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Ferryman
Book by Sutton, Carole
248 pages, Paperback
First published December 8, 2008
69 people want to read
About the author
Carole Sutton
4 books47 followersAlthough Carole has short stories and wildlife articles to her name, her real passion is writing crime fiction. Brought up in the UK, she married Bill and raised a family in Cornwall, where they built their own boats and enjoyed years of sailing the English Channel and the French coast during weekends and holidays. They moved to Australia in 1981 and set up a family retail business. Now, since she has retired, Carole combines the two interests and sets her crime locations around boats and rivers.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 28, 2015
They say the devil is in the details and you will find a rich supply of them in this mystery novel, transporting you to 1970's Cornwall, England, racing aboard a sleek yacht or attending a fancy costume ball where far more than meets the eye is there to be discovered by those in search of answers. One of the people following trails both hot and cold is Steven Pengelly, a man wrongfully convicted of murder who gains his freedom after two years of imprisonment when the body of the woman he was supposed to have killed surfaces from the depths of the sea, freshly deceased. Although he has no further need to clear his name, the sister of a woman gone missing convinces him to join her desperate rescue mission. A man who does need redemption is Alec Grimstone, the detective who saw to it that Steven was convicted and now must follow the only path that will lead to a clean conscience, and to the true abductor/killer behind an escalating series of crimes. I will delve no further into the plot, with Ferryman being a mystery that I don't wish to spoil for anyone. Better to pick up a copy for yourself and follow the twists and turns that lead to a villian whose perversity is only matched by the clever measures he takes to maintain his depraved secrets. If you are a whodunnit fan, and who isn't to some degree, be sure to add Carol Sutton to your reading list.
February 10, 2009
“Ferryman” is a story that could easily be ripped from a modern front-page tabloid’s headlines. From the opening chapter of the “Ferryman,” to the last suspenseful scene, Carole Sutton, intertwines a masterful tale of murder, mystery and mayhem.
The novel is set in a small, sleepy town on the coast of Cornwall, England. Carole expertly introduces her characters through an extended weekend sailing event. The storyline is further propelled by the influx of several unsolved, seemingly unrelated deaths of beautiful young women.
What makes Carole’s novel a notch above other murder mysteries? She displays restrained intrigue as a master sleuth, leaving subtle clues along the way. Although fictitious, the story is steeped in realism...especially those scenes dealing with sailing, which are obviously written from the viewpoint of someone who “knows” the sport.
Little details (like the inclusion of the infamous and mischievous dolphin, Beaky), spread throughout the story, enhance, rather than take away from the drama.
If you are a lover of murder mysteries, sailing, and superb suspenseful storytelling … Ferryman is a must-read!
Dee Marie ~ author of “Sons of Avalon: Merlin’s Prophecy”
The novel is set in a small, sleepy town on the coast of Cornwall, England. Carole expertly introduces her characters through an extended weekend sailing event. The storyline is further propelled by the influx of several unsolved, seemingly unrelated deaths of beautiful young women.
What makes Carole’s novel a notch above other murder mysteries? She displays restrained intrigue as a master sleuth, leaving subtle clues along the way. Although fictitious, the story is steeped in realism...especially those scenes dealing with sailing, which are obviously written from the viewpoint of someone who “knows” the sport.
Little details (like the inclusion of the infamous and mischievous dolphin, Beaky), spread throughout the story, enhance, rather than take away from the drama.
If you are a lover of murder mysteries, sailing, and superb suspenseful storytelling … Ferryman is a must-read!
Dee Marie ~ author of “Sons of Avalon: Merlin’s Prophecy”
February 4, 2009
If you enjoy crime fiction/murder mystery, you'll love this one. A detective with a conscience, a woman's betrayal and a powerful businessman with a sinister secret are just some of the characters in this tale set around Cornwall in the 1970s.
Five stars, I hear you ask? Well, I did write it myself, so you will have to be judge.
Five stars, I hear you ask? Well, I did write it myself, so you will have to be judge.
December 27, 2008
Ferryman is a terrific thriller set on the Cornwall Coast. Carole Sutton takes us on frantic journey, a race against time to expose a madman and save a woman's life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it in an early draft.
