Good start for a new series: had fun and it kept me gripping. The characters are fleshed out, the setting vivid, and the fleshed out characters are realistic and relatable
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is the first book in the new series by Nick Louth that features DI Jan Talantire.

DI Jan Talantire is investigating the murder of Ruth Lyle, not once, but twice, fifty years apart, and under chillingly identical circumstances. A woman’s body is discovered in a cottage in Ilfracombe, impaled with a crucifix. Documents identify her as Ruth Lyle, a name that strikes an impossible chord with DI Talantire. The same name and method of murder were part of a case from fifty years ago, when a sixteen-year-old girl named Ruth Lyle was killed in the very same manner and location.

Past and present collide as the tension builds steadily with DI Talantire delving into the mystery and uncovering secrets that have been buried for decades. Every revelation brings more questions that Talantire must find answers to.

The more pages I read the more I got to like the character of DI Jan Talantire. I thought it started fairly slow but by the end I was ready to read more. Talantire’s personal connection to the original Ruth Lyle murder adds to the suspense with the stakes even higher and the case more personal.

“The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle” is a good opening to the new series that I am sure will grow on me as we learn more of Jan Talantire. 3.5 rating.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Canelo for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Anything by this writer is a guaranteed great read and this one.....first in a new series, was outstanding! Well plotted with believable dialog and interesting characters.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read Nick Louth's latest offering. I always know I am in for a great ride when I have a Nick Louth novel in my hands and this was no exception. I like the characters and with a good few twists and turns this makes a great read !

I've read a lot of police procedural novels in my time and I have to say that this one had one of the most intriguing crimes.

Fifty years ago, a sixteen year old girl named Ruth Lyle was murdered in a Chapel in Infracombe, on the North Devon Coast. Now, a sixty-six year old woman named Ruth Lyle has been murdered in the same building (which has now been converted as a holiday home). Not only that, but she was murdered with the same weapon, possessed the first Ruth's original birth certificate, and their dental records matched!

It is this intriguing and perplexing crime that DI Jan Talantire is tasked with solving.

I immediately liked Jan Talantire. In her late thirties, she has recently been separated from her husband, and is finding her personal life quite lonely. She is an avid runner and a devoted, diligent, and tenacious police officer. Her CID team, who work out of Barnstaple, were also quite personable and interesting and I look forward to hearing more about them in future books. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the team's banter and appreciated their camaraderie during a stressful and baffling investigation. In particular, I liked Primrose Chen, the newest member of the team who is an expert at examining digital evidence.

The obvious ties to the first murder which took place fifty years previously sees Talantire and her team re-examining the cold case. With no DNA testing back then, and sketchy documentation, they are facing a difficult challenge.

All in all, "The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle" was an engrossing series debut. Nick Louth is a 'new-to-me' author, but now I am interested in reading his previous series featuring DCI Craig Gillard. Also, the second novel in the DI Jan Talantire series is due out later this year and is titled "The Last Ride".

Highly recommended to all police procedural fans.

4.5 stars rounded up

I like this author. His stories are complex, interesting, and well written. I’ve read a number of the previous series and always enjoyed the complex cases he imagines.

As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot.

I've read all Nick Louth's "Gillan" series and thoroughly enjoyed them, so was looking forward to reading this book featuring a new lead detective, and set in Devon (UK just to clarify!)

The plot was interesting, but parts of it were a bit bizarre, and I felt that some "leaps of imagination" had to be taken to make sense of it. I didn't manage to guess who the killer was - so all credit to Nick Louth for the twisty-turny-ness :)

I'll give the next one in the series a go to see if it grows on me.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

Detective Jan Talantire must leave her first date in ages for a murder case. A sixty-year-old woman is in her kitchen, stabbed to death with a metal cross. And if this weren’t bad enough, she bears the same name as a teen murdered 50 years earlier in the church that used to be in the same location, and also stabbed with a metal cross. The girl’s name was Ruth Lyle, which is the same name as the murder victim. And, on top of all the other coincidences, it’s the same cross from the previous murder.

Jan and her team have a hard task ahead of them, as evidence and people (whether the suspects or the investigative team) from the older crime are either missing, or no longer in the area, or deceased. And though the team is running ragged investigating, they manage to maintain a sense of humour.

