Detective Mike Nash relocates to Yorkshire seeking a quieter life, only to stumble upon a grim mystery. A woman's remains, bound to a chair, are discovered in a dilapidated cottage on the Yorkshire moors. As Nash delves deeper, he uncovers a second body concealed in a well within the garden. The investigation takes a darker turn when the team finds additional skeletons hidden within the decrepit structure. With the death of the solicitor involved, the case shifts from a cold investigation to a hunt for a cunning murderer determined to protect their secrets at any cost. Nash must race against time to apprehend the killer before they strike again.

Initially, my impression of this book was lukewarm, but as I delved deeper, I found myself drawn in, thinking it might warrant a five-star rating. However, my enthusiasm waned as certain aspects began to bother me. DI Nash's tendency to withhold crucial information from his colleagues and readers, reminiscent of Poirot but less fitting for a police procedural, felt contrived and strained credibility. The inclusion of secondary crimes like burglary only served to muddy the waters of the murder investigation, with one subplot feeling entirely extraneous. The author's critique of the legal profession, while biting, was marred by Nash's hypocritical actions regarding stolen materials. The depiction of the gruesome murders was handled with some sensitivity, yet the plot's complexity made it challenging for mystery enthusiasts to deduce the culprit until late in the narrative. With a plethora of characters who often felt underdeveloped, including the main police figures, it was difficult to fully engage with the story. Additionally, the inclusion of a romantic subplot left me wondering if it would culminate in a satisfying conclusion. Overall, while the book had its moments, it fell short of its potential, leaving me ultimately disappointed.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily and it reflects my personal opinion.
Another book in the Mike Nash series by this accomplished author promised a very good read. The characters are credible and entertaining, a good team, and the inclusion of elements of Nash's home life increase interest. As ever there are several subplots, each full of twists. I have found it best to read these novels without putting the book down - so complex a break can make the reader miss a thread! These are excellent crime thrillers, the only irritation is the occasional Americanised spelling - the books are set in Yorkshire and the author is British so this spoils the books' atmosphere temporarily, hence the loss of one star.

I received a complimentary electronic ARC of this excellent novel from Netgalley, Bill Kitson, and an invitation from publisher Joffe Books. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Skeletons in the Closet of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I always enjoy another DI Mike Nash tale and am pleased to recommend Bill Kitson's work to friends and family. Just when you think you have figured out the plot, it expands into something else.

Detective Mike Nash is a series, and this is number 15, but they are all complete stories in and of themselves. If you read more than one, the characters become friends because you know them in all their humor.

"Skeletons in the Closet" is no exception. Mike is often stingy with his ideas of plot and counter-plot with his crew as well as you, so you at least have company in the dark. And this is a pretty dark tale. I sure did enjoy it.

Wow wow wow. Finished in one day… Twists to make me gasp out loud!… Read it, thank me later!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Even though I haven’t read the previous books in this series, I had no problem reading this story. I didn’t r
Feel like I missed previous cases especially since there were only a few references to them. Police were methodical, and the cases were connected and intricate. Author was cagey in revealing hints … for example,, when Mike thought of an idea he kept it to himself…I’m not sure if I would read more of this authors books, but it was an interesting mystery with lots of connections.

Another excellent book by Bill Kitson in the series featuring Detective Mike Nash who investigates the discovery of a corpse of a woman tied to a chair in a cottage in Yorkshire. Keeps the reader enthralled until the final pages.

DI Mike Nash has moved back to west Yorkshire for a better work life balance. Turns out there can be some nasty surprises in the countryside. First a long dead skeleton turns up at a decaying cottage. What connection does the young man who found the skeleton have to the cottage? Then a second body turns up in a well on the property. And exactly who owns the property?
An excellent cold case mystery. I enjoyed the setting, the mystery and the characters. Will definitely look for other books by Bill Kitson.

Edge-of-the-seat suspense, great twisty plot, likeable characters combined with North Yorkshire countryside ambience. Even though this book is part of a series, this is a perfect stand-alone read, highly recommended! I was kindly allowed to read an ARC in return for my honest opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Book for this Arc and the 15th read in this series is just as good as ever

Finding the body of a woman tied to a chair and later a body in the well of an old derelict cottage leads Mike Nash and his team on a hunt to find the identity of the victims, the name of the murderer and the reason why they have ended life early

SKELETONS IN THE Closet by Bill Kitson

Earc: NetGalley
Publisher: Joffe Books
Publication Date: 12 October 2022
Genre : Mystery and Thriller
Detective Mike Nash is called in to investigate a woman's body found in a remote cabin. The woman had died many years ago, but what she finds cruel about him is the way she died, and she was tied to her chair and left to die. When another corpse is discovered in a nearby well, the team begins to wonder what's going on. The team is not only busy processing a murder case, but someone broke into the house while the owner was away, and they need to find out the connection.
The characters in this book are relatable and complementary. By the time I got to the next page, I could see that the speed at which the pages were turned was getting faster and faster. The writing style is great and since this is a new author to me I will definitely look for more.I am a new fan of this author. He thanks Netgalley and her publisher Joffe Books for introducing me to this author.

