This book was a DNF for me. I got to 30% and decided it was not for me. Hopefully it will be a good fit for someone else!

Owning a canal boat I did have to overlook some of the inaccuracies but I guess that is what they call artistic licence! I also know Yorkshire well so enjoyed all the familiar settings used. This is a series. I have read some, but not all, and I think that is OK in this series although it would mean some spoilers if you were to read later books first. The plot is a solid murder mystery puzzle with a plethora of characters to suspect along the way. Easy to read.

This book was gripping and hard to put down. It didn't feel like everything else you see out there, it felt very fresh. I really enjoyed this book!

I didn't like this book. Gossipy, repetitive and quite boring. I'm sure the author has a loyal audience but I'm not it.

#TheCanalMurders10
#NetGalley

The books starts with an article in a local newspaper from 15th January 1984 about an up and coming folk group Rowan. The band members and their style of music, then it goes onto saying that the groups youngest member Simon Anderson, who was only 19, was killed in an accident recently on the A1 late at night when the groups van veered off the road and crashed. The van was driven by Annie Shipton, one of the female vocalists.

☆☆☆☆☆
Present day and a body has been found drifting on a narrowboat going through the locks at Saltaire.
Stephanie Johnson and her boyfriend Andy are holidaying on the Leeds and Liverpool canal just below Saltaire, on the outskirts of Bradford in West Yorkshire. They are both detective sargeants in Harrogate, where they live in an apartment. This holiday is a bit of a learning curve to Andy, he assumed the locks were going to be operated by waterways staff and he could spend the time relaxing with a beer. Steph had been on a boat before and revelled in teaching him what to do. Very soon they are both part of a team to investigate the sudden death of Annie Shipton! There are quite a few people who didn't like Annie Shipton, both boat people, folk artists and locals. She didn't like paying her bills and owed a lot of money to various people as well as upsetting people over petty issues. Annie was found on her boat which was drifting along, slumped over and apparently stabbed. Very soon the list of suspects is growing steadily and the police investigation is underway. Stephanie and her boyfriend Andy are asked to help with the investigation along with DCI Jim Oldroyd who now lives just outside of Harrogate. The boating community living and working in the vicinity are the first to be questioned by the police, but apart from her not paying for bills there doesn't seem to be any motive. The boating community and previous members of the folk group are the first to be questioned, but there are no leads from these people. Very soon there are many accusations and questions going around as the police question everyone nearby to the murder scene, and people are accusing each other and getting it wrong.

Part of the Yorkshire Murder Mysteries but it can be easily read as a stand-alone book, its easy to get into the storyline and hard to put down and the characters were both likeable and believable.
What I liked in this book was the quotes and descriptions at the beginning of each chapter, I think it gave the story depth and meaning to someone who was not familiar with the English canal system. I personally have enjoyed the canals over many years and found this story set around Salts Mill in Saltaire extremely good. This was actually the first book in the series that I have read, I enjoyed it so much I have now bought several more. A great five-star read.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Life on the canals of Northern England is quiet and peaceful until there is a murder. The victim was a member of a popular retired folk music group. She was a pugnacious woman with a mean streak. There are people with whom she locked horns recently but there are also a number of hurts from the past with her friends who now live in narrowboats beside her. DCI Oldroyd is commandeered when two of his juniors discover the body. The three of them join up with a former associate to sort through the investigation.

The biggest question seems to be whether the murder stems from an old grievance or something new. When a second person is murdered, it only complicates things. In the course of the investigation, there are a lot of secrets that come to light. Some are so stunning that they are life changing. But at the crux of the story seems to family- whether it is the natural family or the family drawn together by friendship. It can be a powerful motivator that can cause the meekest to act out

Full of lovely twists and turns, the reader gets a real sense of what it must be like to live on the narrowboats. It was a highly entertaining read. Four purrs and two paws up.

Last year I read The Body in the Dales, the first in the Yorkshire Murder mystery series, which turned out to be a decent example of a police procedural, even if the characterizations were a bit flat. This book follows pretty much the same pattern, even as the personal circumstances of the returning characters have changed quite a bit in the intervening years.

Beware: copaganda; cancer; death of a child; phonetic spelling to denote old Yorkshire accent/dialect; domestic violence; alcoholism; drug addiction; bisexual character killed.

The story is narrated from multiple points of view, mostly the four main cops investigating the murders, but also several members of the community who may have had reason to kill Annie Shipton, who was quite the disagreeable character–more on this later.

The novel is divided into a prologue, introducing the setting and the victim, followed by seven chapters; essentially one per day of the investigation. These are broken up in sections as the detectives interview members of the community to determine their potential motives, with some sections from the points of view of the interviewees hinting at hidden connections and other undercurrents.

The tie-ins at the beginning of each chapter are either fragments from the songs the victim’s old band wrote and performed, or bits of local history, or both; there is some exposition on the operation of British canals, given the murder location and method. The book has a solid sense of place.

