Robbie’s Inspiration: Book Review – Death on a Dirty Afternoon by Colin Garrow

What Amazon says

Two deaths. A suspicious cop. A taxi driver in the firing line.

When taxi driver Frank is found dead on his dining room table, ex-cabbie Terry Bell assumes his old friend died of a heart attack. But when Terry’s former boss also turns up with his face bashed in, it starts to look like there’s a connection.

Faced with a Detective Inspector who doesn’t like coincidences, and a series of threatening letters, Terry does a bit of investigating of his own, but when another body is discovered, the temperature starts to rise – in more ways than one.

Death on a Dirty Afternoon is book #1 in the Terry Bell Mystery series. Download your copy of Death on a Dirty Afternoon now. Just scroll to the top of the page and select BUY to start your adventure today!

My review

I read this first book in the Terry Bell detective series after I read the second book. The fact that I didn’t realise this until I came to write this review illustrates how well the two books stand alone and that they don’t need to be read in order.

The story starts with the discovery of Frank Armstong’s body laid out on the dining room table. Right from the first line, the wonderful British humour the author injects into this series is evident. This is the first line: “Frank Armstrong had lain down on the dining room table before, but in the past he’d always been either sound asleep or dead drunk. Now he was just dead.”

Terry Bell has come to Frank’s home at the request of his wife who discovered the body when she returned from ‘a night out on the tiles’, partying and enjoying herself with another man. The first few pages set the scene well and the reader knows that Frank’s marriage was not happy, his wife was not faithful, and his death may well be unnatural or suspicious. Frank’s wife assigns Terry the job of informing Frank’s boss, Ronnie, to whom he owes a significant amount of money, of his untimely death. Ronnie was also Terry’s previous boss and owns the taxi company Frank worked for. At the time of the story, Terry is not working having come into a small inheritance.

From this simple beginning, Terry is drawn into a circle of corruption and murder involving some nefarious people who would be quite happy to kill him and anyone else who gets in their way. Of course, there are some red herrings with suspicion cast on various supporting characters. The story is fast paced and interesting, but the aspects of this book I enjoyed the most were the British humour, as mentioned, and the typically British settings, relationships, and attitudes. For me, these overlays brought fresh and relatable aspects to the murder mystery plot which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Terry Bell was an unusual protagonist. He is my idea of a typical working class man in Britain, hard working and salt of the earth, with a sharp brain but quite naïve when it came to dealing with villains and unethical people. There is a bit of sexual banter, which I found appropriate and amusing.

If you enjoy a well thought out murder mystery plot, wrapped up in British humour, then you will love this series.

Purchase Death on a Dirty Afternoon by Colin Garrow

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