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Book Review
Reviewed: 05 July 2024

Murder in the Gallowgate

by: Daniel Sellers

Detective Lola Harris - Book 1

  • Rating: full starfull starfull starstar outlinestar outline (3/5)

How can a gallery exhibit cause so much … murder?  

This was a first time read of this author. I felt like he was bursting with information to share and threw it all into this book. For me it felt too long, with too many characters, and too much information. This is the beginning of the series for Detective Lola Harris but it felt more like David’s story with his sussing out clues and calling them in versus Lola and her team investigating.

Lola and her team were working the case. We small insights into her leadership style and personality but if this series is about her and her cases, I felt like it was secondary.  There is conflict between Lola and Pierce, but it was more referred to (numerous times) instead of shown/explained. Until the final few chapters it felt like Lola spent more time avoiding her ex and trying to get Pierce off her team than investigating.

That being said, once the investigation kicked into gear, some good scenes there. I do wonder though why Lola running around alone so much without any of her team members.

The resolution was brilliantly done. I am on the fence about continuing the series. The writing is good, the information interesting, but a bit too much of it all for me.

Thank you to #NetGalley  for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the story. 

Happy Reading!

Release Date: 15-November-2022
Audiobook, NetGalley, Mystery

Plot Summary

Meet Detective Lola Harris, a tough woman with a good heart, solving crimes in gritty Glasgow.

Detective Lola Harris returns from a miserable solo holiday — an effort to get over her useless ex — only to find herself in charge of a high-stakes investigation.

She rushes to a crime scene in the historic Gallowgate neighbourhood. The smell in the basement is thick and sweet, even through Lola’s forensic mask.

The old wooden chair and the rope hanging from its arms are stained red. The earth below is saturated with blood. Six candleholders, their lights burned out, lend the scene an air of a completed ritual.

And yet there is no sign of a body.

A smashed-up phone in the corner puts the investigators on the trail of a local politician who has vanished without trace and a controversial artist who died thirty years ago on a remote Hebridean island.

Lola will have to work with the most obnoxious detective in Glasgow if she’s going to stop the killer from striking again.