An adroit, fine read in what is a story worth reading from an accomplished author. It’s a good series of which I have read previous books and would recommend. I enjoy shifting points of view and each chapter rotated through an increasingly more interesting cast of characters. Pacing as I mentioned was steady yet with moments of acceleration. Descriptions were crisp and clean adding punch and clarity. A skull smashed in the snow found by the trainee cop Kirsty who tried to maintain the crime scene with ingenious methods until DCI Craig Gillard came to the scene. The team started their investigation. A body frozen in the freak blizzard near Bebe’s home threatens more than her return to show business. Bebe is a suspect. Can she help solve the mystery before it’s too late?

Joanna and her boyfriend shared a flat in a large house on Canynge Road at the time which was divided into several flats. We are lead up a few dead ends, mistakes happen and Gillard is up against the pressure of a deadline from his boss which if he doesn’t meet may ruin his career.

A puzzling pizza mystery

And finally, not meeting Beth, the protagonist, till well past the beginning of the book, created such a sense of relief and footing, I don't know how else this potentially first in a series could have been written. I have read books by Christoph Fischer but this was something in a new genre for him. It was an enjoyable romp with outrageous characters, humorous situations, and murder in the middle of all this. The story moves along at a nice pace keeping the reader wondering who did what. His private life is a theme through the book. Sam is pregnant. His Aunt – what a piece of work! – lives across the road. Weird things are happening and Sam wants to sell up, Craig agrees but is immersed in his investigation which is not going too smoothly. This thread is a little creepy and ultimately very tragic for the couple. The day before Kirsti is about to start work as a CSI she comes across a frenzied dog & the battered body of a woman. A hooded cyclist is seen peddling away. She valiantly tries to preserve evidence in the rapidly disappearing snow & is rescued by DCI Gillard. The victim is Tanvi Roy. She runs the very successful company Empire of Spice- a company her family has built up almost from nothing.

The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies focused on Yeates’ landlord, who lived in the same building. Prior to Tabak’s arrest, Jefferies was falsely accused of Yeates’ murder and arrested, leading to widespread vilification in the media. He was eventually ruled out as a suspect, and as per The Guardian, was awarded “substantial” libel damages from eight newspapers.

'We will never get over our loss'

Beyong that, I thought the third person deep povs worked really well. It made relating to - and suspecting - nearly every character in the book easy (smiles). Following an investigation conducted by Avon and Somerset Police, Yeates’ neighbour 32-year-old Vincent Tabak was arrested and later convicted for her murder in October 2011. A new Channel 5 docuseries, Body in the Snow: The Murder of Joanna Yeates, will follow the investigation in detail, focusing on how Tabak was brought to justice. But where is Joanna Yeates’ killer now?

This book is extremely well written and plotted. It is a detailed telling of a police investigation into the beating death of an elderly woman named Tanvi Roy. She was a businesswoman and in control of a large food industry and appeared on many cooking shows. Tabak was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years on the grounds that he was found guilty of murder. Figuring out the puzzle in a mystery is always a lot of fun and has the added perk of exercising the brain.It soon becomes apparent that there are many things going on in this very male dominated Hindu family. There is a lot going on in the business & within the family. An early breakthrough with DNA leads to an arrest, but Gallard is not happy that they have the right person. Each day seems to bring up more questions than answers. A fellow blogger and excellent writer, Christoph Fischer, just ventured into my domain with his cozy mystery, The Body in the Snow. So of course I had to read the book! Joanna's boyfriend Greg Reardon has since returned to the office where he used to work with his girlfriend and has bought another flat in Bristol. He raised a large amount of money for the charity Missing People and supports their campaign Join the Search. In the hunt for her killer, the media had wrongfully accused suspect Christopher Jefferies, who was Joanna's former landlord. He had originally been arrested but later released on no charges. After a mass appeal for her whereabouts, Joanna's body was discovered on Christmas day in North Somerset where a post-mortem exam determined that she had been strangled. Who killed Joanna Yeates?

A couple of detectives who tend to shirk their duties add to the problems. Gillard must keep on top of them. I will say I always looked forward to reading the next snippet of story I sneaked in at bed before no longer pretending I could still see the print well enough to read (smiles). The leisurely style of the story plus the relatively short chapters did make it easier to pace myself reading. I’ve enjoyed this series despite not particularly warming to the hero, who’s a bit sleazy around women and inconsiderate of his wife, the increasingly pathetic jealous whiny Sam. While his team are quite involved in this one, they are not well developed as characters, so when something awful happens to one of them, there was no emotional punch, it just felt like a plot device. On the other hand the dynamics of the Indian hereditary system, and their impact on women in particular, were fully explored and lay at the root of the murder. And all the references to delicious Indian food had me craving curry!This is the second Craig Gillard book I have read in this series and it didn't disappoint. The ending to the previous novel indicated changes in his private life which could only add to the stresses of everything else he was involved in. This was continued with just enough storytime to show it would continue into at least the next inslment, the first chapter of which is included at the end of this story and begins immediately this book finishes.