#NetGalley #bookstagram #bookreview #goodreads #mysteryandthriller #skeletoninthecloset

When the body of a woman is found in a derelict cottage, Detective Mike Nash and his team are called in. Their investigation uncovers even more bodies, but when the solicitors in charge of the cottage are murdered, What was a cold case becomes a hunt for a murderer.

This was a book with a very interesting plot that had great potential. Unfortunately it ended up sidetracked for almost half of the book by an unrelated, and totally unnecessary, burglary subplot. The murders do again become the focus, but the story then bogs down in superfluous information and dialogue. The solution is only reached via a confused subplot of family intrigue that is sprung on the reader at the end.

Not a book that I can recommend.

When a woman's body is discovered in a remote cabin, Detective Mike Nash is called to investigate. The woman has been dead for years but it's her manner of death that strikes him as cruel, she has been tied to a chair and left to die. When another body is found in a near by well the team begins to wonder what is going on. Not only are the team busy handling murders but someone is breaking into homes when the owners are away and they need to find the connection.
The characters in the book are relatable and compliment each other .I found the pages turning faster and faster to get to the next page. The writing style is great and since this is a new author to me I will definitely be looking for more. I'm a new fan of this authors and thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers Joffe Books for introducing me to this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of Skeletons in the Closet the 15th book in the DI Mike Nash series.

This book reminds me how much I love this series. But also that i really need to make the effort to catch up . i have all the books in between and and have read book 14, Think I need to retire.
Definitely a few developments since last read, but I soon caught up with my old friends

A well thought out and executed plot as always. DI Nash and his team, have a great banter to lighten the mood and help them solve the crimes This all flows so smoothly due to how well written it is, you almost feel as if you are there with them. .

Overall an excellent read

No. 15 in the DI Nash series and we are, by now, pretty familiar with he and his team. Even if the reader is new to him it's a good standalone story. In this one we have a veteran with PTSD trying to find peace by returning to his childhood area only to find a mummified corpse in the old cottage. Then there's a skeleton in the well in the back yard. Followed by the death of a solicitor, not to mention a spate of burglaries, all happening while the owners are away. It's a convoluted story. It retains the reader's interest. There's humour and banter between the team. Nash does have rather a lot of hunches which, at times, feel just a tad too much. Still, a good read and a good series. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance copy.

1551 kb

4 stars

Bill Kitson writes another winner in this latest entry into the DI Mike Nash series.

DI Mike Nash and his partner DS Clara Mironova respond to the report of a dead body, no a skeleton, tied to a chair in an old abandoned cottage in the woods. Along with team members Viv Pearce and Lisa Andrews they set out to investigate the cold case.

It isn’t long before one of the forensic people finds a body in the well at the cottage. It is a man.

The police have no leads and no idea as to the identity of the people. When they try to find the identity of the owner of the home, they hit a brick wall. No one is talking or cooperating.

Meanwhile, the reader is treated to the heartwarming story of Louise and Bobby.

A series of burglaries is plaguing the area. Nash’s team must work these as well.

The hardworking cops are going every which way trying to solve their cases. When more bodies are discovered at the old cottage, the tension ratchets up. The two attorneys that are blocking Nash’s team gaining information are murdered. More to the mix.

This is a well written and complicated police procedural. The reader gets to glimpse not only their professional lives, but small vignettes about their personal lives. I like Nash’s sense of humor. He sure drinks a lot of coffee. The many hunches he had throughout the book got a little tiring at the end. I like the way Clara puts up with his corniness and ideas. They make a great team. Viv and Lisa work very hard as well.

I truly enjoy a good Bill Kitson novel and will continue to read them.

