THE KILLING STONES by Ann Cleeves

3* Not what I expected, a bit long and repetitive, but a decent tale. 

I picked the book based on the title and author's name - the title turned out to be literal, which was my first surprise. The next was that the author's British. The rest of the book was pretty much low-key surprise after surprise.

It's long and it's repetitive with Perez's past and history with the deceased and the setting. There's a lot of places, names and island life to take in, but the writing is solid and descriptive and drew me in with the multitude of flawed,-not-bad characters. People just thinking they're doing the right thing by alibiing a 'friend'. People not being untruthful but not out-and-out lying or obstructing. People thinking of perceptions and consequences rather than working with the police to solve the first death. Maybe that's what a close-knit island community trying to survive is like?

The bad guy wasn't unfortunately believable for me, though the last-minute infodump did well to try and make him so. It felt like too little detective work and too many lucky breaks - emails seen after someone's death, someone recalling seeing someone in the vicinity of a killing location and belatedly telling the police about it, allowing 2-and-makes-4 - solved the case. Still, it was readable. 

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for my reading pleasure. 

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