A few weeks ago, I reviewed the first four books in the Detective Sergeant George Cross series (you can read my review here). I’ve read the fifth and sixth books in the series and can’t wait to read more!
The Monk (2023) is my favorite George Cross mystery so far. A brutally beaten body is found near a monastery. Cross and his forensic team determine the murder victim was a monk from that monastery. Why would anyone murder a beloved monk?
Cross comes to believe the motive for the murder lies in the monk’s Past. He and his team dig into the talented young man who made a fortune working for a 300 year old bank in London…and suddenly quit to become a monk. Sifting through the Past is one of Cross’s strengths and he finally comes up with evidence that makes the murder understandable. GRADE: A
The Teacher (2023) is an 80-year-old retired teacher who is found stabbed outside his room in a stairway. Cross is struck by the number of people who hated the teacher. As a headmaster of a private Catholic school, the teacher was a brutal disciplinarian, beating the young students with his sticks (which he named). The teacher’s son, a young man who had success with a hedge fund and then became a member of Parliament, now is a disgraced figure. He hopes to resurrect his political career and impedes Cross’s investigation of his father’s death. Cross also has to deal with an investigator from Kent who sexually attacks one of Cross’s team.
Having a murder victim with a plenitude of suspects who hated the man makes Cross’s investigation complicated and far reaching. A serial abuser of young children under the guise of “discipline” is not a sympathetic victim, but Cross moves to find the killer in his usual detailed way. GRADE: B+
I’m seeing and hearing about these books a fair amount lately. They seem a genuine word-of-mouth thing these days which is refreshing.
Byron, I’m been a fan of police procedural mysteries since Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series. Tim Sullivan’s George Cross series is top-notch!
I agree. Obviously, Cross was quite taken with the lifestyle in the monastery. I could see him end up living there.
Jeff, George Cross loves predicability and privacy. The monastery offers both.
I haven’t heard of this series but it sounds interesting.
I can recommend a new British writer, Steve Packwood. I loved the 2 books I read. He’s published by a small press so not well known. I met him at Bouchercon which was fun. He had been a British cop and worked on the Queen’s guard. He brought his old hat and let people take pictures with it
Maggie, I’ll have to check out Steve Packwood. I have a stack of Peter Robinson mysteries waiting to be read…
I read the first one thanks to recommendations here and enjoyed it. I’ll read more, though it wasn’t compelling enough that I need to binge them.
I had a problem early on in the book which made me wonder if I was going to manage to get through it, but nothing like that came up again: When he first gets to the crime scene, he has to check all his many pockets trying to find his police i.d. And I thought, surely he puts it in exactly the same place every time! He’s so specific about other things, why would he be inconsistent about this? It made me wary.
Jeff, Tim Sullivan seems to have worked out some of the “kinks” in George Cross’s autism as the series progresses. I enjoy the tangled webs of the subplots in these books!