An Unhallowed Grave

Wesley Peterson #3

by Kate Ellis

In this reissue of the third book in the series, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson is determined to discover the truth about a murdered woman with a carefully hidden past, and, once again, it is history that provides him with a clue

 
When the body of Pauline Brent is found hanging from a yew tree in a local graveyard, DS Wesley Peterson immediately suspects foul play. Meanwhile Wesley's archaeologist friend Neil Watson has excavated a corpse at his nearby dig, that of a young woman who—local legend has it—had been publicly hanged from the very same tree before being buried on unhallowed ground five centuries ago. Wesley is forced to consider the possibility that the killer knows the tree's dark history. Has Pauline also been executed rather than murdered? To catch a dangerous killer Wesley must discover as much as he can about the victim, but Pauline appears to have been a woman with few friends, no relatives, and a past she has carefully tried to hide.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature, Procedural, Archaeology, Detective

313 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 1999

About the author

Kate Ellis was born and brought up in Liverpool and she studied drama in Manchester. She worked in teaching, marketing and accountancy before first enjoying writing success as a winner of the North West Playwrights competition. Crime and mystery stories have always fascinated her, as have medieval history and archaeology which she likes to incorporate in her books. She is married with two grown up sons and she lives in North Cheshire, England, with her husband. Kate was awarded the CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY award in 2019

Reviews

[Icewineanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoy Kate Ellis's series. And #3 in the series doesn't disappoint. Definitely recommended to all 'puzzle' fans :-)
I'm a bit rushed now, but a longer review will follow soon.
Happy reading!

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is easy reading. The initial entry of police is caused by the hanging of a woman. The usual team works together, as well as the archaeological aspect intertwined with the current crime. I did not really enjoy the book, so 'nuf said.


Loan from Friend -Thank you!

[Lisa Guidarini · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third in the Wesley Peterson series. The tenuous connection between the medieval and modern plots wore thin, the strained relationship between Wesley and his wife was underdeveloped. The story behind the woman found hanging at the book's beginning, though, was satisfyingly complex.

Ellis's practice is to put at least the primary murder at the beginning. The reader - and detective characters - can be reasonably sure what's happened but spend the rest of the novel verifying the specifics of how it was done, as well as whodunnit and why.

The books are formulaic and at times weaving in a similar medieval plot loses its charm. At first I loved the convention including the parallel story but now the "coincidence" of the medieval story mirroring the modern is straining credibility. Even that's not the worst part. My ultimate criticism lies in Ellis's failure to develop her secondary characters, especially Neil, the archaeologist. I want to know more about him, more about his career and background, details about the digs and his relationships with women, in particular, which are mentioned briefly then dropped. We know Neil and Wesley's wife once dated and she chose Wesley over him. Ellis also makes sure to include a bit of mooning on Neil's part, though never crossing the line into inappropriate behavior.

Ellis writes well, for the most part. Occasionally she relies too heavily on adverbs but she's pretty accomplished. The main plots of the books are good, gripping enough to keep me reading. Wesley we know very well but the rest not quite so much. If she built them up, over the course of time, that would be fine but she's moving at a snail's pace so far. Maybe it gets better. Maybe she finds her rhythm and balance later in the series.

I'll keep reading this series for at least a couple more books. If things begin to move in the right direction I'll keep on. If not, there are plenty other mystery series out there.

[Cora Tea Party Princess · Rating 5 out of 5]

My name is Cora, and I'm an addict. I just can't stop reading the Wesley Peterson books even if the bookshop finds it hard to get them in for me because they're so old (Pah, they're not even 20 years old).

This one was up there with the first, and I was so glad the series picked up again after the second book. Yeah, I wasn't so keen on the second book.

I really loved the historical aspect to this one. And yet again I loved the way family and love were the main motives linking everything through history.

This was dark, and slightly spooky. And the characters are developing, their relationships with each other are changing.

[Deb Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detective Sargeant Wesley Peterson is now firmly ensconced in his rural police force. He and wife, Pam, are the new parents of baby Michael, with Pam yet on maternity leave after the recent birth. Wesley's team is called in to investigate a possible suicide in a nearby village -- a hanging death that is quickly ruled a homicide.

Once again Wesley meets up with his archaeologist friend, Neil, who just happens to be starting a new project in the same village as the murder. On the surface, there is nothing that connects the dots between the archaeological dig and the murder case at hand, but time has a way of changing that.

