** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

~

Till Sudden Death Do Us Part, by Simon R. Green
Ishmael Jones, 07
★★★★☆

192 Pages
1st person, single character POV
Themes: murder, science fiction, aliens, secret organisations, small town, family curse, shape-changers
Triggers: mentions of gore, violence and supernatural beings
Genre: Contemporary, Murder Mystery, Science Fiction, Crime


Till Sudden Death Do Us Part is the seventh book in the Ishmael Jones series and deviates from the usual plot concept slightly because this is neither a locked-house or locked-room mystery! In fact, it's not even an isolated location mystery.

Ishmael receives a request from an old friend – from way back when he worked for Black Heir in the 60s – whose daughter is about to get married. Robert Bergin was once a Black Heir operative, now in his late70's and with a daughter set to be married, he needs Ishmael's help to break a family curse generations in the making. The curse threatens the lives of the bride and groom, who have all died horribly on their wedding night. To prevent this, Ishmael and Penny attend the small country village to help out.

There's a whole new cast, as well as the recurring characters of Ishmael, Penny and the Colonel. New characters are all wedding related:
Robert – the father of the bride
Gillian – the bride
Tom – the groom, and an up-and-coming actor
Detective Inspector Peter Godwin – the local police, the only one left after everyone else is called to an emergency
Cathy – local taxi driver and old school friend of Gillian's
Linda Meadows – local reporter
Ian Adams – Linda's friend and cameraman
David Barnes – best man and up-and-coming actor along with Tom
Karen Nicholls – bridesmaid and old school friend of Gillian's
Reverend Allen – the first victim, and original vicar for the wedding
Reverend Stewart – his replacement

The plot itself is intriguing. There's a family curse that says the groom will die on the wedding night and bride will either go mad or kill herself afterwards. To make sure that doesn't happen, Robert brings in Ishmael to investigate, after the vicar is killed in his own church. But when Ishmael arrives, the town is terrified of the curse and it's hard to get anyone in the wedding party to believe in it long enough to be cautious.

The investigation goes pretty much along the lines of most others, in that Ishmael and Penny talk to anyone and everyone possible to get more background on the situation, the main players, and then try to figure out what's going on. What's different is that the stakes are lower, the killer is cunning, and the situation is far more dangerous to Ishmael in that this is a favour done outside of the Organisation so he doesn't have any back-up if anything goes wrong.

Add onto that the fact that Ishmael's inner alien is pressing at the gates of its cage, waiting to be set free, and Ishmael is so afraid of what might happen if it gets out that he can't sleep or use his abilities to their full for fear that it will grow strong enough to escape. The fact that he's temporarily imprisoned in this story, paraded through the street in handcuffs, only adds to his paranoia and the danger he's in if the inner alien gets out, because he's terrified that it might just kill everyone in his way.

I loved the representation that was added here, as well. There's an openly gay character, Cathy is openly promiscuous but never shamed or shunned for it, and there's mention that she had a teenage abortion which is never used to shame or degrade her. There is also a mention of childhood bullying and brief off-page parental abuse, that's handled sensitively despite not being related to the main characters.

It was really nice to see a few brief passages about Ishmael's past where he reminisced about his first official partner, Lady Patricia in the 60s. It was great to see something of who he used to be and how suddenly his age and non-ageing abilities crept up on him. It was also good to see how he felt when he faced Robert, who was showing his age and how that affected Ishmael mentally as well as how it affected Robert, who had to see his old world colleague un-aged.

There were a lot of nice twists and turns in the story that kept me guessing, and while I had a few theories throughout the book, I felt it all came together nicely. It felt well paced and reasoned out, and just when I thought Ishmael might fall for that old misdirection trick again – that he's now encountered in 2 recent books – he proved me wrong and saw right through it.

~

Favourite Quote

“But...am I a man dreaming he used to be an alien, or an alien dreaming he's a man?”

