Death Toll

DI Peter Shaw & DS George Valentine #3

by Jim Kelly

Bodies are being exhumed at King's Lynn's cemetery, the bones moved to higher ground to avoid flooding. But when the coffin of murdered pub landlady Nora Tilden is hauled up into the light there's a grim discovery: the twisted corpse of a young black man, killed by a billhook blow to the head, and dumped in the grave on the night Nora was buried twenty-eight years earlier. The police are baffled by a bewildering and brutal murder.

Who was this young man? Was he the victim of a racist crime? When DI Peter Shaw, DS George Valentine and their team are put on the case their investigation first leads them to The Flask, Nora's pub just along the riverbank, where her family hides more than one dark secret and it's soon clear no one can be trusted. Will Shaw and Valentine be able to get to the shocking truth behind the murder before it's too late and the ghosts from the past claim another victim?

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature, Procedural, Police, Mystery Thriller

455 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Jim Kelly is a journalist and education correspondent for the Financial Times. He lives in Ely with the biographer Midge Gilles and their young daughter. The Water Clock, his first novel, was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Award for best first crime novel of 2002.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an intelligent police procedural, well plotted and gripping. It is darkly sinister from the first page. The coffins in the cemetery at All Saints Church, King’s Lynn, are being re-located to higher ground because of the risk of flooding. When the coffin of Nora Tilden, former landlady of the Flask Inn, an old whaling pub in the nearby dank and inbred village of South Lynn, is raised, a man’s skeleton is found on top of it. Nora was buried in 1982, killed by being pushed down the stairs by her violent ex-navy husband. The grave also contains the tiny coffin of her baby daughter, who died in 1948.



D.I. Peter Shaw and D.S. George Valentine are put in charge of the case. Shaw and Valentine have a history in the locality. In 1997 a nine-year-old boy was found murdered on a housing estate. The investigation was conducted by Peter Shaw’s late father, who was then DCI, and George Valentine, then DI Valentine. A student named Mosse was charged with the crime, but the case failed because it was believed that the forensic evidence had been tampered with – probably by DCI Shaw. The case ended Peter Shaw’s father’s career and Valentine was demoted to Sergeant. This tragedy has not been forgotten by the force, and Peter Shaw and Valentine know they cannot afford to make any mistakes this time.



The forensic examination of the skeleton on the coffin reveals that he was almost certainly of African descent. Jim Kelly weaves an intricate plot, at the centre of which are the two generations of the family running the Flask and its regular customers. Towards the end of the Second World War Nora Tilden’s sister, Bea, had an affair with a black American soldier who was stationed nearby. Racial prejudice was rife at the time and she was despised by the locals. Eventually she married him and went to live in the States. Her husband died and after a few years she came back to South Lynn, with her son, Patrice. The Flask is now run by Nora’s daughter, Lizzie. Shaw and Valentine are astonished to find that there is a black barman at the Flask, who closely resembles a drawing Shaw has done of the reconstructed face of the skeleton in the grave. Lizzie explains that the barman is her son, fathered by her cousin Patrice, who disappeared from the village at the time of Nora’s death.



The strength of the novel lies in the creation of atmosphere and the vivid depiction of the very large cast of characters. The plot is so complicated that it is easy to lose your way – particularly once Mosse, the probable killer of the child in 1997, and his old associates, all of whom are still living in the village and are regulars at the Flask, reappear. There are connections between the cold case of the murdered boy and what is going on in the present. Only when Shaw begins to find out what really happened on the day of Nora Tilden’s funeral does the truth begin to emerge, but the suspense is maintained right until the end, with a series of revelations. I think a family tree of the licensees of the Flask might have been helpful. Lots of concentration needed but worth it.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book in the series took awhile to get going but overall enjoyed it and put a few loose ends from the previous novel were sorted too

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Early review at 57% of the way through:
Death Toll by Jim Kelly is the third book of the DI Peter Shaw & DS George Valentine police procedural mystery series set in 2010 West Norfolk, England. Graves are being excavated from a cemetery for relocation. One grave has an extra corpse, a murder victim. Detectives Shaw & Valentine must identify the body and find the killer. They learn (from soil analysis) the murder and burial was almost 30 years ago, same time as the woman officially buried in the grave.