The returning cast of characters along with the new cast in this nearby village create an interesting crew. The author builds suspense slowly at first, but it gathers momentum as the plot thickens.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's less historical resonance in this early Wesley Peterson novel, but just as much enjoyment. Two teenagers find a body in a spooky graveyard. The police are meant to think that it's suicide, but forensics tell them different. What's really strange, though, is that the deceased woman has no enemies that the police can find. She's only been in the Devonshire village for fifteen years, but she has a job, works for civic causes, loves children, and makes no waves. But she also seems to have no past--no telephone, no address book, no letters...Meanwhile, Wes's college friend Neil is conducting an archaeological dig near the manor house, and finds the skeleton of a young woman, along with somne valuable medieval carvings.

[Gill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed! I've read a few of this series and this particular book didn't draw me in at all. In fact, I got frustrated by the 'same old, same old' feeling I had.....Pam getting worried about something, Hefferson being 'old fashioned', the team always being at the Ring o Bells (did all the police have lunch in pubs in 1999?), Neil bobbing up like the proverbial bad penny, and to cap it all, no official warning to Steve for taking a girl for a drive when on duty...... Sorry - ended up skipping loads just to finish it, so this will be my last Kate Ellis,

[Plum-crazy]

Maybe it's because I've not heard of this author or maybe it's due to the cover but I presumed that this was not only new to me but also a new series - wrong! Of course, I've not started at the beginning (this time coming in at number 3) but I felt as if the characters were already old friends.
Checking the copyright, it seems this tale is knocking on 20 years old & the only nod to its age I felt was the implication that as a West Indian, Peterson seemed to be a both a bit of a novelty in a rural village & also as an archaeologist graduate - not quite PC maybe but perhaps of its time, I'm not sure anyhow....

It's an entertaining read, not a cosy mystery but certainly more inclined towards that genre rather than the gritty, gory ones I so frequently read. It's not a series I'll be avidly following but if anymore happen my way I'll certainly read them.

[Sharon Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great novel in the Peterson series that I hadn't caught up with - how could I have overlooked it! A woman discovered, "hanged", in a churchyard; an historical crime detailed in the library of Stokeworthy Manor, now occupied by an entrepreneur who's made something of himself after starting on the other side of the tracks - friend of a local ambitious would-be politician. As is often the case with books by English authors, class plays a major part in both stories: servants blamed for crimes, ancient and modern, which they may or may not have committed; members of the upper classes with secrets they want to keep stum about. It's all there. There are said to be 90 reviews of this book, so I'll keep mine short.

For reasons that may baffle other readers, I have never tired of the formula in the Peterson books. I think Ellis's characterisations are so strong they manage to overcome any weariness one might experience. In this story, Peterson's long-suffering wife is anxious and preoccupied about something. Her fears are finally revealed and make excellent sense, echoing the issues in the story itself. Altogether, I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it.

[Eadie Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was book 3 in the Wesley Peterson series. There are two time lines running through this story. One from 1475 and one from (1969-1999) which tie together in the plot. An archaeological dig finds a body from 1475 who had been hanged from a yew tree and the 1999 body is found hanging from a yew tree. Is the present murder an execution as in the past or murder?
Kate Ellis' books are always unputdownable. Her plots are interesting and always tie into some history. I have also enjoyed her Joe Plantagenet series which contain a bit of the supernatural. Her characters are quite unique and keep you wanting to learn more about them. I look forward to the next book in the series and recommend that you read her books if you have not read them yet.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this third outing with Wesley Peterson, a woman is found hanging in the graveyard; however, it's not a suicide. As the investigation continues, secrets from the past come to light with similarities to a historical murder. Although I've enjoyed other books in this series, this one had a slower pace. The relationship between Wesley and his wife needs to be fleshed out. Still an okay read for a summer deck day.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how Ellis managed to link two cases from different centuries together. An interesting read, but I kept on forgetting names of characters since there was so many introduced - which I didn’t have a problem with for her other books.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read a Kate Ellis for a while, and I had forgotten just how good her books can be.

A murder occurs in a small Devon village with links to a crime 500 years ago.

All the threads are woven together well and the ending is delightful.

Highly recommended.

[Matthew Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third in the series of DI Peterson however they can be read as stand alone books too. This one, like the others, weaves a story from the past and one from the present. Another good book with interesting supporting characters. What did annoy me about this one though was so many random characters with seemingly little distinguishing features. By the end I was like which one is Robert Phil and co.

[Tasula · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book for the mystery and the interweaving of the mysteries of a medieval skeleton just unearthed and current day hanging of a woman who everyone said was nice and unassuming. The mysteries were quite interesting. However, Det. Wesley Peterson was a lousy husband, and I could not warm to him at all. No more of this series.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75*
Really enjoying this series. Non-taxing, easy read, perfect to escape into. I like the characters and it is very visual - you can imagine the settings and scenery...very Midsomer Murders

[Lesley Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Wesley Peterson novel. A fantastic mix of past and present, linking together satisfactorily. I really like the characters and their relationships. Easy to read and a really good plot.

