A Cast of Falcons is the third book in the Birder Murder Mystery series by Steve Burrows. The author is Canadian and this is the first book I have read for the Canadian Reading Challenge. In this case, the books are set in the UK but the main character is from Canada.
From the description at the Simon & Schuster website:
A man falls to his death from a cliff face in western Scotland. From a distance, another man watches. He approaches the body, tucks a book into the dead man’s pocket, and leaves.
When the Scottish police show visiting Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune the book, he recognizes it as a call for help. But he also knows that answering that call could destroy the life he and his girlfriend Lindy have built for themselves in the village of Saltmarsh, in north Norfolk.
Back in Saltmarsh, the brutal murder of a researcher involved in a local climate change project has everyone looking at the man’s controversial studies as a motive.
My thoughts:
Domenic Jejeune does not even like being a DCI, he would rather be focusing on birdwatching. But he is very good at his job and he had made a name for himself in his previous job in London. In the first book in this series, he was newly appointed to the police department in the small Norfolk town of Saltmarsh, located in the heart of Britain’s premier birding country. In this book, Jejeune is more comfortably settled into his job and his team of detectives, but the return of someone from his past threatens to upset the equilibrium in his work and home life.
I have always enjoyed this series for the bird watching tidbits and the setting. The mystery plots have been secondary for me. However, here the plot is related to climate change and environmental issues and is very well done.
Dominic is introspective or oblivious at times, off in his own world, and this characteristic causes problems in both his work and at home. Sometimes I find that behavior irritating, but it makes him more human too. I also like the secondary characters in this series and how they develop over time.
This is one of two mystery series that I am reading primarily because of the inclusion of birdwatching and the depictions of the coastal areas where the birds thrive. I would caution however that some reviewers felt that birding was too much of a presence in the plot of this series. The other series that features birdwatching is William Shaw's DS Alexandra Cupidi Series.
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Publisher: Point Blank, 2018 (orig. pub. 2016)
Length: 384 pages
Format: Trade paperback
Series: Birder Murder Mysteries, #3
Setting: England & Scotland
Genre: Police procedural
Source: I purchased this book.