Simply Angela : The Murder’s Son by Joy Ellis

Twenty years ago a farmer and his wife are cut to pieces by a ruthless serial killer.

Now a woman is viciously stabbed to death in the upmarket kitchen of her beautiful house on the edge of the marshes.

Then a man called Daniel Kinder walks into Saltern police station and confesses to the murder.

But DI Rowan Jackman and DS Marie Evans of the Fenland Constabulary soon discover that there is a lot more to Daniel than meets the eye. He has no memory of the first five years of his life and is obsessed with who his real mother is.

With no evidence to hold him, Jackman and Evans are forced to let him go, and in a matter of days the lonely Lincolnshire Fens become the stage for more killings and Daniel has disappeared.
Series:Jackman & Evans (Published Order), Book 1, Jackman & Evans (Recommended Listening Order), Book 2 | Publisher: Audible | Narrator: Richard Armitage | Length: 9hrs 30 min | Genre: Contemporary Mystery/Thriller | Source: Publisher | Rating: 4 Cups

It was rather interesting to be back with Jackman and Evans as they race against the clock to stop a murderer and figure out the connection to a murder that occurred twenty years ago.

When a woman is found stabbed to death in her kitchen, Daniel Kinder walks into the police station, confesses, then pleads to be locked up so he won’t murder again. While he knows an alarming amount of details regarding the murder, Jackman and Evans are convinced he didn’t murder the woman and there’s no actual evidence to hold him so they have no choice but to release him. Although when another woman is found murdered and Daniel has no alibi or memory of what he was doing during the hours of her murder, they start to wonder if they let a killer go.

Could Daniel’s theory—and obsession—that’s he’s the son of a woman who brutally murdered her employees twenty years ago be true? If so, could he have the same blood lust that plagued her? Now that a third woman has been murdered, Jackman and Evans find themselves digging through evidence from twenty years ago hoping to shed light on Daniel’s parentage while trying to figure out the who the killer really is.

If you like a good British crime drama/mystery/thriller, which I do, then this is your cup of tea.

DS Maria Evans and DI Rowan Jackman are, hands down, my favorite detectives. They click so well while investigating—they are just this perfect little crime fighting team. There’s also this personal connection between them that, while it’s obviously there, they sort of ignore it but it always just under the surface. I’m really hoping that they eventually act on this connection because I think they would make a great romantic match.

I thought the mystery in this one was brilliant. I enjoyed how parallels between this case and the one from twenty years ago kept popping up. There’s a fragility to Daniel due to past events and I was never really sure what he would do or what he was capable of doing. He was damaged physiologically and it led him on an interesting path. While I had a feeling who it was and why, I was never completely sure until the end.

Along with the murder mystery, there’s a bit of corruption going on in the constabulary, which made for an interesting back story. I found that both tangents mixed together brilliantly and both were solid and fully fleshed out. There’s also some interesting bits with the mysterious computer specialist called Orac.

This one wasn’t as heavy as Their Lost Daughters but it’s still not a light read, not a lot of mysteries/thrillers are. Of course, there’s violence, blood, and death but it didn’t come off as overly graphic. We’re given a glimpse of the crime scenes but they’re not overly described.

This is the first book in the series yet it was marked as the second in the listening order (I’m a bit confused by this—maybe this was recorded after the second book?) but what I’ve found so far is that they’re rather flexible when it comes to the order in which they are read. I felt like I got a better sense of the characters and their backstories in this one but I didn’t feel like it was anything that I needed to know while going through Their Lost Daughters, if that makes sense.

Richard Armitage, once again, delivers a flawless narration. I’m not going to lie, I could listen to him narrate anything, but there’s that mysterious quality to his voice that makes him perfect for this genre. Also, as a side note, I’d love to see this series turned into an Acorn/ITV/BBC series with him playing the role of Jackman.

Overall, not as strong as or as twisted as Their Lost Daughters but still a brilliant mystery/thriller that I highly recommend. It was interesting watching how events from a person’s past plays with their psyche.