Rest Assured

Lambert and Hook #27

by J.M. Gregson

A seemingly idyllic English holiday park turns into the scene of a grisly murder and a perplexing case for Lambert & Hook

Twin Lakes is a tranquil place. It is a complex of holiday homes in a particularly beautiful part of England. 'Rest Assured', says the sign at its entrance. And the people fortunate to occupy the luxury homes on the site are indeed able to relax in a beautiful setting.

Then a series of mysterious threatening notes are delivered to one of the lakeside homes. DS Bert Hook conducts an informal investigation and the notes cease to appear. All is peaceful once more as spring moves into summer and the site is seen at its best. But suddenly a brutal death shatters the peace of this quiet place. As Lambert and Hook and the murder team investigate the crime, it emerges that the victim was by no means as innocent as most people thought him. And it seems that many of the residents lead far from ordinary lives and have secrets they will do anything to keep concealed . . .

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature

224 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2014

About the author

James Michael Gregson taught for twenty-seven years in schools, colleges and universities before concentrating on full-time writing. He has written books on subjects as diverse as golf and Shakespeare.

Reviews

[Damaskcat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twin Lakes is a holiday park where people buy chalets which they can use for weekends or longer periods. Some of the residents live there for the eleven months of the year in which they are permitted to live in the park. DS Bert Hook's neighbours have one of the chalets and they approach Hook because they have received a couple of threatening notes while they have been at Twin Lakes. Hook investigates on an informal basis and the notes stop.

Then a few months later a murder is committed in the idyllic surroundings of Twin Lakes - shattering the calm and peace of the place and the lives of all the residents. Lambert and Hook have plenty of suspects and these suspects are all hiding secrets which they don't want the police to find out about as some of them are criminal. But who valued their secrets to the extent that they would commit murder to protect them?

I thought the characters in this mystery were particularly well drawn. The young school teacher who is having an affair with a pupil; the council worker who seems to have more money than you might expect from the job he does; the business man who may or may not be on the right side of the law and the same sex couple who are about to marry but are worried about how people will take the news.

I thought the background was interesting as it shows a close community in which some people want to take over and control the others and how people who snap up gossip can rapidly become dangerous. This is a well written and book in an excellent series. The series can be read in any order and it will appeal to anyone who likes their crime stories without too much on the page violence.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the way the characters, especially the police detectives, were developed at the beginning. I would assess this as a book with a strong beginning and nice complex plot line that could have used more editing and ended far too abruptly. The Ramsbottoms' daughter's name changed from Jenny to Amy to Ellie, for example. I was actually kind of wondering if that was going to be some kind of weird code thing for these particular suspects, but no, it was merely sloppy editing. I couldn't believe the book ended where it did, with no final dialogue between the detectives who had been developed so nicely, no reactions from the other suspects, just a chopped-off ending. It was engaging and the ending was not predictable, it really kept you guessing as more and more motives came to light.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like murder mysteries, this is a classic. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It makes you think about what your seemingly normal friends and neighbors are really like and hiding from you. Lots of potential murderers, plenty of "bad" people. Only of the nastiest villains was the murder victim. Quick & easy reading, keeping you guessing 'til the end.

[Martina Lennon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrible storyline, but well written, so i will be looking for more by this author.

[Reggie Billingsworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review summation here is closer to a 'sort-of' liked it rather than a full-on liked it. Mostly because the whole murdered-blackmailer routine is so hoary a chestnut I'm mystified that writers (or even blackmailers for that matter) still try this on. You'd think that by now, all potential extortionists would back away from the prospects for their own self-preservation and stick to simple trafficking.

Gregson's strategy of punching out characters one after another in chapter sections strikes me as rather stagey and primitive. Yet his editors accept it. The personalities however, are reasonably filled out and most of the writing soundly crafted except for some truly peculiar name identification confusion (Hullo? Editors?) yet the setting is strangely conventional and has that Golf Theme that Gregson is so enamoured with. What's with that? Barely one title away (#25) he was waxing eloquently for pages about a golfing threesome, possibly going for the fraught foreboding bit, but instead, simply bored me enough to skip it all to get on with what plot there was in that title.

By #27 here, it's quite possible that Gregson has pretty well shot his bolt entirely on this lengthy, well-respected series. He should ignore whatever persuasion his publishers try on. It's been a good run but when repetition of this nature invades the creativity...time to head out to the golf course himself and call it a day.

[NIGEL HAYES · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow

I have read several of the lambert and hook books and will read others but this one was really slow to get going. It needed something to grab the readers attention a lot earlier in the book. It needed a bit more get up and go. They call police plods well this book certainly did. The endings need to be better written you read a whole book for the ending to be over in a couple of pages it needs something more . I hope future books are better and Mr Gregson isn't running out of steam with lambert and hook .

[LetterSoup · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that just fades into my memory because it just didn't have much to offer.

While it's setting the scene quite well and the characters are well developed, the plot pattered along like a meaningless little creek.

The story could have been much shorter and some of the side plots were kind of unnecessary.

I didn't like how he threw in sooo many possible perpetrators that there was no joy in trying to figure it out myself. Somehow it just never turned into a page turner and there was no big surprise moment, which was a bit of a shame.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story, I liked how the author linked up two different crimes. Twin Lakes was far from the tranquil place it was meant to be, many of the regulars had something to hide and what they had to hide wasn’t pretty. I liked the dogged work of the police to get a result.

[Kimberly Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like the story, I didn't like the characters... I found this boring and I skipped most of it

I won't be reading anything else by this author.

[Simon Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

fairly easy read - not too taxing

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Hook's neighbor is concerned about death threats, the team gets pulled into a murder that happens in a vacation area.

Great police procedural.

[Deb Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read of the Lambert and Hook series. It was okay, but didn't grab my attention. Will read another book or two in the series to determine if these books are really for me.

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lambert and Hook have a lot of people to interview for the murder of Wally Keane, and any one or two of them could have done it. They all had good motives. We don't know until the arrest at the end, just who did it.