Blog Tour: 'The Killing of Polly Carter' by Robert Thorogood (2015)

When famous supermodel Polly Carter is found dead at the bottom of a cliff all signs point to suicide, but as the evidence continues to mount DI Richard Poole declares it to be a murder. Now, with a houseful of suspects Richard has to narrow the field and discover who the murderer is before it’s too late. At the same time his mother is arriving from England and throwing his whole perfectly ordered life into turmoil. Not only does she want to be involved in island life, but all signs are beginning to point to not all being right in Richard’s own family…something he cannot help but attempt to fix.

I'm incredibly excited to be part of quite a special blog tour today! Some of you might be familiar with the BBC TV series 'Death in Paradise', which had a lot of viewers and has been quite the success. Robert Thorogood, the creator and writer of the series, decided to write several murder mystery novels based on the TV show and the first book, 'A Meditation on Murder' was released earlier this year. Today I've got a review of the new second part of the series, 'The Killing of Polly Carter', to share with all of you, together with a blog post by Robert Thorogood himself, telling us a bit more about his 5 favourite fictional detectives, so be sure to scroll down and have a read!

The 'Death in Paradise' novels focus on Richard Poole, an English detective who is sent to the sunny Caribbean to lead a team of police people and solve murder cases over there. When famous supermodel Polly Carter is found dead at the bottom of a cliff, Richard and his team are asked to investigate whether it was a suicide or a murder. There are quite a number of suspects who might or not might have anything to do with Polly's suspicious death and it's up to Richard to make sense of it all. However, this turns out to be quite a challenge, especially when his mother decides to pay a visit to the Caribbean at the same time...

What a fantastic read! I straight away want to go out and buy the first part of this book series and want to watch all episodes of the BBC show, because this was a thoroughly convincing read and one I enjoyed so much more than I initially expected. Robert Thorogood is a great author with a distinctive writing style that held my attention throughout the whole book. I was taken in by the story from the first few pages and it really had me guessing until the very end, which is a great thing when reading a detective/murder mystery novel. It often happens that you can at least guess who did it or find out as the end nears, but this really still managed to surprise me until the last few chapters. 

I particularly liked the characters in the book. Main character Richard Poole is a true Englishman who loves tea and cold weather, and it was interesting to see how he adapts to life in the Caribbean, and how he deals with everything, like the murder case but also an unexpected visit from his mother. Richard has a great time with different personalities in the form of Camille, Dwayne, and Fidel, who all complement each other. The novel can definitely be read as a stand-alone, so even if you're not familiar with the other novel in this series or the TV show, it's still definitely worth picking up. This book made me wonder, guess, laugh, and I already can't wait for the next one. 'The Killing of Polly Carter' is a fantastic, well-written, gripping 'whodunnit'; a truly entertaining puzzle which I wanted to solve but also didn't want to end!
Rating:9,5/10

  For more information about this book: Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Goodreads

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

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My 5 Favourite Fictional Detectives by Robert Thorogood
I'm so excited to welcome Robert Thorogood to my blog today! Be sure to pick up his new novel 'The Killing of Polly Carter', which is a great murder mystery read. Robert has shared his own favourite fictional detectives with all of us today, check out his top 5 below!

Hello everyone, thanks so much for stopping by. I’ve been asked to choose my 5 favourite fictional detectives—which isn’t easy, I can tell you. So I’ve been umming and ahhing, and I think I’ve finally decided on my list…
1. Hercule Poirot. Poirot was the first detective I fell totally head over heels in love with (I’m conveniently forgetting the boys and girls of The Secret Seven when I write this). But it’s no surprise to me that when I had the chance to create a murder mystery detective of my own, my hero ended up being a somewhat pompous and comic middle-aged bachelor who was prone to losing his temper with those around him. Just like Poirot.
2. Sherlock Holmes  While Poirot thought he was superior to everyone else, Sherlock Holmes really was superior. And although this should have made him repellant as a character, his God-like genius is so impressive that it seems to make up for all of his other personal failings. And, whisper it quietly, but I think there’s also a (possibly masochistic?) frisson I get when I have a theory about who the killer is… Watson voices that theory… and then Sherlock dismisses it as being idiotic. (The fact that I enjoy being belittled by a fictional character is perhaps something I shouldn’t think about too closely). 
3. Miss Marple If Sherlock is the hero who makes me feel enjoyably stupid, Miss Marple is the heroine who makes me feel happy to be alive. She’s like everyone’s favourite Great Aunt, isn’t she? She’s kind, she’s wise, and she’s capable of catching ruthless killers (so maybe she’s not actually like a favourite Aunt after all!). But the bonus with Miss Marple is that, when you’re with her, you also get to spend time in St. Mary Mead, a village so charming—so romantically old-fashioned—that it’s hard not to fall in love with the place. I sometimes think that reading a Miss Marple book is like taking a very long and lovely warm bath... 
4. Lincoln Rhyme Although I normally only read cosy mysteries, I loved the grumpy Lincoln Rhyme the moment I first met him in Jeffrey Deaver’s The Bone Collector. Yes there’s gruesomeness aplenty (the clue’s in the book’s title, I soon realised), but the fact that Lincoln can’t leave his apartment is such a clever way of smuggling a ‘Golden Age’ mystery into a modern-day book. After all, Lincoln’s lack of mobility means he has to solve the crime using old-fashioned deduction—and the ending of that first book is worthy of anything Christie wrote. 
5. Columbo Finally I come to the first person on this list who is happily married and has children (in fact, he’s the only one of the 5 detectives I’ve chosen who is even in a relationship, I wonder what that says about the murder mystery genre?!) The genius of Columbo is that he seems so disheveled and so disorganised, doesn’t he? Both in how he runs his life and how he thinks. And so we end up rooting for him because he feels so much like the underdog. And yet, we know that at the very moment in the story that it looks as though the killer has got away with it, he’ll turn back to the room and say, ‘Just one more thing…’ Pure magic.
But those are my 5 favourite Detectives. I wonder if any of the people on my list would be on yours? And who have I missed out? Anyway, as I continue to fuss and worry about who else I should have included, I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas holiday season.
Thanks so much, Robert!