A decent read but it failed to keep my interest until the end. I liked the dog, Patience, but failed to empathise with any of the characters and Hazel really irritated me! Just an ok mystery. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

I leapt into this book without having read any of the previous books in the series, and I think it would have been better if I had. However this does work as a stand-alone novel, and held my interest well enough.

My first Jo Bannister and I did not know I was thrown into book 5 of a series. Though I was able to enjoy this one, I think my appreciation of this one would have been heightened by reading the previous books.

A fast paced mystery with great writing, plot lines and characters. I want to go back and read the rest of the series now and can't wait to get to know Gabriel Ash and Hazel better.

Kindred Spirits is the 5th book in the Hazel Best & Gabriel Ash procedural series by Jo Bannister. Released 1st Sept 2018 by Severn House, it's 220 pages and available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This was the first book I've read in this series, but it worked well enough as a standalone novel. The author is adept at interweaving the backstory into the narrative, so I never felt confused about what was going on or which characters were which. There were some odd/uncomfortable interactions in the book but there's no doubt they were intentional.

There were some rough and distracting plot points for me... for example, the opening scene where Hazel goes to the school to collect the boys and interrupts a kidnapping in progress and generally saves the day with her badassery. Why was Hazel collecting the boys when their nanny was there with them? It's never really explained in the book and I found myself wondering about it.

The book is a procedural (though the main characters flout procedure throughout) and it's quite well plotted with steady pacing and several adrenaline charged scenes to move the action along. I enjoyed the denouement, though it wasn't a huge shock. The dialogue is well written. The language is about average for a modern police procedural (including one stellar use of 'gobshite' which elicited a grin). Nothing egregious as far as language, violence, sexual content, or triggering.

It was an enjoyable read. Three and a half stars, rounded up for the masterful writing.

An amazing book filled with suspense that twists and turns at a fast pace till you reach the end and the killer is revealed.

Jo Bannister never disappoints.in this book Ashe and Best are creeping slowly to a fuller relationship, despite their flaws. A kidnap of the wrong person, an old crime, a rocky bookseller a thoughtful dog. What could be bad?

Hi Karen,


My next review is as follows:-

"Kindred Spirits:A British Police Procedural( A Hazel Best And Gabriel Ash Mystery Book 5)"written by Jo Bannister and published in hardcover by Severn House Publishers Ltd on 31 May 2018 224 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0727887962

Gabriel Ash used to work in M.I.5 but doing what he is very vague about because of confidentiality reasons and as he found the work very stressful he has taken early retirement and is in the process of opening a bookshop. His young sons live with him and are attending a local infant school.

One day, in broad daylight there is an attempt to kidnap them which he believes was orchestrated on behalf of his estranged wife but the attempt is foiled by his friend Constable Hazel Best. But were his sons the target? Hazel uncovers the possibility that the sons were mistaken for someone else.

Whatever, the reason Gabriel is very shaken and worried that his children are not safe and makes attempts to hide them and this is enough to cause problems between his kindred spirit Hazel and her ideas about what occurred.

Jo Bannister has written about 38 books in six different series. My review of “Deadly Virtue” the first Constable Hazel Best and Gabriel Ash story was published on eurocrime.co.uk in April 2013. This Gabriel Ash and Hazel Best story is the 5th in this particular run.

She also published seven books in the Castlemere series and nine books in the Brodie Farrell one. Jo Bannister is a very experienced author who worked originally as a journalist before becoming a full time writer of police procedurals in the UK and abroad. The New York Times referred to her “solid series of British Police”.

I have always enjoyed her very atmospheric books which often have the pathos relieved with some very wry humour. Strongly recommended. .

Best wishes,

Terry (to be published by eurocrime.co.uk)

Gabriel Ash is worried that his vengeful wife has just tried to kidnap his 2 young sons and nanny from in front of the school where they attend. His friend, Constable Hazel Ash, feels it was more a case of mistaken identity and maybe his wife isn't the bad guy after all.

Meanwhile, Hazel is looking into a crime that took place many years ago, the repercussions of which are still threatening innocent lives seventeen years later.

And who exactly is in danger? Can Ash trust her superior and colleagues?