April 26, 2009
After scrimping and saving all his life, Steven Pengelly flies to Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, to buy a beautiful thirty-foot sailboat to live his dream. Preparing to take his new boat - Touché - back across the Channel to Cornwall, Steven’s luck further improves. The young attractive blond that had shown him the boat – Angela Dupont, asks him for a lift to the mainland. Not one turn down a free crewmember or a pretty face, Steven takes her on and their trip across the channel sparks a romance. All is well until Steven learns Angela to be more opportunistic than partner willing to dump him quickly in search of a greater fish to hook. Suddenly, she turns up missing and Steven’s world crashes down around him. Convinced she has been murdered, investigator’s believe Steven to be the main suspect. Though there is no body, the evidence against Steven mounts leading to his conviction.
Two years later, Angela’s body turns up. Forensics, however, prove her murder to be recent, confirming Steven’s innocence. After his release, all Steven wants to do is move on with his life, but another young woman searches him out seeking his help in finding her recently missing sister. Believing there is a connection between her missing sister and Angela’s murderer, she convinces Steven to help find those guilty.
Carole Sutton’s Ferryman pulses with action, intrigue, and mystery. Those who love sailing will appreciate the passages describing the thrill of racing, the battling with the elements, the danger, and the teamwork needed to survive and thrive in competition. The novel’s locals are wonderfully described from the ports on Guernsey to the frequently visited sailing haunts. Sutton also seamlessly alternates between the novel’s 1970s present day events and the events that unfolded years earlier during Angela’s abduction. She introduces each subplot carefully wetting the readers appetite throughout keeping the mystery moving forward. Sutton also shows great care in building the sociopathic foundations for the book’s antagonist. This ensures credibility and realism to this character that in lesser books would have been flat and unrealistic.
I really enjoyed this book. I found myself turning the pages at a rapid pace and staying up late to make my way to the end’s climax. Ferryman is one of this years favorites for me. I’m looking forward to Sutton’s next release.
Two years later, Angela’s body turns up. Forensics, however, prove her murder to be recent, confirming Steven’s innocence. After his release, all Steven wants to do is move on with his life, but another young woman searches him out seeking his help in finding her recently missing sister. Believing there is a connection between her missing sister and Angela’s murderer, she convinces Steven to help find those guilty.
Carole Sutton’s Ferryman pulses with action, intrigue, and mystery. Those who love sailing will appreciate the passages describing the thrill of racing, the battling with the elements, the danger, and the teamwork needed to survive and thrive in competition. The novel’s locals are wonderfully described from the ports on Guernsey to the frequently visited sailing haunts. Sutton also seamlessly alternates between the novel’s 1970s present day events and the events that unfolded years earlier during Angela’s abduction. She introduces each subplot carefully wetting the readers appetite throughout keeping the mystery moving forward. Sutton also shows great care in building the sociopathic foundations for the book’s antagonist. This ensures credibility and realism to this character that in lesser books would have been flat and unrealistic.
I really enjoyed this book. I found myself turning the pages at a rapid pace and staying up late to make my way to the end’s climax. Ferryman is one of this years favorites for me. I’m looking forward to Sutton’s next release.
July 7, 2009
Steven Pengelly went to prison for the murder of a missing woman. When Angela Dupont’s naked body pops up in the river two years later and the pathologist declares she’s only been dead a week, the lead investigator realizes he’s jailed the wrong man.
Detective Inspector Alec Grimstone, experiencing guilt feelings over having pressured a witness whose testimony helped put Pengelly in jail, reopens the case. Before long, similarities begin to surface between this and other open cases.
Meanwhile, Pengelly has come home and is seeking to get his life back on track. His ultimate goal is to refit his boat and sail away from all the bad memories. But the situation isn’t about to let him escape. He’s approached and teams up with another woman searching for her missing sister who disappeared under circumstances similar to Angela.
In this debut novel, Carole Sutton deftly provides enough back story to explain how Steven became a suspect and then keeps up the suspense as both the police and their original suspect hone in on the real killer. In addition to the thriller aspect, the novel offers the additional allure of sailing passages from one who is experienced and obviously a lover of the sport.
It’s a worthy debut and I look forward to reading her next offering.
Detective Inspector Alec Grimstone, experiencing guilt feelings over having pressured a witness whose testimony helped put Pengelly in jail, reopens the case. Before long, similarities begin to surface between this and other open cases.
Meanwhile, Pengelly has come home and is seeking to get his life back on track. His ultimate goal is to refit his boat and sail away from all the bad memories. But the situation isn’t about to let him escape. He’s approached and teams up with another woman searching for her missing sister who disappeared under circumstances similar to Angela.