I want to thank NetGalley and Joffe Books for forwarding to me a copy of this very good book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions cited in this review are solely my own.

teamwork, procedural, gruesome, suspense, thriller, punny, banter, law-enforcement, relationships, relatives, PTSD, sly-humor, small-town, rural, greed, crime-fiction, Yorkshire, unputdownable, detective, Ex-military, murder-investigation, murder*****

You'd think I'd feel disadvantaged coming late to the series. Not so!
Detective Nash has a great team who work well together for justice and not just the easiest solution. It starts with a displaced ex-soldier with no place to go who returns to a place he felt happy as a child. Boy does that change quickly! He reports what he found but some think he is responsible. Not possible. But as he does have a charge for B&E and is basically homeless, he is sent to a psychiatric clinic for PTSD. Meanwhile, the entire house and property have to be examined with all due diligence, only to find more gruesome surprises. It's a great read with all sorts of twists, red herrings, and bad puns.
I requested and received an e-book copy from Joffe Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

A man has just been released from prison and finds his way to a childhood sanctuary- a small cabin in the sticks. When he breaks his way into the abandoned building, he finds a desiccated corpse which sends him into a panic. He rushes to the first house he sees, only to find a childhood flame. The police arrive and attempt to piece together the decades old murder.

I understand that I will likely be in the minority when it comes to this one, but as a reviewer, I also know that this happens to everyone now and then.

First off, the writing style is just not for me. I get that that is most certainly a problem with myself as a reader, but I know I'm probably not the only one who becomes annoyed when you're following along in a case, and the author says things like, "It would be another twenty-four hours before they learned the reason" or "It was not long before this proved to be one of the worst examples of inciting Sod's Law." For me, it doesn't make the book more exciting, it simply makes me roll my eyes and wish they would just get on with it instead of dragging things out even longer.

The second issue I had (this one to a lesser extent) was how everyone and their uncle did not want to help the police with their murder investigation. Perhaps, laws in the UK are different, but I've read other novels set there where people in a position to help weren't so uptight as the ones here. Which led me to wonder why couldn't the police simply obtain a warrant to gain access to the information they needed? Of course, there was one scene where a bank manager straight up said he wouldn't reveal information without a warrant, but that he had never heard of one being granted makes me wonder just how hard it is over there for the police to obtain one when solving a murder investigation.

Finally, and this was probably my biggest pet peeve about this novel, was Mike Nash himself. It wasn't the fact that he was forever having "hunches" at or about the crime scene leading him to find clues that other people were unable to. It wasn't the ungodly amount of coffee that he drinks. Seriously, if I read, "this will take awhile, let's have coffee," or some variation of that sentence one more time, I might have screamed. I also found it very convenient that all of these officers seemed to be able to stop whatever they were doing and eat, even going so far as to do so at an active crime scene. Heck, it wasn't even the fact that when his wife witnessed an accident (and could have been hit), Nash went out of his way to keep her from speaking to the officer in charge of investigating said accident. No instead, he bundled her off home, claiming she was in shock and told his boss the next day that his wife was "out of bounds" to the officer wanting to interview her to find out what happened in regards to the accident she witnessed. What kind of cop impedes the investigation of another officer?

But no, my biggest issue with so-called Detective Nash was that fact that throughout the book, he designates all of his subordinates to go out and conduct interviews or gather clues (while seemingly doing nothing himself); except the one time that he seems to have a breakthrough while at home. In this one instance, why didn't he call the station and get someone on it straight away? No, instead, he sat on it until the next day so he could ensure that his wife was okay when it was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that she was fine and didn't need him hovering around her.

The premise of this novel was actually a good one. And I was surprised at how things played out and who the killers actually were. I didn't even mind how slow it was because I assume that actual police work is a lot more tedious than usually portrayed, and I felt this book did a good job at showing that, even if it did make for slow reading at times. However, I doubt I would read more from this series with all the issues mentioned above.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

this book had a lot going on but it is easy to follow the story, you meet various characters through out the story. this series will become addictive if you love crime and wonderful characters. this is my first book by Kitson but I am not disappointed and will be keeping an eye on this series in the future. I would recommend this to anyone who loves a good detective story with a splash of humour added to sweeten the deal
Thank you to Netgalley/Joffe Books/Bill Kitson for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET by Bill Kitson.
Detective Mike Nash thought that moving back to Yorkshire from London would give him a quieter life. Little did he know The body of a woman tied to a chair is found in a crumbling old cottage in the Yorkshire moors. She’s been dead a long time. Detective Mike Nash investigates and soon uncovers a second body. Trapped in the well in the garden. Then Nash’s team makes an even more grisly discovery. How many more skeletons are hidden in this tumbledown old cottage? The suspicious death of the solicitor dealing with the property turns this cold-case investigation into an active hunt for a murderer. Someone is killing to keep their secrets from coming to light. Detective Mike Nash must track them down before they kill again.
Really good read. I do like this author. 4*.