Ritual Crime Unit: Disturbed Earth

Disturbed Earth is the second in a series of supernatural investigation novels. It feels like there’s not many of that genre set in Britain, and even fewer set outside of London, so it’s nice to see one set in the north of England. The narrative also fully justifies the cliché that “It’s grim up North”. Where other texts in the genre often have a wry, cynical tone to them, this feels a lot like a dark detective drama, which just happens to have a supernatural side. Tonally, it felt a lot like Prime Suspect with demons.

The main focus, as traditional in a police procedural novel, is the lead detective of an investigative unit; in this case the under-staffed, under-funded Ritual Crimes Unit, suffering in the aftermath of its last investigation by having even fewer experienced staff than usual. The protagonist, Claire Pierce, is intelligent, cautious, and well defined – the author paints the character’s motivations, feelings and logic with a fine brush. That those motivations are almost invariably pessimistic is, if not expected, certainly in line with the procedural genre. The supporting characters are less well drawn – in particular, a new DS that the protagonist has to deal with seems to be unrelentingly antagonistic for no particular reason. It would have been nice to see a little less conflict and a little more nuance here – on the other hand, it again fits inside the genre convention, so I can’t complain too much.

The narrative tracks the protagonist and her team as they work through two seemingly unrelated investigations, pulling in witnesses, amassing evidence, and trying to avoid attention from management oversight. Some of the investigative portions are paced a little slowly for me, but perfectly well written, and the action segments have a pleasingly page-turning quality to them.

Overall then, if you like crime novels that have the odd bit of supernatural weirdness in them, this may well be for you; and if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, and are prepared to accept one with a bit more focus on the police than the magic, then you’ll likely find this an excellent read. It’s dark, dramatic, and occasionally funny – and a such, a good read.

If you find yourself looking for a gritty and dark mystery with an unambiguous leaning toward the paranormal, look no further than this second book in the Ritual Crime Unit series. Working out of the North Yorkshire Police DCI Claire Pierce is glad to be back at work after taking time off to heal from a surgery made necessary when she tangled with a skinbinder and was stabbed in the shoulder for her efforts. The perp ended up in jail while Pierce did time in hospital, rehab, and moping around her house. She had come out the lucky one in that arrest. One of her team died and another had her throat horribly slashed. Now she’s back at work and finds that a lot of things have changed in the months she has been gone.

This story centers on the discovery of human skulls buried in ritualistic ways in a farmer’s field. Pierce’s new DI takes matters into his own hands with a disastrous result. Not only does Pierce have her hands full with her new team personnel, she also just can’t shake the feeling that someone in high places doesn’t want her investigations to be successful. Now she will have to try to work around all kinds of obstacles and solve these latest mysteries mired in magic.

I came to this series without having read the first novel. The author has done a very good job of bringing new readers up to date with what had gone on before as well as presenting a very good mystery in the magical, yet modern, realm. Sometimes novels which mix genres have a hard time settling into a definite style of either lightly magical or completely serious magic. This novel is absolutely dark magic all the way so if you don’t like that type of novel you might want to make a different choice for reading material. I enjoyed this very much. It is the style of novel which has a major thread running through all the books in the series which the main protagonist is working to solve while also solving the other crimes that make up the subject of this specific novel. This was so realistically written that it results in a quite scary novel.

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley.

I was thinking another boring copper book but this book is anything but that .I love that the lead is a older woman DCI. Pierce is a great character she is hard working cop that lives for her job. The RCU unit is understaffed and the newbies are still learning and there is her old boss Palmer is he or isn't he changed. The book takes us from druids to warlock to magic and spells. I enjoyed the whole thing will go read under the skin.