This is a good quick read. This book is very dated in places and everything is solved by reasoning and deduction rather than DNA evidence. It is still a good story. This is the first book that I have read by Roy Lewis. I probably will read more.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of The Woods Murder, the third novel to feature DCI John Crow of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, originally published in 1972.

When solicitor Charles Lendon is murdered Canthorpe’s Chief Constable calls in outside help from Scotland Yard, reasoning that his local team has enough on its hands with the unsolved murder of nine year old Jenny Carson, not that the team agree. John Crow is the man sent to solve Lendon and only Lendon’s murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Woods Murder which is a good, old fashioned whodunnit with plenty of twists and turns. I used to read Mr Lewis’s books in the 80s and 90s but this is my first encounter with DCI Crow so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Firstly I was surprised that there is no sense of location as his other series are so firmly rooted in the North East. Canthorpe could be anywhere in England. Apart from this it is a fairly “straightforward” police procedural with an unlikeable victim and a plethora of suspects, all with plausible motives. Obviously with the novel being written in the 70s there is no forensic science to speak of so the investigation boils down to deductive reasoning and, here, Mr Lewis plays his cards close to his chest with the reader being made aware of certain evidence but not being given the content immediately, rather, being left to wonder. I think some readers will find it intriguing, others annoying. I enjoyed the whodunnit aspect of the novel, finding it logical and believable although some of the motives and attitudes do date the novel.

The Woods Murder is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.