Everything about the case is dark, ugly. Questioning townspeople swiftly reveals racial hatred. Past and present events center around "The Flask", a former whaling pub, and family members who ran/run it.

p.259 of 455: "They seemed to be circling the case without being able to find its heart." That's for sure. I recognize it's a thankless, grueling task to search for evidence that will hold up in court, to convict a killer - but it's not enjoyable to read hundreds of pages about futile effort, with no sympathetic characters. The writing itself is exceptional, with vivid descriptions of the north coast's bleak landscape.

Book 2 of the series (Death Watch) was a long, dark "chunkster" as well. Which is why I waited so long before reading #3. Too long. I apparently forgot important details about Shaw & Valentine. Such as: Shaw is blind in one eye; Shaw is a talented forensic artist who can reconstruct the likeness of a dead person from his skull; Shaw is married to a woman from Jamaica and they have a daughter, living their dream on the beach. Most surprising detail I evidently forgot: Although they are partners in solving homicides, Shaw & Valentine don't like each other.

I did remember their age difference. Peter Shaw's father Jack was George Valentine's former partner in the police force. A scandal from an old case caused Jack to leave the force, George to be demoted. Of course, both detectives are trying to solve that "cold case" as well as the 1982 murders.

p.262: "Valentine leant back in his chair, his neck bones clicking together like billiard balls." Now that's an odd phrase! Sure stops the flow of reading.

The next 4 books in the series are all reasonable length (~250 pages). If this book catches my interest in the next hundred pages, I may not skip the rest of the series after all.

Huzzah! The Finish Line - finally (finally!) finished the book. Patient readers: your persistence will be rewarded at page 299, where the book quickens pace, actually becoming hard to set aside! The plot twists and turns, much faster than Shaw & Valentine can keep up. All is revealed (and revealed, and revealed...). Even the Tessier murder (which might lead you to wonder, why continue the series?).

[Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gone straight to number three in the series as I liked number two so much and wanted to know what happens to the characters!
So, so glad all the ends are tied up.
Wonderfully evocative of Norfolk, will definitely read other books of his.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad to read a new author. Good story and atmospheric novel set in north Norfolk. Now off to read #1 in the series.

[Melanie Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upon finishing I discovered this was book 3 in a series of 5. Why publishers need to keep this a secret from readers is one of my biggest bugbears. Every book that's part of a series should be clearly marked as such, this book should be entitled Death Toll, book 3 of 5. Listening to the story was great, it was clever with lots of twists and turns, plenty of credible suspects and enough red herrings to keep an Arsenal supporting Scandinavian happy for months. However, the whole way through I felt there was something, a little thing that I kept missing. Like I'd done a 1,000 piece puzzle and found 1 piece missing. Of course, now I know why, because this is part of a series and, although reads perfectly well as a standalone, if you read the previous 2 in the series first, you'll have a deeper and clearer picture. Well narrated by Roger May, there were periods when the narration was very quiet. A great story though.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because of increased flooding, bodies are being exhumed from a cemetery and moved to higher ground. When the coffin of Nora Tilden, who was the landlady of the Flask (a pub) and was murdered by her husband (who threw her down the stairs), is moved another body is found. It is the body of a young black man who was killed by a blow to the head by a billhook and dumped in the grave when Nora was buried 28 years ago. As Peter Shaw and George Valentine investigate the murder of the man, there are mysteries and connection with Nora's family who run the Flask.

They also continue to investigate the murder of a 9 year old boy that occurred years ago and because of an evidence issue led to Shaw's father (also a detective inspector) having to leave the force and Valentine, who was also his detective sergeant, being demoted and sent far away. They are trying to find the evidence to prove that the teenager who is now a wealthy young lawyer and was part of a group of troublemakers was the killer

[M. O'Gannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death Toll – DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine Mystery – 2011 - ***1/2 – This is my first Kelly book. Loved the setting and the scenery description in Norfolk, England. Relocation of a cemetery brings a 28 year old murder to light. Shaw and Valentine are charged with solving this cold case. Very realistic characters make the plot and story line believable. Unfortunately for this short attention span reader, the book stretched out too long. Some have described the book as gripping – I found it far less so. Good investigation procedural, but found myself occasionally skimming. Will probably try one more Kelly book to see if the pace picks up better in a different investigation.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series I am really enjoying. The characters are so well written and the descriptions of the places make you feel like you are right there. This was another interesting murder for DI Shaw and DS Valentine. We see them continue to grow as partners. Most pleasing for me was that the underlying storyline between the 2 gets wrapped up in this book. THANK YOU, Jim Kelly, for not dragging this on and on throughout all the books! Looking forward to seeing the characters develop and expand.