In this debut novel, Carole Sutton deftly provides enough back story to explain how Steven became a suspect and then keeps up the suspense as both the police and their original suspect hone in on the real killer. In addition to the thriller aspect, the novel offers the additional allure of sailing passages from one who is experienced and obviously a lover of the sport.
It’s a worthy debut and I look forward to reading her next offering.
September 25, 2009
Engrossing from beginning to end: Steven Pengelly bought a thirty-two foot sailing sloop named Touche, setting off a series of events that would change his life. A flirtatious beauty named Angela Dupont helped him crew the boat and although he fell for her, for her their relationship was only a means to rise to a higher station in life. When she went missing after they had had a heated argument, he became the primary suspect and was eventually convicted of foul play. Two years later her body was pulled out of the water and it was determined that she had been dead only a few days. When Steven was released from prison, it came to light that several other young, beautiful women had disappeared as well. The sister of one of them teamed up with Steven to find her, unraveling a mystery that had the thrills and chills of a first-rate whodunit. I highly recommend it.
January 30, 2018
This was a surprise. Ferryman had a pretty good storyline and was competently written although there were a lot of grammar and typing mistakes!! Sailors will enjoy, especially the scene where they are returning from France to England. Very exciting. It kept my attention to the end.
September 24, 2013
Normally I don't read thrillers, but the Cornwall setting and the theme of a missing sister caught me.
What a horrible beginning: wife sends husband out to investigate "things that go bump in the night," and that strange object near their boat is...a body. [My sister in 1976 was spotted by a road maintenance operator when something odd washed out of a culvert, so I found the prologue particularly affecting.] The body is soon identified--good news for Detective Inspector Alec Grimstone, but bad news--Angela Dupont has been dead only a week, though she went missing two years before and the innocent man serving time for her "murder" was jailed due to Grimstone's own mishandling of the case.
I found it most gratifying to see Grimstone wince and cringe over his mistake, but the way he makes excuses for himself, he gets no sympathy from me.
Early in the novel, I didn't like the protagonist, Steve Pengelly, but Sutton astutely illustrates that even a jerk (or just a guy who may act thoughtless or petty or hot-tempered) deserves better than Pengelly got. The wrath of an angry father, the pressure on a witness when Grimstone wants the case wrapped up, the power of circumstantial evidence, the manipulations of the woman who became Pengelly's "victim" -- so many forces act on Pengelly. After his two years in jail, he had me rooting for him and empathizing.
The pubs of Cornwall are beautifully described here, and the local characters, and especially the nautical races and life at sea. The boat races are both fun and educational to read about, and no wonder; Carole Sutton and her husband have built their own boats and sailed across the Channel to places mentioned in the book. Beaky, the dolphin in Ferryman, rings true because a real-life dolphin used to swim with Sutton's son. The Elizabethan pageant in Ferryman is straight out of one the author attended. Never does the firsthand knowledge of the author come across as an information dump. The story flows seamlessly along.
A pretty woman named Veryan adds even more local color and interest. Her sister has disappeared, and Veryan fears for Tamara the fate of Angela and other female bodies that have turned up in shallow graves. She enlists Pengelly to help her search for Tamara. Again, my own sister was missing for months, so this search hit very close to home for me. My heart was with Veryan throughout that agonizing quest to find her sister and the captor/killer.
The climax is extremely tense, a page-turner to the end. The villain is a sex trafficker with friends in socially prominent positions, so it does my heart good to see his "kingdom" overthrown.
All in all, a suspenseful and very satisfying read, and unfortunately, all too believable.
What a horrible beginning: wife sends husband out to investigate "things that go bump in the night," and that strange object near their boat is...a body. [My sister in 1976 was spotted by a road maintenance operator when something odd washed out of a culvert, so I found the prologue particularly affecting.] The body is soon identified--good news for Detective Inspector Alec Grimstone, but bad news--Angela Dupont has been dead only a week, though she went missing two years before and the innocent man serving time for her "murder" was jailed due to Grimstone's own mishandling of the case.
I found it most gratifying to see Grimstone wince and cringe over his mistake, but the way he makes excuses for himself, he gets no sympathy from me.
Early in the novel, I didn't like the protagonist, Steve Pengelly, but Sutton astutely illustrates that even a jerk (or just a guy who may act thoughtless or petty or hot-tempered) deserves better than Pengelly got. The wrath of an angry father, the pressure on a witness when Grimstone wants the case wrapped up, the power of circumstantial evidence, the manipulations of the woman who became Pengelly's "victim" -- so many forces act on Pengelly. After his two years in jail, he had me rooting for him and empathizing.