Not being musically or poetically inclined, I offer no opinion on the quality of the songs attributed to the fictional folk group, which are included in full at the end of the book.

There’s something very quaint about British country policing as portrayed here: at one point, two Detective Constables find three young men and their slightly older dealer doing drugs in the woods near the canal where the murders took place, and rather than arrest them, they “take their details” and tell them to show up at the police station the following day to be given a caution. The cops fully expect that the miscreants will, in fact, show up. More quaint is asking the four what their relationships with the victim were, and taking their answers at face value.

Of course, this can be read as part of the misdirection of the narrative, which does a better job at fair play than the first novel in the series; there were in fact a couple of fairly effective red herrings and smaller subplots, even if their resolutions turned out to be more than a bit pat. And while most of the key facts of the crime are on the page, there are gaps not answered until after the guilty party’s confession.

While the characterizations are still more sketch than realized, the author takes pains to make the cops relatable from the first page, expanding upon their professional relationships, as well as their backstories and family lives away from the job; I found it interesting that everyone would quit work at a decent hour. Even after the second murder, there didn’t seem to be much of a sense of urgency, although Oldroyd occasionally gets morose over their lack of progress–which is tonally strange when you realize how quickly they actually solved the murder.

There’s a lot more social commentary in this novel than there was in the first book of the series, including Oldroyd being lectured to by his daughter on prevalent cops attitudes towards intimate partner violence (“just a domestic”) and sexual harassment of female cops, among other things, and how little things have changed over the decades, even with sensitivity training and whatnot.

“We are all culpable. Most people, and I’m one of them, just go along with things as they are because it seems like the norm, and everyone accepts it. It takes a strong person…to come along and say, “Look, this is wrong”. Then you start to see things differently, things that had never occurred before. Most people conform, don’t they? They don’t question things.” (Oldroyd to his daughter Louise, chapter 6)

Even though most of the people in the novel are very white, one of the four detectives is certainly of Indian descent, as is his wife, and much is made of how more accepting of different ethnicities and cultures the country has become in recent years, as compared to oh, the 1960s.

There is also an effort to be inclusive regarding queer people, with an openly lesbian character being readily accepted by the community. On the other hand, the first victim is the only bisexual character mentioned in the book, and she not only cheated on her husband repeatedly, but was essentially a cruel narcissist–the people around her had valid reasons to dislike and resent her.

Then again, most of the hetero marriages and relationships in the book are somewhat antagonistic (a bit à la Midsomer Murders, though generally not as toxic as in that show), and there are frank discussions about domestic violence, as well as how often poverty increases its likelihood.

Aside: much is made of budget cuts and austerity affecting the operation of police departments, which is how the three out-of-town detectives get to play away from their own jurisdiction, as the local cops are short staffed. At the same time, there are enough local cops to send investigative teams all over the place when the four main cops need them.

The ARC has some copy editing issues (a character says something, then the same character responds, and so on), that hopefully were caught before publication; the novel is a solid police procedural that shows growth for both the characters and the writer.

The Canal Murders gets a 7.75 out of 10.

The last thing DS Stephanie Johnson and DS Andy Carter expected during their much-needed canal holiday was a murder. When retired folk musician Annie Shipton is found stabbed through the neck at the helm of her barge, the couple can’t help investigating the seemingly impossible crime. Nobody else boarded Annie’s boat—so how was she killed from behind? With the method a perplexing mystery, DCI Oldroyd is summoned from Harrogate, and it’s not long before the detectives have a long list of potential suspects with a motive to want Annie dead. There’s the young cyclist she argued with over access to the towpath, an ambitious and arrogant local developer she clashed with repeatedly, an estranged husband…and more than a few lingering issues with her former bandmates, most of whom live along the canal. When a second murder sends shockwaves through the community, the locals start talking about a curse on the waterway. It seems the killer will go to any lengths to avoid detection. But can Oldroyd hunt them down before someone else becomes the next target? Loved everything about this book. Great characters, tightly plotted mystery and just enough twists and turns. Highly recommend!

J. R. Ellis's The Canal Murders, is the perfect weekend getaway read. Whether you snuggle in a chair in front of a television, in bed under the covers, or on a beach somewhere, this book is the best way to get lost for a few hours and just enjoy some you time. The Canal Murders is a murder mystery that takes place in a small English town where practically everyone knows everyone else and murders are a big deal. Be sure you have plenty of time to devote to this book, as it can take you a bit of time to read depending on how fast your reading skill is, otherwise the story itself is excellent.