[Terri Stokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faced with a suspicious death, a woman hanged from a yew tree in the churchyard, a death which mimics a death from hundreds of years before. Wesley Peterson has to try and figure out who the woman truly was and unravel all the clues while trying to find the right balance between being a cop and being a new father too.

Kate Ellis has once again brought together the past and the present together in two crimes, nearly identical but separated in time by hundreds of years. The Wesley Peterson series is one that I adore and look forward to reading each time I pick up a book.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

First Sentence: The girl looked out of the window.

Pauline Brent, a nice middle-aged lady about whom no-one speaks badly, is receptionist to the local doctor. She is also found hanged from a tree in the churchyard. A local archeological dig turns up a 500-year-old skeleton of a woman who was also hanged. Can clues from one case help solve the other?

I know; it’s an older book. Being one who prefers to read a series in order, I finally found this third book in the Wesley Peterson series.

That said, I feel their being touted as “A Wesley Peterson Crime Novel” is something of a misnomer. To me, Ellis has created very much of an ensemble cast with my personal favorite being DI Gerry Heffernan, Wesley’s boss with his wisdom and humor.

Ellis has done such of good job of making her characters real, I feel invested in their lives almost as if I were watching a series—who will find a girlfriend, who will get promoted, will a certain marriage last—because the characters’ lives progress with each book. It’s not an easy trick for an author to manage.

The reason the books marketing of the books is focused on Wesley is that he is the link to the second thread in the stories, which is the archeological and historical mystery. I am fascinated by English history and cannot imagine the thrill of discovering something hundreds of years old. Ellis conveys that excitement to the reader, educating and skillfully linking the present and the past. Occasionally, she I feel it unlikely a character wouldn’t know a bit of information being related, but it’s necessary to the story that the reader understand.

The dialogue could have been better. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t completely flow. The plot was constructed with an unexpected revelation. The climax was a bit abrupt and partly offstage, but final ending was very satisfying.

This is a traditional police procedural without graphic violence but with excellent characters, and a bit of history. It is a series I recommend reading from the beginning, which means you have quite a bit of good reading ahead of you as the 15th book in this series is due out next year.

AN UNHALLOWED GRAVE (Pol Proc-Wesley Peterson-England-Cont) – G+
Ellis, Kate – 3nd in series
Thomas Dunn Books, ©1999, US Hardcover – ISBN: 0312274602

[Kirsty Darbyshire]

I couldn't find the second in this series as it seems to be out of print in the UK so I skipped straight on to the third. I'm torn between enjoying this book quite a lot and finding the structure of the series too constricting to be liked.

This series is about Wesley Peterson and the other detectives of Tradmouth in Devon, where Tradmouth is a thinly disguised version of Dartmouth. I like the characters and find the majority of them believeable, especially the female members of the cast such as Wesley's wife Pam and his colleague Rachel Tracey. The plots themselves are believeable up to a point and the intersection of police work and archaeology is interesting. I'm finding this series to be difficult to get my head round though because there are just too many coincidences between the police work and the archaeology.

The structure of these books seems to be: Police start to investigate murder; Wesley bumps into his archaeologist mate Neil who is doing a dig somewhere near the murder; Dig turns out to involve a body who was murdered or a murderer; Murder involved in the dig turns out to be exactly the same story as the present day murder. And by exactly the same story I mean that the murders involve the same family members, the same places, the same motives, the same methods. In this one there is a element of copycatness involved between the two crimes but it still stretchs credulity a little bit far. I also think that it might make the later books in the series a bit predictable. In this one I was still willing to believe that the crimes wouldn't be as tightly related as they were.

It's almost that having dreamt up a series which combines police detection with archaelogical detection Ellis has done too well. The neatness of her plots is detracting from the other parts of the story. In a less well written book it would be easier to suspend disbelief and go along with the parallel crimes but the true to life characters make this a difficult task here. I'll certainly try another book in this series and see how I enjoy it.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in December 2001.

There are, perhaps, a rather limited number of ways to connect archaeology to a murder mystery. You could have archaeologists discover a modern body, or a member of a dig could be killed, or be an investigator, or they could find an old body whose history parallels a modern crime, or they could be in the area where a completely independent crime takes place. I have read novels using all the first four ideas, if not the last. The way that Ellis' series of detective novels is set up means that they will quickly become repetitive, and she is not quite a good enough writer to ring the changes on the details.

This particular novel uses the fourth scenario, along with the use of the third, which is generic to the series, having as investigator an archaeologist turned policeman. In a Devon village, a woman is found dead, an apparent suicide hanging from the boughs of a yew tree in the churchyard. It is quickly established, however, that she had been at least partially strangled before the hanging - hands leaving a different pattern of marks on the neck from a rope. At about the same time, the skeleton of a medieval woman is found in a rescue dig at a potential housing development on the edge of the village; she had been rather more professionally hanged.

