffee and sumptuous cakes. If this is based on a real life shop then I demand to know exactly where it is so I can visit next time I am up in the Lake District....