Another excellent mystery in this series: engaging, fast paced and full of twists
I was glad to catchup with the characters and the solid mystery kept me guessing
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Another amazing book by J R Ellis.
I love this series, and have read every single one. Especially as I am from the area so know most of the places they visit.
Fellow police officers, Steph and Andy have gone on a short canal break and stumble into a murder case, when Steph sees a barge floating down the canal, with a woman slumped at the helm. She had been stabbed in the neck.
Their old colleague is heading up the case but DI Oldroyd is called in to help.
The method of the killing is a mystery indeed because there was no evidence of anyone else being on board. How could someone possible stab someone in the neck without being on the barge themselves? This is just one of the mysteries that the team have to solve.
I can't wait for the next installment!!!

When your holiday became a crime scene, detectives Andy, Steph, and Oldroyd were enticed to work the investigation by a former colleague. Having their holiday marred by murder was all part of the territory for Andy and Steph. Things became a tangled weave when the parts were not connecting, making their task difficult, especially when one murder became two. As the saying goes, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
This was a slow-paced entertaining read.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Thomas and Mercer for a review copy of The Canal Murders, the tenth novel to feature DCI Jim Oldroyd of West Riding Police.

I enjoyed The Canal Murders, which has a puzzling plot with a dash of humour to ease the reader’s brain as they try to work out the how and why of Annie Shipton’s murder. The execution of the murder is ingenious but may be difficult to visualise for those with no familiarity with canals as it involves canal specific technology.

The novel kept me turning the pages as it offers a puzzle and a host of suspects. Annie Shipton was not a pleasant woman so establishing a motive is not so easy with so many names in the frame.

The Canal Murders is a good read that I can recommend.

I haven't read every book in this series but I still feel I can enjoy them as standalone's. I love all the extra information the author adds about the history of the canal system built originally to transport goods to the ports from the mills. I also very much enjoy the mention of places I know as I have lived in the area all my life. A police procedural type story with lots of clues and interesting character's who keep you guessing the end and I still didn't guess the answer. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Steph and Andy are on a narrow boat holiday , unfortunately their holiday interrupted when a retired folk musician is found dead on her barge .
The case is perplexing the local police force so DCI Oldroyd is drafted in from Harrogate .
Oldroyd brings with him his own unique and indomitable style of detection.
Another great read from J.R Ellis , the series seems to get better and better.
Looking forward to the next in the series .
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer.

I’ve been reading this series for a HOT MINUTE yall. So when I saw that DCI Oldroyd was back I couldn’t help but trip over myself to read this.

This cast of merry Detectives has grown on me over the last ten books and I hope they never stop.

DS Andy and DS Stephanie were just trying to enjoy a relaxing vacation on the water. Andy learning about boarding a boat and Stephanie stumbling across a boat going no where fast with no one at the helm but a dead woman.

When paths cross and DCI Oldroyd was invited to come he jumped at the offer. And while investigating he starts to sum up that not all folksingers are happy as they may portray. Was there turmoil within the band, did the local pub know more about this death, or was it because someone didn’t pick up her dog poop fast enough and made it to the blog.

Leave it to DCI to not only educate but to also solve this murder with wits and the help from a class field trip.

I loved this 10th entry in the Yorkshire Murder Mystery series. Narrow boating on a canal has been on my bucket list for a while. Unfortunately, Andy and Steph’s weeklong canal tour is interrupted by murder. DCI Oldroyd is called in to help solve the murder and finds there is no shortage of suspects among the narrow boat community and local residents.

Another case for DCI Jim Oldroyd and his close knit team of detectives.

The story revolves around the members of a folk group Rowan who performed in the 1980s. Some years later several members of the band reunite and form their own local community living on canal narrowboats on the Leeds and Liverpool canal on the outskirts of Bradford. Annie, the former lead singer of the group, is found murdered on her boat with no evidence of anyone having been on board. Detectives Andy Carter and Steph Johnson are on a canal narrowboat holiday and so are on hand to join the investigation.

There are many characters and suspects with past and current day events cleverly intertwined. There are numerous strong motives for Annie’s murder including copy-write theft, financial debts, revenge, corruption and drugs. Some nice plot twists and an enjoyable read. 


The Yorkshire scenery is nicely described and there are some interesting snippets of information about the local industrial heritage and canal life.

When two murders occur in a peaceful canal neighborhood while a pair of detectives are on holiday, they encounter no shortage of suspects. They call in seasoned DCI Oldroyd to help them solve the cases.

This is the second Yorkshire Murder Mysteries installment that I've read, and I really need to check out more of them. Once again I was thoroughly entertained and intrigued by the story, the setting, and the delightful cast of characters. Because there were so many characters, I sometimes lost track of who was who, so maybe this would have been better to consume in ebook form. However, the audiobook narrator is probably one of the best I've listened to so far. He's very emotive and does a great job giving everyone distinct voices.

This book is a very enjoyable police procedural. I loved the Saltaire setting so much that I’m planning to visit the area very soon. The detectives are a realistic team and the descriptions of canal life are enthralling. I love this series and hope there are many more books to come.