KINDRED SPIRITS is 5th in series featuring Best and Ash. As I have not read any of the previous books, I felt a little lost. My favorite character is Patience, the telepathic dog that owns Gabriel. Patience is worthy of a book all her own.

There is a lot of action with a few surprise twists and turns along the way. I look forward to starting at the beginning of this series and play catch up. I would certainly like to see more of these characters.

Many thanks to the author / Severn House / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

3.5 Stars

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher and this is my honest opinion. I enjoyed this book immensely. I found it to be full of real characters with a fast moving story.

Gabriel Ash is happily engaged in opening his new bookshop, so new the books are still coming out of the cartons when his friend Constable Hazel Best foils the attempted abduction of his children. What a riveting opening to this crime story set in Norbold in the UK Midlands, and it certainly drew me in to read the rest of KINDRED SPIRITS.
The backstory is explained, and it's quite complex in one way, clearly from a previous book, but simple in another: Ash's estranged wife wants to take his kids away and she's a wanted criminal. He doesn't have a fortune to pay a ransom, so he believes this was Cathy's doing. Ash trusts the Filipina nanny, Frankie Kelly, who helped fight off the attackers, so now he's looking at hiring a bodyguard to let his little boys go to school. What a dilemma.
The plot thickens, as they say, and because I had not read the earlier book in the 'Gabriel Ash and Hazel Best' series, I was not sure for a while if the two were romantically involved. Hazel tells someone they're not, adding that Gabriel still has a wife. So... I can't for the life of me see why Gabriel has not put divorce proceedings underway. A nice device the author Jo Bannister uses is that Gabriel sometimes talks his train of thought aloud to his little dog Patience, imagining her calm responses. And our lovely Patience is quite the hero.
An art crime of seventeen years ago turns out to be linked to the death of an antique fence and the attempted kidnap of today, all reminiscent of the stolen Beit art collection in Ireland. While the story does get rather involved, the investigators stick to the point, so it's easy enough to follow. With a dramatic ending and many scary moments, this qualifies as a suspense story as well as a procedural crime novel.
Jo Bannister has worked as a journalist and lives in Northern Ireland. KINDRED SPIRITS is the latest of five books in this series and while that isn't an ideal place to start a series, reading this one will probably make you want to hunt out the earlier books too. I admire her characterisation and mentions of various true crime situations.

Kindred Spirits

by Jo Bannister

Gabriel Ash, formerly a security analyst with the British government, has recently been released from mental health care. He has opened a second hand book shop, Rambles with Books. He has also been reunited with his two sons after a four year separation as a result of his wife’s illegally taking the boys. All should be relatively smooth sailing in the Ash household, but that is not the case. Ash’s good friend, Constable Hazel Best, drives to school to pick up the boys, and she sees them and their nanny being accosted in what appears to be a kidnapping attempt.

The plot of Kindred Spirits rapidly becomes complicated as the older boy, Gilbert, insists that only the nanny was being forced into the van. This fast-moving police procedural by Jo Bannister puts on display not only how the police investigate crimes, but also the behind-the-scenes politics. Neither Hazel nor Detective Inspector Dave Gorman are armchair detectives. The same can be said about Ash when those he cares about are personally threatened. All three are motivated by doing what is right. When an old case clashes with the events of a new case, they refuse to turn a blind eye. The results are dangerous, and you won’t want to stop reading until the mystery is resolved.

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Severn House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Mystery, Police Procedural

Notes: #5 in the Hazel Best and Gabriel Ash Mystery Series. This was the first book in the series for me to read, and I had no problem catching up with the background.

Publication: September 1, 2018—Severn House

Memorable Lines:

Perhaps he was the last man in England—the last man in the civilized world—to enjoy the sensation, both sensual and intellectual, of paper pages curling away under his fingers. Of words, and the ideas they encoded, waiting for him to find them—and staying close at hand after he’d read them, in case he needed to flick back a page or two to check something.

She had less and less patience with hard feelings and petty jealousies. She did her job, and did it well; being liked was an optional extra. It wasn’t something that she’d ever struggled with before, but if it came to a choice between being popular and doing what she believed to be right, she had broad shoulders.

