A Murder of Crows: A completely gripping British cozy mystery (A Dr Nell Ward Mystery Book 1)

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Together with her solicitor, Andrew Arden, this fit and healthy elderly woman, living at Applewood Residential Care Home, was determined to thwart David’s plans. Fans of collective nouns are familiar with an exaltation of larks, which was the title of a book by James Lipton on collective nouns. I’m not the kind of person who can pick the ending of a mystery, but I was able to go “Hmm, that’s suspicious…” which added to the enjoyment. Nell finds herself treated as both a witness and potential suspect by the Major Crime Team at Pendlebury, their suspicions growing when they learn that Nell has been hiding a major part of her identity, and that she has a past link to the victim.

a murder of crows Collective nouns for birds: Why we call it a murder of crows

Usually a story which ends with the villain not being caught would be unsatisfying, and yet it seemed much more realistic and believable. A passage about Colin’s drunken reverie at the end of Chapter Forty-Six is written in the style of a high-school student: “Just then there was a knock at the door. The story is told from many POV, one of them being Alice, who is rapidly sliding into full-blown Alzheimers.This original Lethal Lit story takes place between Seasons 1 and 2 of the podcast, and features a brand-new, never-before-told story starring Tig Torres and her sleuthing friends! It did strike me as odd that the other side of the love triangle is… the officer arresting Nel for murder? The plot is overshadowed by the attraction triangle of the MC and a male colleague and (of course) the handsome detective investigating the crimes. Unusually for a cosy, there are chapters written from the investigating officers points of view, which I quite liked.

A Murder of Crows By Sarah Yarwood-Lovett |The Works

I picked this book up because the blurb was giving me Midsomer Murders vibes and the audio version is read by one of my favourite audio book narrators. However, it was a weirdly paced story, and I wasn’t that keen on some of the other characters, and having their POVs was throwing me off at times. I never thought I’d fall in love with bats, or that a rare British species could hold clues to find a murderer. I was listening to it through my library’s digital loans app, and it was the first time in a long time I didn’t need to extend a loan beyond the initial 14-day period.

For instance, the protagonist who would have been a good suspect if only the blurb hadn't announced A Nell Ward Mystery, meaning that the protagonist couldn't have "done it," not if she planned to continue. A cast of hawks denoted nobility; a flight of goshawks indicated the hawks in question were owned by a yeoman. There is much made of the love interests and in this respect, the ending reminded me of '4 weddings and a funeral' although I'm not sure why.

Murder of Crows: A Dunderdale Mystery A Christmas Murder of Crows: A Dunderdale Mystery

But there's no rest for courageous, mystery-solving teens in a place like Hollow Falls, and though the Lit Killer is now behind bars, his protégé, Tig's classmate and crush Oly, has disappeared! But that's not to say that swarm isn't applied to other creatures: a swarm of eels was once common enough to merit mention in our Unabridged Dictionary.

I enjoyed the scenes with Zorro the bat but I found the long, technical explanations boring and unnecessary. Variously idiosyncratic, intriguing and often unerringly apt in their descriptions of gatherings of birds, animals and people a damning of jurors, an incredulity of cuckolds — most of the collective nouns we use date back to the mid 15th century. I was really looking forward to reading this novel - Scottish detectives are always a draw - but I was disappointed in the execution and found it a difficult read. She may have swapped badgers for bears when she emigrated from a quaint village in the South Downs to the wild mountains of the Pacific Northwest, but her books remain firmly rooted in the rolling downland she grew up in.