The pubs of Cornwall are beautifully described here, and the local characters, and especially the nautical races and life at sea. The boat races are both fun and educational to read about, and no wonder; Carole Sutton and her husband have built their own boats and sailed across the Channel to places mentioned in the book. Beaky, the dolphin in Ferryman, rings true because a real-life dolphin used to swim with Sutton's son. The Elizabethan pageant in Ferryman is straight out of one the author attended. Never does the firsthand knowledge of the author come across as an information dump. The story flows seamlessly along.
A pretty woman named Veryan adds even more local color and interest. Her sister has disappeared, and Veryan fears for Tamara the fate of Angela and other female bodies that have turned up in shallow graves. She enlists Pengelly to help her search for Tamara. Again, my own sister was missing for months, so this search hit very close to home for me. My heart was with Veryan throughout that agonizing quest to find her sister and the captor/killer.
The climax is extremely tense, a page-turner to the end. The villain is a sex trafficker with friends in socially prominent positions, so it does my heart good to see his "kingdom" overthrown.
All in all, a suspenseful and very satisfying read, and unfortunately, all too believable.
June 1, 2009
Non-Stop Action, Mystery and Intrigue
If you enjoy reading page turning thrillers make yourself comfortable: Carole Sutton’s, ‘Ferryman’ is a non-stop thriller from the opening page which pins you down until the very end.
Sutton takes us (readers) back three decades to the Seventies with such incredible realism, enabling us to feel the atmosphere of Cornwall, and the way life was in England. Steven Pengally, an innocent man’s life is torn apart when wrongfully accused and imprisoned for murdering Angela, an opportunist who eagerly boarded Pengally’s yacht for personal gain.
Two years pass, and new evidence prove Pengally innocent of murder, and he hopes to resume his life. However, he soon becomes mixed in a web of betrayal, a detective with a conscience and a young woman searching for a link between her missing sister and the murder of Angela.
Twists and turns all the way. A fabulous thriller with the lot! I highly recommend ‘Ferryman’ as excellent entertainment
If you enjoy reading page turning thrillers make yourself comfortable: Carole Sutton’s, ‘Ferryman’ is a non-stop thriller from the opening page which pins you down until the very end.
Sutton takes us (readers) back three decades to the Seventies with such incredible realism, enabling us to feel the atmosphere of Cornwall, and the way life was in England. Steven Pengally, an innocent man’s life is torn apart when wrongfully accused and imprisoned for murdering Angela, an opportunist who eagerly boarded Pengally’s yacht for personal gain.
Two years pass, and new evidence prove Pengally innocent of murder, and he hopes to resume his life. However, he soon becomes mixed in a web of betrayal, a detective with a conscience and a young woman searching for a link between her missing sister and the murder of Angela.
Twists and turns all the way. A fabulous thriller with the lot! I highly recommend ‘Ferryman’ as excellent entertainment
October 24, 2009
A book that contains loads of ingredients that are special to me. A love of sailing on a beautiful yacht, murder, mystery and suspense.
The setting is Cornwall in the 70's. Steven (the hero) saves up and buys himself a small yacht that he is crazy about. Up pops a pretty girl that he falls for - who is not quite all she appears to be. When she disappears then all sorts of mayhem occur.
Decadence, sleeze, greed, you name it; a recipe for a real page turner.
Carole Sutton has written this novel after a good deal of research and knows her boats and subject matter.
Her characters are well expanded and she writes well. Her plotting comes off and the ending to the book is very exciting -albeit maybe just maybe, a tad unbelievable. There again, the older I get the more I realise there are a lot of rotters out there!
A great read and well worth the money.
The setting is Cornwall in the 70's. Steven (the hero) saves up and buys himself a small yacht that he is crazy about. Up pops a pretty girl that he falls for - who is not quite all she appears to be. When she disappears then all sorts of mayhem occur.
Decadence, sleeze, greed, you name it; a recipe for a real page turner.
Carole Sutton has written this novel after a good deal of research and knows her boats and subject matter.
Her characters are well expanded and she writes well. Her plotting comes off and the ending to the book is very exciting -albeit maybe just maybe, a tad unbelievable. There again, the older I get the more I realise there are a lot of rotters out there!
A great read and well worth the money.
February 7, 2010
A throughly enjoyable crime thriller, set in picturesque Cornwall. I am looking forward to reading Carole Sutton's next novel.
October 17, 2009
A great mystery with great characters!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews