Murder on the Marshes by Clare Chase

This is an enjoyable opening book to the series, featuring reporter Tara Thorpe and DI Garstin Blake. The pace allows you to get to know the characters while you follow the investigation into the murder of Professor Samantha Seabrook within the private garden of a Cambridge college.

While the professor has the kind of lifestyle and attitude that could make enemies, Tara has also received similar threats to her life, which brings her to the heart of the police investigation. With a murder to solve and Tara to protect, DI Blake feels stretched as he searches for motives and clues among a growing list of suspects.

Tara too has to watch her back while she interviews the same suspects for a feature in the magazine she works for.

It all leads to some tense moments, plenty of intrigue and a twisting plot that yields little until both Tara and Blake separately piece together the clues to identify the killer. But one of them may just be too late.

There’s a lot going on in the main characters’ lives as well as the investigation, but it’s a credit to the author’s skill that I didn’t get lost, side-tracked or mystified as I read. I found the Cambridge settings interesting, offering me an insight into the academic world there. This was all delivered with confident writing and authority that made the reading experience more enjoyable.

An excellent start to a series.

Description

The sun rises on a lush stone courtyard, where birds sing and ferns shade an ancient, burbling fountain. But in the fountain’s murky depths, a young woman’s body grows cold…

Samantha Seabrook – an ambitious young woman with a chequered past – is found drowned in the ornamental fountain of a locked Cambridge courtyard. The only clue is an antique silver chain wound tightly around her throat.

It’s local reporter Tara Thorpe’s job to discover what happened to Miss Seabrook – but the case becomes personal when she learns that Samantha had been receiving threatening messages… rather like the one that landed on the doorstep of Tara’s cottage the night the woman died.

Together with Detective Inspector Garstin Blake, Tara follows a lead that takes her to the deep and watery fens on the outskirts of the city. But there’s something Tara can’t quite admit to Blake about her past – and it could make all the difference to whether they crack the case before the killer strikes again.