Ishmael Jones and Penny Belcourt are requested by Robert Bergin, an old acquaintance from Ishmael's days at Black Heir, to save his daughter from murder. Gillian Bergin is getting married and there is a family curse that the groom will die on the wedding night. Robert wants to prevent that, especially since the vicar of the local church has found hanged from his church's bell rope. Ishmael and Penny arrive to find that they have only a day to foil the curse and solve the murder. But then more murders happen and life get complicated when Ishmael starts having issues with his alien self. An interesting, twisty murder mystery that gets resolved only to leave several question to be pursued in the next book. A very good addition to the series.

I read the book a couple of years ago and during a reading slump so I thought it would be better to re-read the book because I couldn't remember the plot and what I thought about.

As usual Ismael and Penny travel to done remote place to solve a mystery. This time a family curse of an old friend and colleague to Ismael.

I like this series, it's like a blend between Midsummer Murders and the X-files. I Especially like the ending of the book. I'm glad I decided to read the book again because now I could appreciate the book more than when I read it the first time.

I pulled this one from somewhere in the midst of the virtually towering TBR pile because I finished a book in one of this author’s other series for a Library Journal review and realized that I was still in the mood for his particular brand of snark and that I wasn’t caught up to Ishmael Jones yet.

So here we are. Or rather, there Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny Belcourt are, in another play on a country house ghost story. One in which the ghost may not be real, but there really is something out to get Ishmael, Penny, and whoever either invited them or whom they need to protect from something that has gone loudly, seriously and with malice very much aforethought bump in the night.

Ishmael’s been invited to a wedding in Bradenford, Yorkshire, a rural town he’s never been to before and hopes never to be again even before the mess of this case.

The thing about Ishmael – well, honestly there are a LOT of things about Ishmael, most of which Penny Belcourt knows (because they met on a case in their first adventure, The Dark Side of the Road). Ishmael and now Penny work for a mysterious organization rather coyly named The Organization because Ishmael needs something that clandestine to hide him from all the ubiquitous security devices and agencies that have cropped up all over the world since he crash-landed his UFO in 1963. And hasn’t aged a day since.

He looks human because his ship fixed that before it went defunct. But it didn’t do a perfect job. It’s not just the lack of aging, it also locked away all his memories of who and what he was before.

But this is a case that seems designed to bring back more of his past than he has any desire to meet. Both his past passing for human AND his past as an alien monster. He’s not even sure which reveal is going to be worse.

Still, he and Penny come to Bradenford because he owes an old colleague more than he can ever repay. Even if his attempt at that repayment is going to reveal at least some of the secrets he’s been keeping. Because it’s been 40 years since Ishmael and Robert Bergin have met. Bergin shows every single one of those years – while Ishmael displays precisely none.

But Bergin reluctantly recognizes that he’s not the man he used to be, while Ishmael still very much is. And that’s exactly who Bergin needs, a skilled operator used to dealing with all the terrible and secret things that no one wants to admit exist.

There’s a curse on the Bergin family and it has reached out from the past to grab his daughter and everyone involved with her wedding to an actor who probably isn’t nearly good enough for her.

But no one deserves to get sliced to pieces by some monster with fangs, claws and a 200-year-old vendetta.

It’s up to Ishmael and Penny to figure out whether there really is a curse – or just someone taking advantage of the old legends for grisly purposes of their own.

Escape Rating B: This turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. The author is very much an acquired taste – but one I acquired so long ago that when I get the craving nothing else will do.

What brings me back over and over is the snarkitude. Whoever the protagonist is in one of his series, they are all cut from the same snarky, wry, sarcastic cloth, thinking all the things we wish we’d thought at the time, making all the smart-assed observations – and still managing to get the dirty job done no matter who they piss off along the way.

Because there’s always someone – and usually multiples.

Part of what makes Ishmael Jones in particular so interesting are the built-in ironies of the whole setup. Ishmael is an alien investigating weird shit who doesn’t believe in demons, ghosts, spirits or any of the other psychic phenomena that the people he’s investigating are generally desperate to blame for whatever has gone wrong. He knows there’s weird shit out there, but he’s very much aware that there’s always a human agency behind it. Every once in a while, it’s a human agency he used to work for.

