The Infirmary (The DCI Ryan Mysteries)

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Look, people are entitled to enjoy any sort of rubbish with no regard to my opinion. In any case tastes vary, and I'm sure there is stuff I enjoy (or have done) that other people could rightly say is rubbish. I could understand a review that said 'I enjoyed it but noticed flaws and it's probably a 3.5 but as it's a debut novel I'll round it up to 4'.

Introducing a new multicast drama by L. J. Ross, the author of the international number one best-selling series, the DCI Ryan mysteries. The pressure grows on Ryan as senior investigating officer as he still has nightmares over his last case and the death he couldn't prevent. Head across the Millennium Bridge to the Baltic Art Gallery. Take the lift up to the viewing gallery and take in the view of the market and spot the famous sights of Newcastle.

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Access to the island is dependent on the tides, as the causeway is covered much of the time. Early in the piece, time of death is determined to have taken place while the island was cut off from the mainland, so in true Agatha Christie fashion, we have a limited pool of potential murderers. Enjoy a walk along the Quayside taking in the bridges then head along to the Ouseburn and enjoy that stunning view from the Free Trade Inn.

This Audible Original drama stars Tom Bateman (Murder on the Orient Express, Jekyll & Hyde, Snatched), Bertie Carvel (Doctor Foster, Les Misérables), Hermione Norris (Spooks, Cold Feet) and Kevin Whately (Lewis, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet) and is a prequel to the DCI Ryan series. A further point that irritated me a great deal was that Ryan had suffered previous trauma and had been prescribed medication to manage anxiety and PTSD. But like any good alpha male, he refuses to take the pills and resolves to push through without therapy or any kind of help. Of course, once this trauma had been mentioned and Ryan had a few obligatory moments of staring into space, it played no role whatsoever in the story. So maybe he wasn't all that traumatised after all. In this day and age, it would be nice to see a little more realistic and sensible portrayal of mental health issues. Holy Island hits all the conventional police detective beats of yesteryear. There's an exceptionally handsome, skilled, and hard-nosed chief inspector, an exceptionally beautiful, intelligent, and caring love interest, along with a cast of secondary characters who seem like they could be lifted from any number of other detective novels or television shows. This isn't a criticism, really – I'm getting the sense more and more lately that the larger readership for mystery novels wants this same cast to appear over and over. Different names, the occasional character quirks, but the same basic formulation. I can't recommend this and indeed the rest of the series enough. In fact those new to this series may benefit from listening to The Infirmary first.And the killers in the DCI Ryan series are hardly the most brutal and depraved in the crime fiction genre. It is worth noting that while the DCI Ryan books are a series featuring recurring characters like DCI Ryan, his girlfriend Anna Taylor and veteran DS Frank Phillips, many of the novels can be read as standalones. Now, this really is a star studded affair. Featuring Tom Bateman as DCI Ryan and Kevin Whately as Frank Phillips, you are sure of a stunning performance. For me they both captured the characters perfectly, Whately especially making a brilliant Frank. Alun Armstrong was almost unrecognisable as Gregson but again a superb performance, and fantastic narration by Hermione Norris throughout the book, all of them keeping listeners on the hook from beginning to end. I don't think I could imagine a better cast for this to be fair and can only hope that there are more audio productions in the future to reunite (most of) them again.