Spoken Bones

A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller, Book 1

By: N.C. Lewis

Narrated by: Deborah Balm

This dark secret could finally break her…

Detective Inspector Fenella Sallow is obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons. When the body of a retired artist is discovered atop the blackened embers of the town bonfire, the community is rocked to the core.

It falls to DI Fenella Sallow and her team to find out how she came to be there. In her 50s, the veteran detective inspector thought she had seen it all. But behind the curtained windows and closed doors of the idyllic Cumbria coastal setting lurks pure evil.

Fenella must confront her dark past. Haunted by the unsolved case of a missing girl, she knows it is a race against time. Can she stop this death from slipping through her fingers, too?

Before long, it becomes disturbingly clear that the killer is playing a twisted game and will do anything to conceal the terrible truth of what happened on the beach on Bonfire Night.

Set against the backdrop of beautiful coastal Cumbria, an ancient land of legend, folklore, and myth, Spoken Bones is the first book in the Detective Inspector Fenella Sallow series.

This pause-resisting crime thriller will keep you hooked until the very end. If you like police procedurals with psychologically complex characters and shocking twists, then you’ll love Spoken Bones.

Perfect for fans of L.J. Ross, J.D. Kirk, Simon McCleave, Stuart MacBride, Matt Brolly, Angela Marsons, Alex Smith, J.M. Dalgliesh, J.E. Mayhew, David J. Gatward, T.G. Reid, Jack Gatland, Robert F. Barker, and J.R. Ellis.

©2021 N.C. Lewis (P)2025 N.C. Lewis

Small village police procedural set in Cumbria

First in Fenella Sallow detective series. Well plotted, good character development with one exception, looking forward to the future of detectives, warm atmosphere. The only jarring unit was the over-the-top and unbelievable nastiness of the superintendent.

Character development was pretty good.

I like the setting in Cumbria, the descriptions of the coast and the connections to communities there.

Complex

Hard to get into the groove and understand the speakers, but very well done. Unpredictable. Good listen.

Ends abruptly

I love a good murder mystery. I love how the author ties everything up at the end and you have to kind of go back and think “oh yeah that’s right I remember when so and so did so-and-so, now it makes sense”. Not this book. There’s absolutely no buildup to the end and the resolution of the murder. It just pops out of the blue. I cannot even remember anything about the character who was ultimately the murderer, not my favorite author.

Spoken Bones

I liked the story very much. However, it was a strain to understand because of the thick Gaelic accent. I would prefer a different narrator.

Good narrator☑️Engaging characters☑️Interesting story☑️

I was looking for a new British or Scottish mystery and, even though I find those suggestions at the end of the current book annoying, this one sounded good. And it turned out to BE good. I would say it’s midway between cozy and grizzly. The plot was a bit all over the place but it was just book one. My goal was to be sure I could tolerate the team. I like that, for a change, the lead is not a tortured soul.

The story was very intricate and any number of characters could have been the murderer.

The narrator’s voice is to soft. It is like a grandma reading Christmas stories for her grand kids. It was very distracting at first.

Too scattered

While a mystery needs a few good red herrings, this one seemed to have nothing but misdirect. I found most characters totally unlikeable and none very interesting. The ending seemed to come out of nowhere, but that may be because I lost interest halfway through the book.

Frustrating denouement

I liked the characters, but the book comes across to me as a somewhat promising first effort that needs maturation and a better editor. Many threads are dropped without a trace, descriptions of characters' behaviors are repetitive, and when the resolution comes, there is no explanation of how the detective figured it out. The performance kept me going but overall a waste of time.

valerie

The story has so many twists and turns,too many characters, it was struggle to keep up with all the,Characters, at times it was hard to remember the main story. Way to long,an convoluted.