From Ishmael’s perspective, this is a story about his own past coming back to bite him. Both in the sense that he learns stuff he still didn’t want to know about his old friend Bergin and their mutual employer, but also because he’s feeling like his old identity is emerging from the shadows he’s kept it buried in for almost 60 years. He’s afraid of his own past and his inability to control it because Ishmael is the persona that Penny loves and he never wants to lose that.

But this is also a murder-mystery. Everyone in town wants it to be the old curse because no one wants to think there’s a brutal murderer roaming their peaceful little town. A mysterious curse brings tourists while a rampaging mundane murderer will drive everyone away. At least it ought to.

I have mixed feelings about the way the murders get solved. It could be interpreted as a bit of a cheap shot that got redeemed at the end with a clever twist. You’ll have to decide for yourself.

Howsomever, I enjoyed my journey with Ishmael and Penny, so I’ll be back to see how Ishmael’s reconciliation between his past and his present continues in Night Train to Murder the next time I have a taste for extreme snarkitude blended with mu

Thanks to Severn House, the author and Netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I had read some of this author’s work when I requested this book but I did not realise it was a later instalment in a series, It didn’t matter because I thoroughly enjoyed the book, even without knowing Ishmael’s back story. I loved the characters and the humour, as well as the mystery. Looking forward to reading more in the series soon.

Lucky Seven?

This is the seventh book in the Ishmael Jones series, and we've turned some sort of corner. I like the Jones character and I enjoy the series, but the books were getting repetitive and a little hard even to tell apart. But starting with Book Six we seem to have gotten reenergized.

Jones has a dark past as an alien who crashed to Earth, was rebuilt as a quasi human, and has amnesia regarding his prior life as an alien, (including even what his previous form was). This is explained in the beginning of each book. But in Book Six memories of his past began to surface in Jones's mind and intrude on his daily Earth life. That theme is continued and developed here, and it adds a whole new dimension to the otherwise expected supernatural mystery arc that carries each book. I welcome this development because it makes Jones more interesting than was the case with just vague references to his dark past.

As to the plot, it's a country house/isolated village murder mystery, with the spin than the murders are connected to a curse involving marriage of female heirs of an ancient family. NO SPOILERS, but this one is better than in some of the earlier books. As usual we have a slow build and then a fast and socko resolution. In this one it's all very fast and especially socko, and I was thrilled to see that Green put some real twisty punch into the finale.

So, I'm still on the Ishmael Jones bandwagon, and am actually getting more enthusiastic about these later books.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Simon Green in Till Sudden Death Do Us Part turns a wedding that Ishmael is attending into a gothic horror show. Who is trying to kill the bride? Is there a witch's curse on the bride's family. Ishmael has to use his special skills to find the murderer and end the curse.

I’m a big fan of this author. I’ve read several of his other series in the past and have enjoyed them greatly. But I’ve had a real love / hate relationship with this particular series so far. I’ve just had a lot of problems with the repetitions, the cliches, the cheesy dialogue, the predictability of the plot, and the contradictions I’ve seen so far with the Ishmael Jones Mysteries. If you don’t believe me, just look at my past reviews for the first 6 books in the series. But… like I said, I’m a big fan of Simon, so I’m all in at this point, for better or worse. Simon R. Green is normally much tighter with his writing, and I keep hoping that he will get this series back on track.

With Till Death Do Us Part we see a refreshing change up in how the book starts. We start off with seeing a little bit of Ishmael’s home life and down time. I really enjoyed that. It’s something we don’t normally get to see. Also at the start of this book is how Ishmael and Penny get involved with the case. Normally it is part of their job, but this time it’s an old friend asking for help. It was cool getting to see Ish. help a friend from his past instead of just doing another job.

Another refreshing change up to the series, is the location setting for this book. Yes, there was still a creepy, dark mansion out in the middle of nowhere, all by itself, but a good portion of the story actually takes place in the small town near by. I was really happy about this! It was so much fun getting to see Ishmael out and about in a wide open area, interacting with citizens of that town. We’ve seen the lonely old mansion setting so many times so far in the series, it was getting a little silly at how similar most of the locations were. This time we had the creeper mansion, but we weren’t just stuck there the whole time. In fact, the time at the mansion was pretty short, or at least it felt like it.

