The Body in the Dales cover art

The Body in the Dales

A Yorkshire Murder Mystery, Book 1

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The Body in the Dales

By: J. R. Ellis
Narrated by: Michael Page
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About this listen

An unpopular victim. An impossible crime. A murderer on the loose.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Body in Jingling Pot, this edition of The Body in the Dales includes editorial revisions.

A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation into the mysterious death are experienced DCI Jim Oldroyd and his partner DS Carter, a newcomer from London.

The deceased is Dave Atkins, well known throughout the village but not well liked. While there is no shortage of suspects, the details of the crime leave Oldroyd and Carter stumped. How did Atkins’s body end up in such a remote section of the cave? When someone with vital information turns up dead, it becomes clear that whoever is behind the murders will stop at nothing to conceal their tracks.

Oldroyd and his team try to uncover the truth, but every answer unearths a new set of questions. And as secrets and lies are exposed within the close-knit community, the mystery becomes deeper, darker and more complex than the caves below.

©2017, 2018 J. R. Ellis (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Cosy Crime Crime Thrillers Fiction Murder Mystery Police Procedural Thriller & Suspense England Thriller
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Loved the way it drew you into the love of the Dales snd potholing via very old poems.

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Entertaining story. It was fairly predictable though. Narration OK but I had trouble discerning which character was talking at times.

Entertaining

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This storyline was excellent all sorts of twists and turns and kept me in suspense until the end. Who would’ve guessed. Sadly the narrator let this book down. It was very robotic and static and very annoying

Excellent

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The murder of an unlikeable character is always an interesting premise for a mystery. The connections across various community groups to this man helped to create many possible leads and suspects. Greed, get rich quick schemes and revenge all impact on the characters.
I really enjoyed the descriptions of the Yorkshire countryside and the addition of the dialect. The police team and their personal relationships gave the investigation an intimate quality.
I appreciated the descriptions of caving, but it didn’t make it anymore appealing to me. The danger in the activity was highlighted on a number of occasions.
The humour, usually directed towards the new DS from London, broke the tension that built up in the book. The performance of Michael Page and his use of different voices also added to this humour.

Caving disaster

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Loved it, listened again and still loved it. The shear Yorkshireness of it has left a smile on my face. It's a right cracking yarn too. Hope others get just as much out of this as I have.

By 'eck it's grand

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Descriptions of the environment, depictions of Yorkshire culture and the accents. Main character has an eccentric warmth to him that was very likeable.

History and geography

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The narrator was very hard to listen to could not distinguish from many of the characters he was trying to portray

Not a great storyline

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The story was okay but the narrator was so boring I kept falling asleep.

I struggled to finish.

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I am going to enjoy my journey with DCI Oldroyd. I can forgive the dry passages and the unnecessary romance between his junior colleagues. Lots to be going on with Jim.

Another great detective.

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Love JR Ellis. This didn’t disappoint. I do admit I had to get used to the narrators voice but once I was in it, it worked for me. I loved the story line and I’m glad for a bit of romance that wasn’t 3 books in the making, so thanks for that JR. some authors really stretch it out and I find it annoying. This is as usual a must read but then I read all of JRs books.

Great read

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