A Murder of Crows: A completely gripping British cozy mystery (A Dr Nell Ward Mystery Book 1)

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I was really looking forward to reading this novel - Scottish detectives are always a draw - but I was disappointed in the execution and found it a difficult read. Firstly I should say that the brooding atmosphere, both meteorological and characterisation, is excellent. The storm never seems far off and the heat is oppressive and every last one of the characters is an oddball in some shape or form so it is difficult to discern motivation, intent or even relevance. It's a stunning creation. A detective novel with a distinct flair. London, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was a loud, rowdy, stinking town of open sewers, disease, and the most rampant and egregious kind of crime and corruption. It’s a wonder the kingdom survived. Similarly, ‘an unkindness of ravens’ could stem from the misguided 19th-century belief that the birds were not the most caring of parents, sometimes expelling their young from their nests to fend for themselves way before they were ready. The characters though, whether supposedly sympathetic or antagonistic, I did not like. Too many possible bad guys, too many good guys flawed to the extent that the reader lost interest/sympathy, and many of the neutral characters seemed to be portrayed in unpleasant terms by the author. There were a number of key aspects of withheld information which to me felt artificially introduced, esp. with regards an elderly lady with dementia who seemed only to exist to periodically advance the plot. A large amount of blood is soon discovered so things don’t look good and soon a murder enquiry is underway.

A Murder of Crows by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett | Waterstones

I would like to thank Netgalley and Unbound for a review copy of A Murder of Crows, an atmospheric thriller set in the Scottish Highlands. Desperate to clear her name Nell, along with her colleague Adam, set out solving the murder using their skills as ecologists to uncover details no one else would notice. But it soon becomes clear that playing Agatha Christie is much harder than it might, at first appear...The most violent thunderstorm in living memory occurs above a sleepy village on the West Coast of Scotland. As I said the characters are all oddballs. Most of them are well drawn and as the novel progresses explanations for their behaviour are slowly revealed but it's all a bit OTT in the one novel. There's lots of ecological trivia imparted (my life is much enriched by now being able to differentiate between rodent poo and bat poo), but at no point is it preachy or overwhelming. It's just worked nicely into the plot.

A Murder of Crows by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett | eBook | Barnes A Murder of Crows by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett | eBook | Barnes

It would take entirely too many words to even summarize the plot of this delightful, fast-paced, complicated novel. It’s about power; who has it and who wants it. Never mind. The story is in the maneuvering, in the interactions between the characters and the lively descriptions of Elizabethan London. And that's not the only game afoot. Tig has caught the attention of the town's local armchair detective group, the Murder of Crows. They're obsessed with Hollow Falls' dark past and fixated on a dangerous search for the missing body of the town's founder. There are rumors about what's buried with the body that could be life-changing for whoever finds it, and with a mission like that underway, it's not long before a member of the Murder of Crows turns up dead.Dodd is increasingly frustrated that he can’t just slit someone’s throat and steal his horses because he’s been wronged (as he would have done at home), but at last he hears the glorious words I liked that "Murder of Crows" was a short but impactful story. The characters weren't super dimensional, but Tig, Wyn, Abuela, and Noel were. I liked the idea of the plot line and for the most part, it was executed well, but there were multiple potential clues that could've given the plot more depth. The poems, for example, didn't really say much for the relaitonship between Noel and Sofia, except for that they were likely in a WLW relationship. I wish that it would've been looked into further as to why Noel and Sofia chose the specific poems they did. Also, Wyatt's death was incredibly uncharacteristic, even though the audience met him briefly -- it wasn't ever explained what specifically happened to him. We had the chance to get an explanation, but the chapel went up in flames along with Franklin, so we'll never know. The pacing, however, was very well suited for the plot. It kept my attention while going between the main plot and its subplots, like the romantic storyline between Wyn and Tig. The imagery and sensory detail was just enough to describe the real setting without taking away the reader's imagination, so I really appreciated that. A Murder of Crows is the début instalment in Sarah Yarwood-Lovett's brand new series featuring ecologist, Dr Nell Ward and its set in a village called Cookingdean, near Pendlebury, south-east England. It was a good read in a novel where we appeared to have two good 'guys'. The first was Nell the ecologist with much to keep secret and the other was James a Detective Sergeant who was given his first lead in a murder case for which Nell was prime suspect. To further complicate matters was there a spark of something between them? Murder of Crows” by K. Ancrum is the novel based on the podcast series “Lethal Lit: A Tig Torres Mystery. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Murder of Crows: A Dunderdale Mystery A Christmas Murder of Crows: A Dunderdale Mystery

The plot was a conundrum. A missing persons case initially, it turned into something more. The reveal of the criminal surprised me, as I'm sure it was meant to do. Yet somehow I felt manipulated and dare I say... used. One of our best-known (and easily meme-able) collective nouns is a murder of crows. Unlike many collective nouns, this sense of murder even has enough evidence in print to merit entry into our dictionaries.R.F. Kuang, Sue Lynn Tan, Rebecca Ross, Kate Heartfield, N.E. Davenport, Saara El-Arifi, Juno Dawson and Sunyi Dean The plot is overshadowed by the attraction triangle of the MC and a male colleague and (of course) the handsome detective investigating the crimes. There is so much drama and ridiculous convoluted *unnecessary* sighing and angst which could be resolved with a one sentence explanation that I had to just power through. There are many readers who enjoy that in their books and they'll be in raptures. My biggest gripe is that this felt like a load of red herrings were thrown into the plot to disguise the obvious nature of the murder. The victim felt very much like the second Mrs De Winter in Rebecca, Nell seemed a little like Temperance Brennan in Kathy Reichs' books (without the social awkwardness) and I'm not sure how this is going to develop into a series, I mean how many murders in a small town would require an ecologist to shed light on the scene? Desperate to clear her name Nell, along with her colleague Adam, set out solving the murder using their skills as ecologists to uncover details no one else would notice. But it soon becomes clear that playing Agatha Christie is much harder than it might, at first appear… I also found the plot to be compelling and very well paced. The mystery and thriller aspect was well woven too, I saw next to none of it coming.