There is one more big, refreshing change up with this entry in the series. Not everyone dies! 😮 Seriously… it was starting to be kind of ridiculous how time after time the only people left alive at the end of the book were just Penny and Ishmael! I mean, keeping everyone alive is basically Ishmael’s primary job on his cases, and he kinda sucks at that! It happens in basically every book, it just became so predictable. Oh gee, we are introduced to 5 characters, I bet they all die. Yep. They do. But in Till Death do Us Part, there was a great balance of who lived and who died. It made the story harder to predict. Plenty of interesting characters and it was nice to see that some of them survived.

While I did enjoy that Ishmael wandered around the town, it was kind of annoying how a lot of the action was just Ishmael and Penny walking back and forth from one crime scene to another. Don’t get me wrong, I DO like that Ish was free range in the town. The PROBLEM is that…. all they did was walk! And look! They didn’t really find any clues or notice anything unusual. They went back and forth to all these different locations… and basically NOTHING happened! REALLY? I mean… I like that Ishmael was stumped, but… there was just no balance. Yes, he does figure out who the killer really is, but he doesn’t figure it out until the very end. There were obvious clues throughout the book, but Ish doesn’t seem to notice them or make any comments on them, until the very end when he says who the killer is, like it only just occurred to him. This just ended up making Ishmael and Penny seem kind of bad at their task. I don’t want to just watch them walk around and not figure anything out. I want to seem them wander around picking up on clues and figuring out who are their top suspects. Also, because of Penny and Ishmael just wandering around not figuring anything out, it made the story just feel super slow going for the whole first half of the book!

It didn’t help any that the killer was super obvious. If I can figure it out when the very first clue is dropped early in the story, it makes it even sadder that Ishmael didn’t pick up on it at all until the very end, after he already invited the killer back the isolated mansion. It’s just like, really? You, Mr. I-don’t-trust-anyone doesn’t find this character suspicious at all through the whole story? HOW?! It made no sense.

See, this is one of the bigger problems with this series. Inconsistencies like this. You can’t tell us how Ishmael is one of the best agents in the Organization, but then have him act so stupid. Or, like, normally he is all over people about wandering off on their own when they are in a group, but this time he makes no comments at all when the main characters start doing just that!! I really want to like this series, but stuff like this makes it very frustrating!

There are a couple of cool things that happened in Till Death Do Us Part, though. First, we get to see more of this inner alien side of Ishmael and we watch him actually get to interact with that side of himself. Getting pieces of Ishmael’s past, and seeing this inner alien side of him, is always very interesting. It’s a fun mystery that is a big story arch through the whole series. The second pretty cool thing in this novel is the surprise twist about the family curse! I gotta say, I was not expecting that!

This was not a terrible book, but it was not the best book in the series either. It just felt kind of slow going and like the main characters never really made any progress in solving things. It just kind of fell in their laps at the end of the story. :/ Most of the time they were just spinning their wheels through this whole case. A little bit of usefulness at the very end doesn’t really make up for the slow plodding through 85% of the plot.

“A steady paced mystery that will keep you wondering till the very end.”

When Ishmael Jones receives a mysterious phone call from an ex-colleague requesting his assistance in helping to investigate a gruesome murder on the eve of his daughter’s wedding, he doesn't have any backup and can’t use the power of his position to leverage any favours; he’s all on his own.

When Ishmael Jones visits a sleepy town to investigate the murder with a side of the supernatural, he is plagued with visions of his previous self; this latest murder is bringing some sides of himself too close to the surface that he'd rather forget.

The world Simon Green has built walks very skilfully between the real and supernatural worlds with plenty of references to past events. The small town Ishmael and his partner Penny find themselves in is written as a rather bland and featureless town with a small handful of characters (I counted approximately 10 in the whole book) this works very well in creating an atmosphere of a small town where nothing ever happens…curse aside.

Unfortunately, this is taken a bit too far; the characters are very shallow with almost no development including both Ishmael and Penny (although this may mostly be in his other books…surely some personal growth should happen in this one?).

Unfortunately, the books biggest failure is the ending (no spoilers don't worry). A good paced build-up to what should typically be a final fight/ conclusion would round off the book nicely. Unfortunately, the turn of events and how the truth behind all the events of the novel falls horribly flat. It's as if the solution was plucked out of thin air and the final twist failed to deliver any shock value, leaving a very flat conclusion.

