‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ by Cheryl Rees-Price

Synopsis

Welsh detective Winter Meadows takes on a new murder case

There were a lot of things you could call Stacey Evans. And many of them would be true. And unprintable. But did she deserve to be murdered?

DI Winter Meadows has no doubt of the answer when he takes on the case. The crime was violent. The victim helpless. But the motives are many, and the only clue is a strange word left on Stacey’s body.

DI Meadows struggles to pierce the secrecy surrounding the teenager’s busy love life. Was the killer one of her pursuers acting out of jealousy? Maybe someone’s wife seeking revenge?

But as each suspect is excluded from the enquiry, and other markings turn up, Meadows is convinced that something more sinister is afoot.

When another body is found, a veil of silence descends like a fog upon Gaer Fawr. What more will it take for the village to give up its secrets?

My Review

‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ is the fourth book in the series featuring Detective Inspector Winter Meadows.  Now I have a bit of an embarrassing confession to make.  Although I have all four books in the series on my ever increasing ‘to be read’ mountain, I haven’t actually read one before….until now that is.  When I was invited to take part in the blog tour for ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’, I thought that it would be an ideal opportunity to get to know Winter Meadows.  Having enjoyed reading ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ as much as I did, I am now rather annoyed that I left it this long to discover how flipping fantastic Cheryl’s books are.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ but more about that in a bit.

I liked the character of D.I. Winter Meadows and I warmed to him from the start.  Winter stands out from the crowd of lead characters in that his name is rather unusual and his background is less conventional than most.  I won’t go any further as I don’t want to give away too many spoilers.  Winter is a police officer with many years experience.  He leads from the front and he wouldn’t ask anybody to do anything that he wouldn’t be willing to do himself.  Winter is kind, caring, compassionate, hard working and charismatic.

It took me no time at all to get into ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’.  In fact by the time I got to the end of the first page, I knew that I Was going to be in for a treat and then some.  I found that I just couldn’t put the book down.  I mean my Kindle wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it travelled everywhere with me.  I couldn’t bear to miss a single second of the story.  I initially picked the book up only intending to read a couple of chapters but I became so wrapped up in the story that I read a lot more than two chapters.  I soon got to the end of the book and I had to say farewell to DI Winter Meadows.  I soon cheered up though when I realised that I had the first three books in the series to catch up with.  I found ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ to be the true definition which kept me guessing and which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.

‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ is superbly written.  I was blown away by how good this book was.  The author certainly knows how to grab  your attention from the start and then takes you on one hell of a journey.  Reading ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ was a bit like being on a scary and unpredictable rollercoaster ride with several twists and turns along the way.  I loved the way in which Cheryl made me feel as though I was part of the story myself and at the heart of the action.

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘A Knot Of Sparrows’ and I would definitely recommend it to other readers.  I will certainly be reading more of Cheryl’s work in the future.  The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.