Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I very much enjoyed this book. It has a good story and excellent main characters. I would definately recommend this book.

Thank you Little Brown Book Group and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.
I have read one Stephen Booth book before and really enjoyed it so was thrilled to get this one.
However, I found this rather hard to read, I got lost at time with who was talking to whom and this left me confused.
It was a good story but I don't know whether I liked it or not, as it left me a bit wanting. Hence the three stars

I found this book really hard to read and struggled with keeping reading. I wasn't as invested in this suspense-family drama as I originally thought I would be, going by the glowing reviews others left and of course the blurb which promises the reader a first-rate mystery. However, halfway in I was in for a surprise. I felt the first half to be too stretchy and I did not relate to or empathize with the main character Christopher Buckley. The supporting characters were a different story. They are what kept me going till the end.

When Christopher Buckley is approached by Samuel Longden a frail old man requesting his help with healing a decades-old family rift, he sends the stranger away. Christopher doesn't know who Samuel is and doesn't believe the man when he claims to be an estranged family member. He sends Samuel away and turns him down repeatedly. But when Samuel is allegedly killed in a hit-and-run, Chris along with his neighbor Rachel starts to unravel the mystery behind who Samuel is and what is it that he wanted from Chris. Initially disinterested in his family's origins, Chris slowly uncovers the secrets of the Buckley family tree. In doing so, he encounters shocking truths that someone is trying hard for them to stay buried. Will Chris uncover his family's dark past before he becomes a target himself?

The story started off very slowly and Chris, the vapid character that he is, is excruciatingly irritating. Chris is uninterested in his own origins and that was something I couldn't get my head around, with him being a writer and all. The rest of the characters are really good and add some color to the story. By the time it started to get exciting, I was already more than halfway past the book. There were too many chapters on Samuel's drowning in melancholy and being infuriatingly cryptic. Of course, in the end, his obsessive nostalgia made sense, but they were one too many such lapses of his grip on the present and tendency to focus on the past. This is by no means your average crime book and me going in thinking this was one was maybe why I missed connecting with it. If you like crime books deeply seated in history and family drama, then this one definitely should be on your list.

Thank You, NetGalley, Little, Brown Book Group UK and Stephen Booth for an arc!

I am a big fan of Stephen Booth. So when Drowned Lives came out I had to find a quiet corner and open my kindle and dive into his new book. However, I found this book hard to get into at first, and very different to his other books.......but once I got over the first few chapters I enjoyed it.

Big Thank you to Netgalley and Stephen Booth for writing another good book.

This is the first book I have read from the author and I appreciate the opportunity to expand my author base.
I found this rather hard to read, the family tree and who's talking to who left me somewhat confused.

I am a great fan of Stephen Booth and have read a number of his books. I couldn’t connect with the main character and found trying to work out who was who in their family tree rather confusing. A family tree at the beginning of the book would have been really helpful and to not find out the identification of the one body found was quite disappointing. Will still rad more of his books but overall disappointed with this stand alone but thank you for the chance to read it.

Atmospheric murder mystery set in the Midlands. A standalone read with credible characterisation and an engaging, well plotted storyline. When Chris Buckley, a council officer, is approached by a strange, old man asking for help with an historical family issue he simply dismisses him - an event which comes back to haunt him when the old man is found murdered. When Chris begins to investigate he discovers old secrets which may be best forgotten. An interesting read although somewhat bleak in parts with a solid albeit rather depressing protagonist!

It's the first book i read by this author and won't surely be the last.
I really liked this standalone book. It's well written, entertaining and engrossing.
I liked the well developed characters, the setting and the plot that kept me hooked and guessing.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an old man who wants his help in healing a decades' old family rift he's reluctant to get involved, but then Chris is reluctant to get involved in anything but a pint in the pub these days. It could just be the way that he is, or the fact that he's just lost both his parents within three months of each other. He's currently existing in the family home and wondering when he's going to be made redundant from his job with the council. The short answer to that one is 'soon'. Chris does his best to deter the old man, but it's not before he's left a lot of papers with his neighbour. Then the old man is murdered and the police come calling on Chris.