Overall this book is a book that would appeal to anyone not looking for anything too taxing to follow, but people looking for more depth to their narratives should stay away.

Alex

Breakaway reviewers received a copy of the book for review.

This series keeps finding a way to make me enjoy reading it. The writer keeps crafting a new mystery all while pushing the overarching narrative forward with each new installment. This book crafts a mystery that you don't see through. At the last minute it through a curveball that you couldn't see coming to wrap the whole story together. I don't have many series that I could recommend more then this one.

My thanks to Severn House for an eARC via NetGalley of Simon R. Green’s ‘Till Sudden Death Do Us Part’ in exchange for an honest review.

This is the seventh in Green’s Ishmael Jones series. Jones is a very unusual character as in 1963 he was the only survivor of the crash of an alien spacecraft. The ship’s transformation machines changed him into a human form so that he could survive until rescue came. Help never came and the damage to the machines resulted in his memory being wiped.

Since 1963 he has not aged and has worked for various secret organisations who can shield him. He currently works for the Organisation investigating cases of the weird and uncanny assisted by his human partner, Penny Belcourt.

I read Ishmael’s introduction and was immediately hooked. Although I have a number of Green’s works on my bookshelf, this was my first foray into this particular series.

In this outing Ishmael and Penny travel to rural Yorkshire at the request of an old friend of Ishmael’s from his days in Black Heir. Robert Bergin’s daughter, Gillian, is about to be married and Robert is afraid that she will fall victim to a 200-year old family curse.

As they arrive in the village they learn that the vicar who was to perform the ceremony has been found dead, hanging from a bell rope in his church. With no clues, evidence, or motive could this death relate to the curse as the villagers believe or someone using the curse as a smokescreen? Ishmael and Penny only have a short time to uncover the truth.

Aside from the science fiction/paranormal element in this series in many ways it is a classic English locked room mystery that could be found in the writings of Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers.

This proved a short enjoyable read with plenty of suspects, red herrings, and some great twists. I did very much enjoy the humour especially the banter between Ishmael and Penny.

I was delighted to find that our local library has most of this series in their collection and plan to read more of them starting with the first in the near future. Hopefully another Ishmael Jones mystery is coming soon.

The main ingredients I’ve grown to enjoy were still in place – Ishmael’s rather grumpy, over-developed sense of responsibility; the tongue-in-cheek humour; the solid teamwork between Ishmael and Penny; the creepy sense of tension; the sudden, shocking deaths… I did like the poignant aspect of him being confronted with his former partner, now an old, rather frail man while he is still in his prime. And in this offering there is a doozy of a death that had me spluttering into my breakfast cup of tea with horrified hilarity.

However, we had more of an insight into who or what Ishmael actually is as his non-human side is starting to emerge after some sixty years. It was a nice touch – while he has to be constantly alert that he doesn’t give away his heightened senses and unnatural strength, those attributes do mean that not much can actually threaten him. So the idea that the alien monster within is stirring – and Ishmael has no idea exactly what that entails gives a nicely creepy spin on the story. I particularly liked the part where Penny is feeling a tad wounded because Ishmael appears to be distancing her, where in actual fact he is trying to protect her from whatever is struggling to surface – and he doesn’t know if she is safe in his company.

The tale is brought to a suitably satisfactory ending, although I will be surprised if Ishmael’s issues with his alien persona are over. This series is one of my solid favourites and at no stage have I felt let down or disappointed by any of the books – and this latest addition is no exception. I’m aware that with seven books in the series, you might be wary of jumping midway into all the mayhem, but while some events in the backstory are given a mention, it really isn’t necessary to read all the books to appreciate the unfolding action.

Highly recommended for fans of paranormal whodunits with a slightly OTT gothic twist. The ebook arc copy of Till Sudden Death Do Us Part was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest opinion of the book.
8/10

I have been a huge Simon R. Green fan ever since I read his Nightside series. I love how Green mixes sci-fi and horror elements along with a healthy splash of humor....makes for very enjoyable stories! I started reading Ishmael Jones when I finished the Nightside books. For me, this new series filled the void left by the ending of the Nightside storyline. Quirky, a bit scary, definitely entertaining!

