BLOG TOUR: Treble Clef (The Harrogate Crime Series Book 8) - Malcolm Hollingdrake

I am delighted to take part in the blog tour for Treble Clef, book 8 in the Harrogate Crime Series, by Malcolm Hollingdrake.  Many thanks to Caroline from Bits About Books for inviting me to take part in the tour but without further ado, please scroll down to read my thoughts on the book.

Harrogate attracts hundreds of players to the annual Games Convention and for one player it is the perfect opportunity to kill by the mechanics of his own sinister game.

Each victim will die in the same way. Each will be classed as the loser and their time will have run out. The escape room and the game table will draw more, each believing they are invincible.

However, in every game there is always a traitor waiting in the wings.

What did I think?

Although this is book 8 in such a well established series, I can definitely say that Treble Clef can be read as a standalone, as I've only read the first book so far.  Of course, to really get the most out of any book in a series you really should read them in order purely for the character development, but the characters are so perfectly described that even new readers can get a good feel for them if they are jumping into the series at this point.

Treble Clef is set in the magnificent North Yorkshire town of Harrogate.  I have visited Harrogate before but even if I hadn't, Malcolm Hollingdrake paints a beautiful picture with his visual and poetic writing.  This isn't a tourist guide to Harrogate though, and there's a murderer in town as the tourists descend for the annual Games Convention.  As the gamers compete with each other, one game is proving deadlier than the others; it seems that nobody who goes into the secret single player escape room comes out alive.  This is a case for DCI Cyril Bennett and DS David Owen.

Bennett and Owen are the main characters throughout this series and I love seeing how characters such as these evolve.  Owen was very young and naïve when we first met him in Only the Dead but it seems like he has learnt a lot from Bennett over the years.  They are quite an unlikely pairing but with their combined knowledge they certainly get results.  As a keen reader, I love the fact that Bennett doesn't own a TV and it still makes me laugh when he refers to it as an 'Idiot's lantern' - a name that seems to fit more and more these days. 

Treble Clef is about a 3 hour read, depending on your reading speed, so it's perfect to read on a weekend with a pint or two of mine and Cyril's favourite ale: Black Sheep.  Malcolm Hollingdrake writes with such eloquence that it feels as if he has carefully and purposefully chosen every single word.  If you haven't discovered this series yet, you are missing out on some excellent crime fiction.  So take my advice: turn off your idiot's lantern and read these fantastic books.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

You could say that the writing was clearly on the wall for someone born in a library that they might aspire to be an author, but to get to that point Malcolm Hollingdrake has travelled a circuitous route.

Malcolm worked in education for many years, even teaching for a period in Cairo before he started writing, a challenge he had longed to tackle for more years than he cares to remember.

He has written a number of successful short stories, has nine books now available and is presently writing the eighth crime novel set in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Born in Bradford and spending three years at Ripon College, Malcolm has never lost his love for his home county, a passion that is reflected in the settings for all the DCI Bennett novels.

Currently, Malcolm is writing a new series which is set in Merseyside.

Malcolm has enjoyed many hobbies including collecting works by Northern artists; the art auctions offer a degree of excitement when both buying and certainly when selling. It is a hobby he has bestowed upon DCI Cyril Bennett, the main character in his successful Bennett series.

You can follow Malcolm Hollingdrake on Social Media:

Author Website malcolmhollingdrakeauthor.co.uk
Twitter twitter.com/MHollingdrake
Facebook Author Page bit.ly/FBtoMHdrake
Goodreads Author Page bit.ly/GRtoMHdrake
Amazon Author Page bit.ly/AmtoMHdrake

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