Despite interference from the higher-ups, Jan and her brilliant team (DS Maddy Moran, Primrose Chen, DC Dave Nuttall) are determined to reinvestigate the earlier case, seeing as it has some bearing on their current case. They discover all sorts of dirty and sad secrets, and author Nick Louth gives us an intricately constructed story which was suspenseful, occasionally shocking, and kept me guessing about parts of the case. The resolution was satisfying (even though I knew who the murderer was), and I am eager to read the next book in this new series, as I particularly enjoyed the interactions between Jan, Maddy, and Primrose.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Canelo for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I have been a fan of Nick Louth for years, having enjoyed all of his DCI Craig Gillard mysteries. I fully expected to enjoy this new series, but was left a bit disappointed, although I will read the next entry.

Young Ruth Lyle is murdered by being stabbed with a crucifix in a deconcecrated chapel. 50 years later, an older Ruth Lyle is also murdered in the same building with the same weapon.

I will confess that I prefer my mysteries to have all the pieces fall into place once the perpetrator is discovered, rather than having an information dump at the end as was the case here. When the dump also requires a certain suspension of disbelief and an extravagant amount of coincidences, well, that's where the disappointment arose. Still Louth draws good characters and dialogue, so for the most part it was a decent read.

I loved this book - totally fantastic !

Very twisty police procedural set in Cornwall . Detective Jan Talantire is called to a murder scene and the victim is Ruth Lyle! How can this be when Ruth Lyle was murdered in 1970, aged 16yrs old and her killer has been released!

Such an interesting, and well written case which kept me completely gripped. Definately highly recommended

Thank you to Netgalley and Nick Louth

The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle is the first book in the Detective Jan Talantire series by award-winning, best-selling British author, Nick Louth. Just as she‘s thinking her dating app might have got it right with Adam, Detective Inspector Jan Talantire has to abandon the date to attend a grisly murder scene. The victim, in her sixties, has apparently already been dead over forty-eight hours when the inexperienced constable arrives and unintentionally contaminates the scene.

“A blood-drenched woman was lying spreadeagled but fully dressed on a kitchen table, with six inches of a crude iron crucifix protruding from her chest.”

With the CSI team busy elsewhere, Jan processes the scene with what she has available, even improvising to help get a time-of-death estimate. But things quickly get strange when one of her older colleagues points out that the woman, whose belongings identify her as Ruth Lyle, has the same name, manner and date of death as a sixteen-year-old girl murdered in the same place, fifty years earlier. A copycat killing?

If that’s not puzzling enough, fingerprints and DNA at the scene and on the weapon have Jan and her team questioning whether the original weapon (surely secured in police evidence?) has been used in this crime. And when they learn that the youth jailed for the murder in 1974 has been released some months earlier, they wonder if this is a copycat, or a repeat.

Hindering their investigation is the fact that, fifty years on, they can’t locate the physical evidence: has it been stored somewhere, or discarded? The case files, too, are difficult to locate: not digitised; maybe stored amongst a mess of cardboard boxes full of old files in a storage facility; maybe thrown out. And then the pathologist delivers a bombshell about this Ruth Lyle discovered during the autopsy. And another when the dental expert offers his opinion: curiouser and curiouser!

Jan is lucky to have a very competent team at her disposal, although the roadblocks they encounter are frustrating, especially when higher-ups interfere, but they do some excellent detective work. At a certain point, though, “She was looking at the end of her career. She had ignored her boss, gone out on a limb to make a high-profile arrest, and now it was all rebounding horribly upon her.”

This first instalment features name changes and stolen identities, blackmail with Polaroids, theft of evidence, drugs, reputation-destroying secrets, phone tracking, and a huge volume of fingerprint and DNA analysis. There’s enough intrigue to keep the reader guessing right up to the final reveals. Louth easily evokes his setting, and his characters and dialogue are thoroughly credible. More of this cast will be eagerly anticipated.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Canelo Crime.

I haven’t read a Nick Louth book before but I was intrigued by the premise of this and it didn’t disappoint. Every time I had figured out this complex plot there was another twist that leaves you questioning everything. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a crime thriller with unique plots. I so glad this is the start of a new series and I am sure you will be too.