Gorman knew that Jerome Harbinger was sixty-eight. If he hadn’t known, he’d have thought he was ten years older than that. His craggy face was savaged by deep lines that had nothing to do with laughter and everything to do with bitter unhappiness.

Hazel Best is a bright, determined woman whose police career has been compromised by previous shenanigans earlier in the series. One of the few people who now give her the time of day, other than a rather busy Gabriel, is Dave Gorman, her superior. When she gets a bee in her bonnet about exactly who was the target in the attempted kidnapping outside the school, events take off.

This well-written police procedural rolls forward at a reasonable clip, with a good mix of possible suspects. My one grizzle is the dog’s role in unravelling the mystery – given that everything else is so very much set in the world of fact, the dog chatting to Gabriel didn’t convince me. I would have preferred it if this had been left more open so that while Gabriel thinks it’s down to the dog, the rest of us could see another option – and if Bannister intended it to read like that, she didn’t quite succeed.

However, that isn’t a dealbreaker. I would happily pick up another book in this series and it is recommended for fans of cosy crime, particularly dog lovers. While I obtained an arc of Kindred Spirit from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10

Kindred Spirits is a mystery.

Gabriel Ash is opening a bookstore. His partner, Hazel Best, is helping him put the final books on the shelves before the mayor arrives to begin the Grand Opening. Hazel goes to pick up Gabriel’s two children from their elementary school. While there, she foils a plot to kidnap the two sons and their nanny, Frankie. Gabriel immediately suspects his estranged wife, Cathy. Cathy had kidnapped the boys before, keeping them from their father for four years. During police questioning, the boys insist that Frankie was really the intended target.

Much of this book doesn’t follow a logical thought process, which drives me crazy. Going way back to the kidnapping, why, if their nanny was already at the school, did Hazel go to pick up the boys? Hazel seems like an ineffectual loose cannon. Why would you become a policewoman if you hate and refuse to follow rules. This is marketed as a police procedural but it really wasn’t one since no procedures were followed. You know it is bad when you only relate to one character, Patience, who is a telepathic dog. I read the entire book since I agreed to review it. Luckily, you do not have to do the same. 1 star.

Thanks to the publisher, Severn House, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

A good mystery, full of twists and turns and interesting characters.
Even if I liked the book it wasn't easy to understand all the references to previous instalments.
I recommend it but I assume that it's necessary to have read the previous instalment for a complete understandment.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC

I love this series and this latest installment is entirely accessible even without having read the earlier ones. Gabriel Ash is a damaged man who struggles daily but who is supported by the people- and the dog- that love him. Patience the dog is, btw, an equal character as always, although Hazel is really my favorite. This time around, it's thought that Hazel has foiled the kidnapping of Gabriel's young sons when in fact it turns out that it is the principal of their school who was the target. Why is part of the mystery and the identity of the bad guys takes Hazel and Gabe back 17 years. Hazel and DI Gorman work this hard- and the twists, while not entirely unexpected- are well done. Part of the charm of these books is Bannister's off hand way with one liners and the gentle way she approaches her characters. She clearly has great affection for Hazel and Gabe, and I do too. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Two thumbs up!

The book reads like part of a series where to really understand the characters you need to have read the previous books. That is fine, however, to a reader who picks up the book independently, there is something missing.

The story certainly has twists and turns, but they were not so much engaging or capturing but fits of stops and starts. In all it felt disjointed, making it an unpleasant read. Perhaps some better understanding of the characters gained from reading previous installations would help, but I am not certain even that would do it.

Kindred Spirits is the latest book by Jo Bannister but the first that I have read.

The story starts off with an attempted kidnapping but was it the correct target and why were they being kidnapped.

There then follows a relatively easy but enjoyable read as the two main characters, aided and abetted by a police colleague, try to solve the mysteries

Whilst I did enjoy the book there were a number of references to backstories and my enjoyment would probably have been enhanced if I had read the previous books in the series, however, I did still enjoy the book.

Recommended

Sadly could not get into this at all, perhaps due to not having read previous instalments. Not usually an issue for me but sadly so with this.

Kindred Spirits is a very well written book. Loved the plot and the characters. I haven read previous books but will be checking them out. Highly recommend this book.