I came to this book because I'm a long-term fan of Stephen Booth's Cooper and Fry police procedurals. I was hoping for something in a similar vein. To some extent I was lucky: Booth has an excellent talent for evoking countryside. This time it's the area around Lichfield and particularly the canal system and a restoration project - the Ogley and Huddlesford Canal Restoration Trust - which aims to restore a seven-mile link between other canals. The Ogley and Huddlesford is based on a real restoration project and you'll be in there with all the mud, slime and crumbling brickwork.

Like me you might feel that you know just a little bit too much of the restoration work, canal systems and narrowboats by the end of the book, but you can't fault Booth for the work he's obviously put into researching the background for the story. He's a brave author too: most make their lead character someone you can relate too and want to succeed. Chris Buckley is the stereotypical council officer (but probably not one real council officers would recognise, I hasten to add) who knows that he's going to be a failure at whatever he does and who seems capable of making wrong judgements at every turn. I couldn't root for him. I'm sorry! He annoyed the hell out of me...

The plot is good, with plenty of twists and a villain I didn't spot even though there were plenty of clues. We're looking at a two-hundred-year-old feud between two families, which looks like being replicated in the twenty-first century. Booth has set his story in the late nineteen-nineties and it was good to see him recreate the language and mores of the time. Language does develop and change even over so short a period as a couple of decades: Booth has it perfectly. The book was a reasonable read - but I'd rather Booth stuck to his Cooper and Fry novels!

I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to the Bookbag.

I have read a few of the Cooper and Fry series and was looking forward to reading this stand alone novel.
Unfortunately it was something of a disappointment.
Despite being a journalist, Chris is not interested in what Samuel Longden is telling him or asking him to do. Actually, Chris seriously irritated me. He gets involved with a “Dot com” project, something he knows nothing about and devotes even less time to it that he does with researching the Buckley family. There is a tenuous link between the two.
In parts of the book I found it hard to work out who was talking about who, it became very confusing and I was glad to finish.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC copy.

Having read other books by this author I was really disappointed with this one. A stand-alone novel I just found it too slow and I just really struggled with the whole storyline. I’m not sure if it’s the fact it reminded me of history lessons at school when we covered canals. But I just couldn’t engage at all with this. The pace was very slow and you just want something to happen.

I am sure other readers who prefer a slower pace will enjoy this. The setting is beautiful with lots of detail but the story was just not for me. Sorry.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for letting me have an ARC of this book all opinions are my own and unbiased.

I have really enjoyed Stephen Booth's writing in the past and did enjoy some elements of this. The atmospheric descriptions of the canal are good and I enjoyed the background with the waterways recovery group. The family background story when introduced seemed interesting however there are so many other things that disappointed me about this book that they overshadow the positives. The pacing of the book is poor, the first third is a long introduction before anything happens, this gives the whole book a slightly glacial feel add this to the fact that the main character is not relatable then the book falls flat a little. I can't in all honesty recommend this book but do like some aspects of the writing.