A good premise for a thriller, a woman is found murdered in an old chapel with the same name as a girl who had died there 50 years earlier. There were a lot of similarities in the deaths. So why was I not so keen on this book? At first I was not keen on the main detective, she had a date early on which all seemed a bit contrived. There are lots of characters both as suspects and a lot of detail, some of which never amounted to anything and some of the attempts at humour fell flat . I found a lot of the book boring and didn't care enough about the characters for it to stimulate my interest. The book did pick up for me towards the end (after 60%) , but I had started and stopped with it a couple of times before I got so far . A lot happened in the last chapters .... The location, Ilfracombe, was interesting though the nformation in the book was also tacked on and as such not woven into the writing.
Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC, this one was not really my thing but I did finish

When a female is found dead in an Ilfraccombe cottage, DI Jan Talantire is perplexed. The woman has been identified as Ruth Lyle but this cannot be the case – Ruth Lyle died fifty years earlier, stabbbed by a crucifix, the exact same method as this new murder in exactly the same location. Deducing that it must be a copycat killing, Jan is even more confused when medical records match. How can a woman die twice, fifty years apart?

I was sad when Nick Louth’s previous series featuring DCI Craig Gillard finished so was pleased to see that he was writing a new one with a new detective, DI Jan Talantire. The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle is very different to the Craig Gillard books but equally as gripping and Jan has the potential to be a superb lead character.

I really liked how because of the two murders, fifty years apart, we see how different investigation techniques were and how the development of forensics has helped to discover new evidence from older cases. I enjoyed trying to figure out how the same woman could have died twice especially as we did this at the same time as the detectives who were equally as flummoxed as myself!

The book deals with some very modern themes and this gave The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle a very novel feel as it was a plot I have not come across in any other books I have read. I was gripped from beginning to end and am looking forward to the next book in the series – Nick Louth has another hit on his hands!

A very good read that makes you wait till near the end to discover the reasons to the title ,thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend not only this book but the author as well

DI Jan Talentire is a likable protagonist in what I hope is a new series by one of my favorite authors. Trying to determine how one woman died twice is what faces the DI. Fast-paced with some good twists and turns, this one will keep you reading all night. A nice diversion from Louth’s much-loved Craig Gillis series. Well done!

Mr Louth is developing a new character - DI Jan Talantire. She and her team have a gruesome murder of an older woman which is almost a copycat of one some 50 years ago, but then of a 16-year old. They have the same name. The older woman turns out to be trans and was involved with the young teenager back when they were male. The story is complex and the characters are developing. There is a lot of police procedural emphasising the tedium of much of the work but interspersed with a lot of driving around. Descriptions of the Devon-Cornwall landscape are good and realistic. I admit I found it hard to follow some of the characters - sometimes Jan, sometimes Talantire but it is a whole new team so time will tell. At least there is some humour between them and I love Dr Crippen - we all know one of those. There are also snippets of characters' backgrounds but these are often just dropped in out of the blue. We need to understand the reasons behind some of their speculations but it often seemed disjointed. I think that this is a good start to a new series but, perhaps, could have done with more editing, leaving more of the character background for future stories. Trouble is that that would have lead readers to thinking 'what?', how does this come about. Hard to win. 3.5* rounded up. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

This was my first exposure to Nick Louth and, as a lover of a British police procedural, it was a positive experience. The concept of the book is very interesting, and if you're looking for a book that gives quite a bit of detail on the minutiae of policework, this could be a good fit for you.

This was such a very unique and interesting crime drama. Fifty years after the murder of a teen girl in a small community, an older woman with the same name is murdered...in the same place, in the same graphic nature, with the same murder weapon. A copycat murder? A copycat victim? Something more sinister? Very interesting and lots of great twists; I definitely didn't solve it fully. My one complaint, is that the ending felt rushed; I didn't believe that the suspect who ultimately brought the story all together had reason to confess all that they did.

I would love BBC to produce this and cast Olivia Colman as the lead detective.

This one was lots of fun. Thanks to Netgalley and Canelo Publishing for the eARC!

I read and enjoyed the Craig Gillard series and knew Nick Louth was a good author. I had high hopes of this new series but it didn’t quite reach the success of the previous books. It was a clever idea but for me was a bit of a muddle and reminded me of an Agatha Christie type plot. It was just all very unlikely.