[Christopher Winterburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story. Brilliant characters and we see the final outcome on the Tessier murder. By far the best of the first three books.

[Caroline Ingvaldsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third Shaw & Valentine police procedural showcases the unlikely pair as they untangle diverse and complicated crimes.

[Coi Drummond-Gehrig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good, I didn't get it until the end and that is unusual for me.

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it - complex but easy to follow - several threads to the story kept me gripped. Will read the next one

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The words that most clearly convey the theme of DEATH TOLL are spoken by Mark Antony is Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” – “the evil that men do live after them….”

The story opens on December 12, 2010. The bodies buried at a cemetery are being moved to higher ground to avoid flooding. When the grave of Nora Tilden, buried in 1982, is opened, grave diggers are shocked to find another body, a skeleton, on top of the casket. The body had to have been thrown into Nora’s grave on the day she was buried. Nora was the owner of the Flask, a popular pub, which she inherited from her father, Arthur Melville. Nora is a hard woman and her relationship with her husband, Alby, is stormy, that is, until the night Alby pushed Nora down the stairs. With Nora dead and her father in prison, their daughter, Lizzie, becomes the owner of the Flask.

As was her mother, Lizzie is only nineteen when the business is passed to her. Alby wants to protect her so he contacts her aunt, Bea, Nora’s younger sister who has been living for many years in the United States, asking her to return to East Lynn to help Lizzie. Bea does as requested and moves back to her home town with her son, Pat, who is twenty.

The major players are now in place but they are by no means the only characters who will walk across this stage. The catalyst of the story is Latrell Garrison, an American GI, a black man, who marries Bea. Together they have their son, Pat. When Bea returns to East Lynn with Pat, the resentments created by Latrell’s presence awaken. Pat doesn’t have an easy time and when he disappears Bea doesn’t look for him, believing that he returned to the United States. Now Pat has been found in Nora’ grave. Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant George Valentine are assigned this very cold case.

On their own, Shaw and Valentine have been working on another cold case, the murder of Jonathan Tessier, a nine year-old who knew too much about a puppy. Shaw is determined to solve the case because it is the one his father couldn’t let go. Valentine wants the solution to be found because a misuse of evidence cost him his rank and derailed a trial. Shaw and Valentine are both in danger of losing their jobs if they antagonize the chief suspect, a wealthy and respected solicitor.

DEATH TOLL is a saga, a big story about a family. Arthur Melville fathered Nora and Bea. Nora gives birth to Mary, who died when still an infant, and Lizzie. Bea is the mother of Pat, the mixed race child she has with Latrell. As other characters are introduced, the frailty of the bonds of the descendants of Arthur Melville are revealed.

DEATH TOLL is a saga that addresses big issues as they impact on one family. There is the hatred between Bea and Nora that surfaced when Bea decides to go to America with Latrell. Nora swore that she would never speak to Bea again if she left with him. Nora isn’t a racist; she doesn’t want Bea to be out from under her control. Nora keeps her word. She never speaks to Bea again. Racism is the elephant in the parlor of East Lynn. Latrell was welcome, a well-liked man. But by the time Pat arrives in East Lynn, PEN, the Party of English Nationalism, is gaining supporters among the electorate and a black man is suspect.

Overshadowing life in East Lynn is incest, literally and figuratively. There are frequent references to Leviticus , the third book of the Bible. Leviticus describes the punishment in store for those who violate the boundary that protects the family unit. Incest among the players and characters in East Lynn is a poison that is destroying the family Arthur Melville established.

DEATH TOLL is a book that cannot be put down. From the beginning scene, when Nora’s grave is found to contain the body of another victim, everyone must question their relationships. Trust is violated. Secrets are hiding in plain sight. The evil that men do live after them and engulf their posterity, an inheritance that poisons the lives of those who should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. This is an exceptionally engrossing book and a satisfying mystery.

ET IN ARCADIA EGO, (I also lived in Arcadia (paradise) is engraved on Nora’s grave stone. On one hand, it is a gross mistake. There was nothing of paradise in East Lynn. But another interpretation of the phrase has Death uttering the words. No matter the place, no matter the innocent, death can be found lurking in the shadows.

The author does the reader a considerable favor by including a family tree on page 164.