Ishmael Jones has a deep, dark secret.....he's actually an alien. He knows he's an alien, but he's been stranded on Earth for a very long time. And he doesn't remember exactly where he is from, or even what he really is. He's been working for various secret organizations for decades doing various strange and dangerous investigations. Now he teams up with his human girlfriend, Penny Balcourt, to investigate mysterious, strange cases around the UK.

Till Sudden Death Do Us Part is the seventh Ishmael Jones story. Ishmael and his sidekick are once again on the case.....but this time it's a bit different. Someone from Ishmael's past hunts him down to ask for help. The family is cursed. Each time a female family member gets married before the sun rises after the wedding night, people will be dead. Ishmael wants to prevent a dead groom and wedding party members..... At the same time, he's dealing with his own inner demons. Literally. It seems he might be remembering who he is.....and his alien self might be trying to pop out into the sunshine.

Great story this time! Green never disappoints me! I enjoyed the story of the family curse and also the character development for Ishmael in this newest book. The ending of the story surprised me a bit....I wasn't expecting either of the two reveals. Nice!

Love this series! I'm definitely on board for the next book!

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Severn House via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

I didn't read this book, I inhaled it. It was so engrossing that I couldn't turn pages fast enough and I read it in one setting.
I'm a fan Ishmael Jones and I thinks this one a very good installment.
The usual mix of thriller/paranormal/sci-fi works/horror works very well as well as the description of the small town dynamics and the character development.
I think that one of the theme of the book is the past that is haunting the present, the fear of the unknown consequences of the past.
The mystery part is excellent, full of red herrings, and it kept me guessing till the end.
I look forward to the next installment.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

EXCERPT: 'It all began back in the eighteenth century, when the Bergin family was a lot more prosperous than it is now. They were rich, powerful, and much looked up to in the area. The eldest daughter was to be married, but the groom had been engaged to someone else. He broke that off to marry the Bergin daughter. The spurned woman made all kinds of threats, but who was she to stand against the mighty Bergin family? The marriage went ahead as planned. Half the county was there to wish the young couple every happiness. But the woman he'd slighted sneaked into the church and murdered both the bride and the groom while they were standing at the altar. Stabbed them to death in a frenzy before the family could drag her away.

They hanged her, right there in the church, too angry to wait for a trial and official justice.But with her last owrds, the witch put a curse on the Bergin family. That no daughter of theirs would ever be able to marry, because an invisible demon would kill the groom on their wedding night. It would also kill anyone who tried to protect the bride, or get in the way of its vengeance. No more happy ever afters for a Bergin bride.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: A wedding. A murder. A 200-year-old curse: Ishmael Jones is plunged into a baffling investigation when he answers an old friend's call for help.

Although he hasn't seen Robert Bergin for 40 years, Ishmael feels duty bound to respond when his old friend calls for help. Robert's daughter Gillian is about to be married, and he is afraid she'll fall prey to the ancient family curse.

Arriving in rural Yorkshire, Ishmael and his partner Penny learn that the vicar who was to perform the ceremony has been found dead in the church, hanging from his own bell rope. With no clues, no evidence and no known motive, many locals believe the curse is responsible. Or is someone just using it as a smokescreen for murder? With the wedding due to take place the following day, Ishmael has just a few hours to uncover the truth.

But his investigations are hampered by sudden flashes of memory: memories of the time before he was human. What is it Ishmael's former self is trying to tell him ... ?

MY THOUGHTS: Bradenford is somewhere we have all been - a small country town in the middle of nowhere with far too much past and not enough future. Yet interestingly enough, it has traffic lights...and seemingly more than one set. But I digress.....it is the perfect setting for a mystery that has a vicar hanged by his own bell rope, a family curse going back centuries, a police investigation conspicuous by its absence, an alien and a ......well, if I tell you that, it will give the whole game away!

I am a solid fan of this amusing series. The books are short (this one a mere 140 pages), entertaining and easy to read. Quite Agatha Christiesque, if you discount the alien, though there are times when I wonder about Poirot!

