Synopsis:

Dolores Chimes, the famous medium, arrives in Gore-on-Sea and crowds clamour to join her séances. Even the surly Detective Inspector Rideout succumbs to the promise of messages from the afterlife. It seems Nora is alone in being uninterested in the opportunity; three decades in a convent tends to purge any curiosity in the supernatural.

Until a reading goes disastrously wrong, striking Dolores catatonic with terror. In the following days, five of the six people at the séance meet their death in ways various and, in all appearances, supernatural. The race is on for Nora to find a ghostly serial killer before the sixth victim – Rideout himself – dies.

Review:

Ex-nun Nora Breen is back with another murder to investigate! Famous medium Dolores Chimes arrives in Gore-on-Sea to deliver messages from the afterlife to townsfolk. However, a reading goes horribly wrong, and Dolores loses her life, quickly followed by the sitters one by one…
Can Nora and Detective Inspector Rideout catch the ghostly killer before it’s too late?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I LOVE Nora Breen. In book 1, she was trying to figure out who she was as a person rather than as a nun, and this continues into book 2. She is more sure of herself here, and it was great to read. Nora is also feeling more comfortable with her investigative skills, and she is able to put them to excellent use. Nora is brilliant at understanding people, and she always seems to know just the right approach to get them talking.

The secondary characters are also brilliant. I loved the banter and bickering between Breen and Rideout, and there were some excellent parts with Irene, landlady of Gulls Nest. These lighter moments between characters nicely balance the darker themes in the book without feeling forced.

Kidd writes place wonderfully. The atmosphere in this book is fantastic, from the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea to the run-down manor house Nora visits, with a nurse commenting that: “The moths hang off the curtains and the mice skate over the floor. The roof leaks bucketfuls so that we’ve had to move the patients to the ground floor, and the draughts will cut the legs off you.”
I could imagine myself there, strolling along the shoreline and careening down winding roads with the characters, and that is one of the things I really appreciate about Kidd’s books.

Aside from all of this, the mystery was excellently crafted. Complicated enough that I couldn’t guess it, but not so much that its solving felt outlandish. Nora approached the challenge with logic rather than relying on luck, which strengthened her character and kept things grounded.

All in all, a fabulous instalment in the series, and I sincerely hope that book 3 isn’t too far ahead! Endless thank you’s to @faberbooks for sending me a very exciting early copy!! If you love a mystery book, definitely pick this one up!