An excellent start to a new series

[John Dean]

Book Review The Ferry Port Mystery by David Pearson (The Book Folks)

What do you do if you are the author of a couple of popular crime fiction series but fancy a change? The answer is to create a new series with a new cast of characters, which is exactly what David Pearson has done with The Ferry Port Mystery.

The first in a new series of novels set in southern Ireland by the bestselling author of The Galway Homicides and The Dublin Homicides series, the story has at its heart a main character facing up to an unusual situation.

Young detective inspector Vikki Kirkby is forced to take the fall for a mistake that led to a high-profile case collapsing. Although the mistake was made by a celebrated senior officer close to retirement, Kirkby is told that he will be allowed to complete his career with his reputation intact and that she will be forced to leave Dublin and transfer to the rural backwater of Wexford.

Left with little option but to accept the situation, she finds herself working for a police force which comes over as less professional than its counterpart in Dublin and one where she is regarded with mistrust.

It’s an excellent situation, something a bit different, and the story works well, supported as ever by the author’s attention to detail as he painstakingly builds his narrative. A worthy first novel in a new series that looks like it will be as popular as his others.

The second book in the series, The Empty Safe Mystery, is due out before the end of 2023.