I love Green's writing, which inevitably makes me smile with pleasure. He is the master of pithy comments - 'There's a time and a place for being right.' But he also has a beautiful turn of phrase - 'Loose ends from the past, still haunting the present.'

Although the books are short, Green's characters are remarkably full bodied and designed to complement one another.

Although I felt that this was the weakest of the series, it is still deserving of 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 rather than down.

THE AUTHOR: Simon R. Green is a bestselling British author of sci-fi and fantasy. Born in 1955 in Bradford-Upon-Avon, Wiltshire, where he still lives, he has become a prolific author of his genre.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Severn House via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Till Sudden Death Do Us Part by Simon R. Green for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system, please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page, or the 'about' page on my webpage, sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage.

It appears that Green is becoming bored with this series. There is nothing really interesting except for more of the history of who/what Ismael is. Besides that the story is very pedestrian and the protagonist could have been guessed after 30 pages by my dog.

Ismael and Penny are called to the English countryside by an ex-compatriot. His daughter is getting married and may be in danger. The family lives under a curse that has already killed the Vicar who was supposed to perform the service. Ismael hadn't seen this guy is over twenty years and it takes some hemming and hawing until the old friend understands what's going on with Ishmael. Then blah blah blah , another murder, blah blah blah, catch the murderer. THE END.

I’ve had a rocky relationship with this series since the beginning. I am a fan of the author but this series can be a little repetitive. However, the one before and this one have been much better in that regard. I really liked the glimpse of Ishmael’s past, and I loved the glimpse of him fighting his own demons. I’m hoping we learn more about that in the next book; I want to find out more about his past pre 1963 (trying to be vague because of spoilers). One thing that bugged me a little bit, though, was that the best man picked up Ishmael and Penny at the train station, but later they were introduced to him like they’d never seen him before. I am very forgiving of those types of errors in independently published books for many, many reasons, but this isn’t independently published. That aside, I really liked this book, but I would like a little more depth in books in the series in the future, i.e. delve more into Ishmael’s and Penny’s background, Ishmael’s past, etc. Recommend this book, and I received a complimentary copy which I voluntarily reviewed.

Ishmael Jones and Penny Belcourt travel to the countryside after the head of The Organization (for which Ishmael works now) tells him an old friend needs his help. Ishmael has worked for various secret organization through his years in the human world, one of which was The Black Heir. Robert Bergin warned Ishmael to get out of Black Heir before they canned him, so Ishmael feels he owes Robert, whose daughter is about to be married. Robert is concerned about the Bergin Curse that was laid upon the family centuries before by a witch who felt she was wrongfully passed over by a man who wed a Bergin ancestor. No Bergin female has survived her wedding night. But before the wedding, there are more murders that Ishmael and Penny feel are being contrived to place the blame on the Curse. But what is the Curse? The reader is left guessing until the actual wedding night. Another good romp in the world of alien Ishmael Jones.

You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

Ishmael and Penny are back for another mystery. Things are going swimmingly for the pair, besides Ishmael's "other" side trying to break out, when the Colonel appears bearing a message from an old friend of Ishmael's. Knowing the kind of person that Robert Bergin is, Ishmael doesn't take it lightly when he has to make the decision whether to help his old friend or not, of course he does. Knowing that this will probably raise more questions for Robert and Penny than Ishmael is comfortable, he pushes through and accepts the call for help with no questions asked. Once the couple have arrived in the sleepy, country town where Robert now resides, they find themselves asked "Are you here for the wedding? Or the murder?" What follows is a race against time as Ishmael is tasked with protecting Robert's soon-to-be married daughter from either a murderer intent on ripping the happy couple apart, or the centuries old family curse of the Bergin's. Twists and turns abound as Ishmael and Penny do everything in their power to keep the bride and groom alive and get to the bottom of things before it's too late.