[Suzy Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Can't wait to read more with Shaw & Valentine. Very well written, stark & cold British landscape, jagged, real people. Loved the twin murder investigations & all the twists & turns.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

West Norfolk DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine have two cold cases to work on. The first is the murder of a young mixed race man whose body is found lying on top of the casket of a woman killed by her husband in 1982. The graves in the area are being dug up to move the caskets away from annual flooding - when the second body is found. The second is the case of a murdered boy which resulted in Shaw's father resigning and Valentine being demoted for allegedly mishandling evidence. Shaw is as anxious to clear his father's memory as Valentine is to be reinstated.

One of the things I like best about Kelly's books is the vividness of the sense of place in them. The small seaside town of East Lynn with its dying fishery and struggling tourist economy is insular and inward looking with multiple generations of families keeping close track of each other. It is not immune to the racism of the BNP and the fundamentalism of an evangelical church that has been in the village since the early days of the antislavery movement. But the powerful attraction of the sea and the marshes is equally vivid.

All of the characters are interesting and multifaceted. Shaw is a forensic artist married to a black woman who runs a seaside cafe and surf shop. He is active in the local lifeboat rescue team. Valentine is a widower, a loner whose only family is his sister, a cop's widow, and whose social life consists mainly of sitting in on games in the local fan-tan parlor. The three generations of the family who own the local pub are full of secrets and resentments but are also loyal, to a fault in some cases.

[Areex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like his other books, the local towns, residential areas etc are a little too descriptive. But a very good story and a very good ending

[Damaskcat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Graves are being moved in a Kings Lynn churchyard to avoid flooding. When the body of murdered pub landlady, Nora Tilden is exhumed there is another body in the grave - that of a young black man who was brutally murdered on the night Nora was buried.

DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine must try and solve the murder which happened twenty eight years ago before it leads to other deaths. In the background they are also trying to solve the case which destroyed Valentine's career and led to Shaw's father's premature retirement and death. Can they finally lay that spectre to rest and bring justice to the dead?

I found this a compelling read and loved the way all the various threads are woven together to make a satisfying whole. I like the fact that the reader knows what Shaw and Valentine are each thinking but they don't always understand each other. The relationship between them is very uneasy but they are starting to work better together.

The background of the North Norfolk coast and Kings Lynn itself are brought vividly to life and the reader can almost feel themselves smelling the salt in the wind off the sea and feel the crunch of the sand under their feet. This is an excellent police procedural series and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read crime novels with plenty of depth. This is the third book in the series.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third book in the Valentine/Shaw series is a bit overwhelming. The book begins with a body found on top of a coffin in a grave, and the body count increases alarmingly from that point on. However, this book is worth perservering and finishing just (if for no other reason) to finally find a resolution to the Bobby Mosse storyline.

For me, this was the least enjoyable of the Valentine/Shaw books, and I liked Jim Kelly's other series better than this series anyway. It seemed like EVERYONE was dying in this book, most of them by murder. However, I was very happy to see the end of the Bobby Mosse storyline, and I enjoyed the way it played out.

Jim Kelly is an excellent writer and all of his books are well written and easy to read, I just happen to miss Phillip Dryden. The Phillip Dryden books were shorter and less complicated than the Valentine/Shaw books, even though Philip Dryden was certainly a man with many demons and a complicated past. But with Valentine and Shaw there are two of them to try to sort out and keep track of. But at least in this book there is the satisfaction of finding out what really happened to the Tessier boy back in 1997.

So I recommend the book, even though it was not my favorite.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best Jim Kelly yet. In this mystery, Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and his Sergeant George Valentine must deal with a couple of old crimes. In the first, a body is discovered on top of a coffin that is being moved. In the second, Shaw and Valentine are trying to solve an old case to restore the good names of Shaw's father (a detective, deceased) and Valentine.
The cases aren't connected, but Kelly does a nice job of going back and forth between them. There are lots of twists and turns, lots of suspects in the first case. Finding the identity of the dead body, and the close-knit nature of the community (West Norfolk, England) was well done. Kelly also provides lots of details about the countryside and seacoast.
I also liked the characterization of the two detectives, Shaw in particular. He lives on the beach and must run a mile at night (at low tide) to get home.
If you like British detective mysteries, you'll like this one. And there are lots more Kelly mysteries waiting for you.