An Unhallowed Grave is enjoyable, even if the reader never loses the feeling that it is far fetched as the parallels between events now and in the fifteenth century are developed.

[tinne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is book 3 in the series and as some Goodreads reviewers promised, it was a great improvement compared to number 2. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Wesley, for example, remains somewhat of a weak husband and uninspired detective sergeant. His boss is a more colourful character, but their partnership is no added bonus. Think of Morse and Lewis, Holmes and Watson, BCI Banks and Annie, Vera and Joe...

Kate Ellis plays in a different league. Her storyline is still dominated by endless witness interviews, some of which are ridiculously short. Much it touched upon and very little turns into an in-depth investigation. This book was saved by the interesting suspects and the mysterious victim. I wish the author would add some humour and ingenuity to the stories. I am thinking of the Ruth Galloway series for example, where mystery and archeology are also intertwined. The characters in that series are far more human and interesting than the cardboard Wesley Peterson.

Right now, I save this series for when I am too braindead to read anything else.

[John Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

My next in this series and lots more to go at.

Its a cozy murder story that reflects another from centuries ago that is being uncovered in a nearby excavation.  Once again Wes Peterson's university mate is looking after the nearby dig for the local authority's archeological team.

A satisfying story that I almost kept up with although had to keep reminding myself who was who and how old they were.

I must  admit that I am enjoying the 'friendliness' of the police team. Everyone seems to get on with each other even allowing for Steve Carstairs almost Fonz like behavior.
Nice to see that the out of work life of both Wes and his boss Gerry might have improved.

I have come to think of this series as a comfortable easy read that I know I will enjoy.

24th May 2025

[Valerie Campbell Ackroyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Convoluted but a good read

Kate Ellis's Wesley Peterson series always involves two stories: one medieval, related to Wesley's friend Neil's archeological digs and the other modern. The two stories follow the same murder patterns, a medieval murder and a modern one committed in the same manner for the same reasons. An Unhallowed Grave is no different, the murders involving women hanged for supposedly being murderesses.
This kind of plot can be confusing and in this particular book I found the parallels were stretched a little too far. Which is why I only gave the book three instead of four stars. I really like Kate Ellis's series and I like her writing. It was just the plot in this one I found a bit too much to swallow.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third book in Kate Ellis’ series...and getting better all the time. Gossip and secrets…and murder in the graveyard. These are the things that make a good English mystery. DS Wesley Peterson is off once again to investigate a murder in the past that rears its ugly head in the small village of Stokeworthy...while Neil, Wesley’s archaeologist friend from University...is working on a mystery of his own as he leads an archaeological dig around the village manor. This is becoming quite an addictive series for me. Strong writing, returning characters that get more complex in each book…particularly Detective Gerry Heffernan, who for some reason makes me smile with his enthusiasm for the job.

[Shauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most definitely not one of the best in the Wesley Petersen series by a long way. Thankfully Kate Ellis has improved both her plotlines and her writing style since this one, her third, was published. There is the usual weaving of modern and historical crime with lots of interesting details but the plot relied far too much on unbelievable coincidences and the outcome was pretty obvious to me. I read the last 50 pages waiting for the plodding police officers to catch up and thought the final scenes were a let-down, almost as if the author didn't quite know what to do to finish off the story successfully.

[Stephen Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 3rd Wesley Peterson novel in a series that hopefully will get better and better. The first three are entertaining in a gentle Cornish way. Certainly cannot be described as a gritty crime series. The links between archeology and contemporary murder have been Ok over these three stories but there surely cannot be enough there for a series of 20 odd novels?
Some of the relationships between Wesley and the other main characters are also a little odd to say the least, in particular his wife Pam. Seems to ebb and flow like the tides.
I will certainly be reading more in the series but I do hope that it develops both the characters and the plots.

[Caleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t actually finish this book and in fact I’ve given up on the series. IMO the whole point of a mystery series is to get invested in the detectives and care not only about the individual cases but about them and their lives, and that simply didn’t happen here. Other than a fairly tepid storyline about infertility, there really isn’t much said or known about Detective Peterson (whose name I had to look up because I honestly couldn’t remember) and I don’t feel any more attached to him now than I did in the first novel. The mysteries weren’t bad but not good enough to overcome the character flaws. Really disappointing overall since I loved this author’s Detective Lincoln series.

[Alsjem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much in the style of Agatha Christie, another village who-dunn-it. A little slow in places - why does everyone lie the first time they are questioned by the police??? But a nice mix of past and present, as is usual with this series.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent story but heavily sign posted, so it was quite easy to figure out the culprit. The thing that really struck me was the creepy side character police officer. I guess it's a true reflection of what was acceptable 20 years ago.