I first came to know of Green when I was approved for the previous book in this series, Murder in the Dark, which is book number six in this series. I haven't read any of the previous titles in the series, but I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on them. Though these mysteries are generally coloured with darker tones than a cosy mystery, there's still something cosy about them to me. They tend to lean more towards the supernatural and paranormal aspects of the world rather than your run of the mill revenge murderer, that's not to say that it's never the human though. I've always been fond of the more supernatural and paranormal stories that I come across as it just adds that little bit of extra oomph that I'm looking for in a story. I was not disappointed with Murder in the Dark and I wasn't disappointed with this one either.

The story starts off with Penny and Ishmael in London (I think? My memory is shocking), they're on a break of all things. Taking breakfast in the morning sun, deciding to take a stroll down a street that Ishmael hasn't seen since the 60's. The only difference is, Ishmael is finding that his other self, the alien part of him, is breaking through and he is struggling to control it. Funnily enough, after finishing the story, I find there to be some interesting parallels between what Ishmael is dealing with and other things that are happening in the story itself, I quite enjoyed this. After the Colonel finds the pair, much to their disdain, they set off to a small, country town so that Ishmael can help an old friend of his.

I found the beginning of the story to drag quite a bit as things were set up, from memory, I had the same experience in the previous book I've read in the series. Once Penny and Ishmael had met with the Colonel and it was decided that Ishmael would help his old friend, the pacing picked up a little bit. That's not to say that this is a quick read, even though it's relatively short, I've found, in my experiences, that Green's stories are more of a slow burn. There's no rushing to be seen in these stories at all, it's more of a languorous stroll through the pages than a race, even though the suspense is an absolutely killer at times.

As always, Penny and Ishmael are witty and charming and all things likeable in a sleuthing, working for a secret government agency, pair of lovers, one with a secret that he keeps buried deep. They're relateable and likeable in their personalities. Green does an excellent job of ensuring that all characters in his stories have their own voice and distinctive personalities, you have the overbearing Gillian, the bride to be, the acquiescing groom in Tom, who will always do what Gillian asks. The old friend, Robert who is struggling with all the aspects of growing old, namely that he can't protect his daughter how he once could. The nosy and loud reporter Linda, with the mouse like camera man Ian. Cathy who's personality can only be described as larger than life and incredibly loud, we have Inspector Godwin, the only person able to be spared when there is murder afoot; the ever suspicious, dutiful law enforcement officer just trying to do his job. And lastly we have characters who are further set back than even secondary characters, the bit players who even though they blend in with the background more, are still very distinctive and memorable. If Green can do anything well, it's giving life and realness to the characters he creates, even those that are the literal wallpaper of a story, something that blends in with the background and is just there to contrast with the main objects of the story.

The mystery itself was incredibly interesting. The whole time I had no idea whether it was supernatural or simply human monsters that were responsible for the murder (and past murders at that). Roughly halfway through I though "Ha! I've got it, I've worked it out already" nope, it wasn't so, I do love to be proven wrong in these instances. It's never fun when you work it all out before the main characters of a story. THEN! Just as the big reveal happened BAM! Another twist. I did NOT see this one coming AT ALL. Not one bit. I've come to expect big firework, finale finishes of Green's work so I sincerely hope that I am not disappointed when I start my foray through the series from the beginning!!

In this latest episode of the Ishmael Jones series, his assistance is unexpectedly and surprisingly requested by a former friend, someone he worked with years ago while at Black Heir. His friend, Robert Bergin, is requesting Ishmael’s assist in protecting his daughter who is to be married shortly. And, by the way, there’s already been a murder and there is a possible old family curse that may be to blame.

I enjoyed this outing very much, reading quickly through the chapters, wondering what was going to happen to the members of the wedding party and also to Ishmael. For this is an even more introspective Ishmael than usual. Even before he learns of his new case, he finds himself thinking of his past, his human past, and feeling the barriers between his known and unknown selves slipping. The entire novel has a more serious tone to it as Ishmael questions what his inner self may be and risks involvement in a case that could bring him to the attention of old “masters.” Of course, Penny is his constant partner through thick and thin.

I definitely recommend this to all who have been following Ishmael’s journey. While this can be read as a stand alone, it would be much better enjoyed and appreciated if at least one or two of the series books were read beforehand.

A copy of this book was provided by Severn House Publishers through NetGalley in return for an honest review.