Digital Reads Reviews

Many thanks to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for my spot on this Blog Tour.

This was quite a fun read. 3 women who went sleuthing in different cases.

Meet the 3 generations of Skelfs, Dorothy, Jenny, and Hannah. After the death of Jim, Dorothy’s husband, which was the first chapter, the 3 women took over the funeral business. And they came across 3 different mysteries. Monthly anonymous payments, follow the husband, and missing person/death. The Skelfs sure were busy in the entire book.

My first book by author Doug Johnstone, I found the whole story quite cute. No, the book wasn’t a cozy read, but somehow the three women endeared themselves so much to me that I found even their macabre actions cute. What can I say? My thriller-y heart found even standing on a squishy, decomposed body just apt.

The author was brilliant in his writing, the way he etched the different characters. They were an enigmatic lot, yet so real. The cat Schroedinger certainly saved the day. The ending, oh boy, the ending really blew me away. I was stumped and left reeling. Twisted was the mind of the author when he decided to shock me with such a scene.

No wonder the book was called A Dark Matter…. I was sure the gray matter of Doug Johnstone had turned dark while writing this book. A fun read, indeed.

A NOTE

Hindus never ever bury a body (unless it is hiding a murder). We always cremate them.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley and publisher, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!! STRICTLY HONEST AND UNBIASED.

All my reviews can be read here

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators. When patriarch Jim dies, it’s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events.

Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah’s best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have imagined.

As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything.

Publication Date: November 2019