The Bag of Secrets by Joy Ellis

 

The Bag of Secrets By Joy Ellis- Crime

When the body of a homeless woman is found, the police can't make it a priority as they have their hands full with the living and assign it to a rather arrogant DC who has much to learn, both in life and the job. Matt and Liz are handed a bag belonging to Molly, the deceased and it appears she may have been hiding something and they get the green light to investigate further. She wasn't who she first appeared to be and another homeless man knows there is another clue if only he can find it. There is also a teenager missing, one who has gone AWOL before but this time there’s something rather more about it. There’s a clue of “ The Bunker” and it's hard to find out exactly what this is as it's a well kept secret and those in the know are under pressure for it to remain so. What on earth is going on in the fens and why?

I love this series (they do stand alone). There’s a wonderful camaraderie between Matt and Liz, and of course Rory the pathologist who is larger than life in his clever wit and exuberance. Joy has the masterful skill of bringing the characters to life and Rory is one I’d love to meet if he was real! It's a very well crafted and carefully thought out plot ( as ever with Joy’s books) and I'm learning things about the area through reading these books, even though I live here- they are meticulously researched and calculated. A stunningly captivating read. I'm in awe of this. Wow, just wow!

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THE BAG OF SECRETS (Matt Ballard #5) by Joy Ellis A GRIPPING NEW CRIME THRILLER FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND BRITISH BOOK AWARDS CRIME & THRILLER OF THE YEAR NOMINEE JOY ELLIS.  From three-million-selling author Joy Ellis comes the book that everyone will be reading this Christmas.  Matt and Liz may have retired from the police, but that doesn’t guarantee a quiet life.  An abandoned carpet bag full of mysterious handwritten notes. A body in a marshy lagoon.  Matt is intrigued when his partner Liz brings home an old carpet bag she found dumped in the local library. It contains a pile of mysterious handwritten notes. Liz is convinced the bag belongs to Old Molly, a local woman who lives on the streets.  The following day, a body is discovered in a marshy lagoon. It’s Old Molly. Suffocated with an expensive men’s handkerchief.  Molly clearly knew something that got her killed. Liz believes she was trying to tell them something important. She calls on her nephew David to help decipher the carpet bag notes.  Meanwhile Matt is hired to find teenage runaway Liam Cooper. Liam has been missing for ten days now, and Matt has a very bad feeling about him.  A few days later, a second body is discovered in an old barn out on the fens.  Matt and Liz must piece together the cryptic clues Molly has left for them before more people die. The answers lead to the remote fenland village of Marshdyke-St-Mary — and a series of shocking secrets stretching back many years.  DISCOVER A TOTALLY ENTHRALLING CRIME THRILLER.  This utterly gripping crime thriller is perfect for fans of L.J. Ross, Peter May, J.D. Kirk, Angela Marsons, J.M. Dalgliesh, Elly Griffiths or Ann Cleeves.  THE SETTING  England’s rural fenland is a strange place, with its never-ending fields, winding tracks, and long straight droves (the old livestock routes) that lead to nowhere. The lonely lanes are flanked either side by deep drainage ditches and are, for a good part of the year, filled with tall, whispering reeds. Closer to the Wash, high seabanks form a barrier between river and marsh, and the richly fertile soil of the drained land. But when the mists come down, as they so often do, perspective is destroyed and all sense of direction lost, and then the fens become a rather frightening place of mystery and danger. Somewhere that you do not want to be at night.  ALSO BY JOY ELLIS  THE BESTSELLING NIKKI GALENA SERIES  Book 1: CRIME ON THE FENS  Book 2: SHADOW OVER THE FENS  Book 3: HUNTED ON THE FENS  Book 4: KILLER ON THE FENS  Book 5: STALKER ON THE FENS  Book 6: CAPTIVE ON THE FENS  Book 7: BURIED ON THE FENS  Book 8: THIEVES ON THE FENS  Book 9: FIRE ON THE FENS  Book 10: DARKNESS ON THE FENS  Book 11: HIDDEN ON THE FENS  Book 12: SECRETS ON THE FENS  Book 13: FEAR ON THE FENS  JACKMAN AND EVANS  Book 1: THE MURDERER’S SON  Book 2: THEIR LOST DAUGHTERS  Book 3: THE FOURTH FRIEND  Book 4: THE GUILTY ONES  Book 5: THE STOLEN BOYS Book 6: THE PATIENT MAN  Book 7: THEY DISAPPEARED  Book 8: THE NIGHT THIEF  DETECTIVE MATT BALLARD  Book 1: BEWARE THE PAST  Book 2: FIVE BLOODY HEARTS  Book 3: THE DYING LIGHT  Book 4: MARSHLIGHT  Book 5: TRICK OF THE NIGHT  Book 6: THE BAG OF SECRETS 

JOY ELLIS UK #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE JACKMAN & EVANS AND DI NIKKI GALENA SERIES; SHORTLISTED FOR BOOK OF THE YEAR FICTION: CRIME & THRILLER AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 OVER 3 MILLION BOOKS SOLD! Joy grew up and lived in Kent, trained in floristry in Mayfair and ran her own highly successful floristry business in Weybridge for many years. In the mid-1990s, she followed her lifelong love of books, first as the manager of an independent bookshop in Leatherhead, Surrey, then as a writer. When she retired, Joy and her partner Jacqueline and their two spaniels settled in a village just outside Boston, captivated by the Lincolnshire Fens. Joy’s happy home life is far removed from her storylines, however, and while she loves living in the misty Fens, the area provides a remote and eerie backdrop to her novels. Joy is also able to add the authenticity vital to any crime thriller by drawing on Jacqueline’s inside knowledge, to confirm procedures and the reality of tackling brutal crime and criminals in a modern police force.