A Cromer Corpse by Kelvin I Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was attracted to this because it had Cromer – my favourite place – in the title. When a body is pulled from the sea off Cromer with an unusual mark carved on it, an ex detective recently relocated from Cornwall to Norfolk for a quiet retirement is pulled in to help solve the case, because he worked on similar cases during his career. Thus we find ourselves in the middle of a fairly standard murder mystery that involves paganism, Wicca and Masons. The mystery itself was interesting, with a neat unexpected twist at the end, but the location of the novel frustrated me. I know Norfolk quite well but whilst there are some real places mentioned – Cromer, Wells, Fakenham – there are also plenty that are fictional. as far as I know. For example, there’s much talk of an event at Blackling Hall,which is based on either Blickling or Holkham, and there are other places – Morton, Saxborough – which are either rooted in reality or entirely made up. Why set a book in a real place but then have fictional places too? Just annoyed me!