[Melissa Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though a bit long, the story encompasses 2 different mysteries and the twists and turns will definitely keep you guessing.

"In the Flensing Meadow Cemetery of King`s Lynn, graves are being relocated as part of a flood-prevention project. During the excavation of the grave belonging to Nora Tilden (a woman murdered by her husband Alby), the skeleton of a young man of mixed race is found lying twisted near the top of the casket lid. While investigating this grisly murder that occurred nearly thirty years ago, DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine uncover a group of skin heads, a cult of religious fanatics and an incestuous, morally bankrupt family. The death toll mounts as dark secrets are revealed and a treacherous past returns to haunt those responsible for murdering a man who refuses to stay buried."

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death Toll is a solid police procedural. Kelly skillfully weaves the two cases around and through each other as Shaw and Valentine struggle to keep on top of both cases. The plotting is carefully constructed and paced. The characterization is nicely realized, and although I didn’t really take to either Shaw or Valentine that didn’t seem to matter. There is a very strong sense of place, Kelly dropping the reader into the landscape of Kings Lynn and the Norfolk coast. The prose is quite workmanlike, but has flourishes of nice, colourful imagery. My main critique is that sometimes the storytelling is over-elaborated, with passages that added little to the story, and the text would, I feel, have benefitted from some trimming to increase the pace and tension. Overall, a well constructed police procedural.

[Andy Plonka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read and enjoyed several of Kelly's earlier books although this is the first of his I have read with Peter Shaw and George Valentine as the main protagonists (this is the third in the series). In this one because of the local flooding, bodies from the King's Lynn cemetery are being moved to higher ground. When the coffin of Nora Tilden is exhumed, aurhorities are expecting to find Nora's remains and those of her infant daughter Mary. This they do but the remains of a third person are also found. Shaw and Valentine must find out whose remains were buried in the gravesite, and, why? Well done police procedural by an author that has an excellent command of the English language and plants some distinctive visyal images in the minds of his readers.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting British mystery. It has two story lines going at once, both intriguing. I figured out the one that was supposed to be more complicated, but I frequently do, and it didn't take anything away from the story to have solved it. The cover blurb equates it to an Agatha Christie mystery and I wouldn't go that far. Ms. Christie was masterful in her plotting and characterization, and I rarely figured it out. Even when I did, she would throw in enough red herrings to throw one off the trail and get one hopelessly confused unless you were Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. Still, "Death Toll" was good, the characters were well written and the plot was good.

[Robert Hellenga · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the beginning: As bodies are being exhumed in the King’s Lynn cemetery to be moved to higher ground, the body of a young black is discovered on top of a coffin of Nora Tilden, who died twenty-eight years earlier
Death Toll, the third novel in a new series by Jim Kelly, doesn’t disappoint. The seaside atmosphere is as strongly rendered as the fen country in the Phillip Dryden novels. Peter Shaw is a thoughtful and interesting detective inspector who doesn’t always go out of his way to be likeable, and the ending provides a satisfying resolution to a convoluted series of seemingly unrelated murders past and present.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a British author who's dad had been a detective at Scotland yard. This was one of the reasons I picked up this book in the first place. The second was the story. When graves in a cemetery have to be moved because of flooding They find the corpse of a man on top of a grave. Quite quickly they realize that he had been down there since the original burial of a woman 28 years earlier. There is an another murder mystery of a child but that is just about 1/3 of the book and I didn't find it as inter

[M Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Two cases juggled throughout the book and DI Shaw, our main character, seems oddly familiar. If you love British crime drama, this is the book for you! It was a compelling read but so well paced that you could read it in satisfying chunks, both eager to continue but sated for the moment. Highly recommended.

[Albert Riehle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. Didn't make it very deep into the book either. If a writer doesn't care enough to make anything happen in the first 50 pages to hook me, then I don't care enough to finish their book. This one got a lot of great reviews, so maybe I'm missing out, but I'm tired of these books with beginnings that put me to sleep.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging plot , and a fair amount local color as is typical of this writer's work. A bit more knowledge of the principals would have been welcome but they were by no means unidimensional. The plot wrestles with the overlap of what can be both endearing and mean about isolated communities where diversity can be highly unwelcome.

[Suresh Nair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok read, but I dint find it much exciting. Too long and pretty old technique of presenting murder suspects with every reason, motive and opportunity only to find that they are not the ones but the one you most likely would have imagined.