#DrownedLives #NetGalley

In a departure from his excellent Cooper and Fry detective series, Stephen Booth brings us a standalone mystery story set in 1998 in the historic city of Lichfield in Staffordshire and its waterways. The main character is Chris Buckley, a 32 year old man who has become used to his own company since the death of his parents, has few friends or interests and whose job with the council is coming to an end very shortly leaving him to eek out a meagre existence writing newspaper and magazine articles. He and his old flatmate are trying to set up a dot.com business with little success. Together with writing about the M6 Toll road protestors, one of his other main reporting jobs has been about the restoration of the lost Ogley to Huddlesford stretch of canal in Lichfield where a team of enthusiastic volunteers are working hard. On one such visit to photograph and report on their progress he is approached by an elderly man who asks for his help delving into history. The old man gives him a bundle of paperwork and letters and tries to ignite Chris's curiosity, but before Chris can tell him he has no interest in the past the man is murdered. Enlisting the help of his enthusiastic neighbour Rachel, and feeling a little sorry for the old man, Chris finds himself delving back in time into a 200 year old canal boat mystery and a decades-old family rift. A rift that seems to involve his family history too. As he progresses he discovers how little he actually knows about his own family and how many people now seem to be trying to keep secrets from him. One suspicious death seems to lead to another over the centuries and Chris finds himself with many different events to investigate, but the more he discovers the more danger Chris finds himself in since someone seems intent on keeping the past well and truly buried. I very much enjoyed this book, particularly as I have lived in and around Lichfield all my life. I could picture every road name, village and landmark and it made the whole story all that more real. The characters are strong and very well defined in the book, and I liked the change in Chris from someone quite insular into a man who starts to embrace his family and develop a keen interest in his ancestry. He also becomes far more responsible and deals very well with the need for justice, however belated. There is much detail and a lot of historical facts in the book, and it certainly is not a quick read, but more so a book that should be savoured as the reader is taken along Chris's historical journey. Maybe not for everyone but certainly very enjoyable for those who love their history with a great mystery thrown in! 4.5*

Drowned Lives by Stephen Booth

Stephen Booth is one of my favourite authors and I love the Cooper and Fry series. Stand alone Drowned Lives, however, is a bit of a mixed offering. I really enjoyed the setting in Lichfield, a place I know quite well. I'm also fascinated by industrial archaeology and so I love what we learn here about the history, role and secrets of the town's canal, in the past and in the present. What I did struggle with is the characterisation. I hated our main protagonist Chris Buckley. What an unsympathetic and really rather dim character! I just did not want to spend time with him. And his neighbour is even worse. Every time I heard about Chris's struggling startup business, I audibly groaned. Nevertheless, it's an intriguing story, especially in the past, which I was drawn to.

This is a family drama that spans two centuries
The attention to detail in the writing style is second to none
I really enjoyed this book but some may find the historical detail too boring

This stand alone novel is a well researched and thorough novel telling a tale of mystery and intrigue.
This tale tells the story of two families intricately involved over centuries.
It is so thoroughly researched and is a credit to the author for the immense amount of work that has been put in.
It does keep you reading compulsively and the plot flows at a steady pace.
There is a lot of language that is specific to canal boats and canals but I do not think this distracted from the enjoyment of the book.
This is the first novel I have read by this author and I look forward to reading more.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing an advance reading of this book.

Unfortunately, the main character, Chris, annoyed me. I mean, on old man is coming to tell you he is related to you and you are not curious to take it further? And he is a journalist too. To much talk about anything else, not the family lies and the mystery that must be solve, just to fill the pages.
Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity.

Drowned Lives is an excellent standalone thriller from Stephen Booth.

Chris Buckley is a struggling journalist who is visited by an old man requesting his help with investigating an old family feud. When Buckley's visitor is killed in mysterious circumstances Chris feels obliged to finish off the investigation.

The book is superbly written with excellent pacing and some engaging main characters. There are a number of twists which keep you hooked until the end and make you keep turning the pages.

Stephen Booth has allowed his Cooper & Fry characters a break but you won't be disappointed by this book which is thoroughly recommended

Being a massive fan of Stephen Booth’s Ben Cooper and Diane Fry series I was very intrigued to read this stand alone book.

Chris Buckley 32 is approached by Samuel Longden who claims he is a distant relative of Chris. He has been working on a project and wants Chris to help, Chris is reluctant at first until Samuel dies in suspicious circumstances and he is offered a large sum of money to get the book published that Samuel was working on.

Chris discovers many secrets from his family who he did not really know. But there are people out there that will stop at nothing to stop to conceal these secrets.

This family drama has an interesting blend of history, including the canal restoration that gave the book a different angle. There are plenty of twists towards the later part of the book that had me hooked.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.