If only I could tell her – we go to every corner of the world, even to the moon and back, and yet nothing has really changed.

A series of gruesome murders in the town adds to the burden already felt by Wesley's boss, the Chief Inspector. I just wish the bones had more of a purpose in the story rather than just being backstory for the title and a museum exhibit. They are like old friends and over the years we have grown fond of them all, except for Wesley’s mother in law. Dead Man's Lane" follows the established formula for this series in that a modern day investigation plays out alongside a historical one but this time I preferred the former to the latter (usually it is reversed). But when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Temples' crimes, DI Wesley Peterson fears that a copy-cat killer is on the loose.Market stones took many forms, here we see the stone placed at Friar Gate (formerly Nuns Green) at the northern road into Derby (England). And as usual, I had to deduce how the historical timeline of Strangefields tied in with what was going on in the present. Now, decades later, Strangefields is being transformed into a holiday village but the developer’s hopes that its dark reputation will be forgotten are soon dashed when a skull is found on the site. Decades have gone by and Strangefields is now being transformed into a holiday home with the developer hoping that it's dark history will be forgotten about.

A real page-turner, this is the first book by Kate Ellis that I've read, and I look forward to reading more. Yorkshire has its fair share of weird-sounding street names: Slack Bottom, Bad Bargain Lane and Tickle Cock Bridge. The Wesley Peterson mysteries are always such a delight with plenty of suspects along with the intriguing historical connections.When part of the solution is that several people just left and changed their names -- but continued to work and travel and presumably get sick and register to drive etc. So even though I have appreciated the obvious giant amount of work that has been put in the series I felt more annoyed and impatient than usual with this particular one and I think this will now be my last one. He meets an old flame on a police matter, and eats a casual lunch with her, but somehow cannot bring himself to tell his wife, and he also lies to his boss. And when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Temples’ crimes, DI Wesley Peterson fears that a copy-cat killer is at large. She worked in teaching, marketing and accountancy before first enjoying writing success as a winner of the North West Playwrights competition.

Perhaps she would have felt as I do, reaching the end of that awkward, narrow lane, the low trees and bramble hedges opening up onto the grassy top of that hill, nothing in sight but the vast scenes of fields and woods. A hair-raising bike ride down an almost forgotten lane; a sinister owl with human characteristics and a child ghost that intends to make his friends spirits as well make this a gripping collection. Running concurrently through the narrative is Ellis’s trademark, a historical murder with the Great Fire of London as a backdrop. There is another reason that the lane in Rye has earned its ominous name, as it was also the lane going up the hill to where people where hung.Sometimes a corpse was buried face down and sometimes, as well as decapitation and the burning of the heart, a boulder was placed on the body to prevent it rising from the grave. It would appeal to anyone who loves the 'puzzle' kind of murder mystery or fans of authors who mix murder mysteries and archaeology, such as Elly Griffiths. Dead Man's Lane is the twenty-third instalment of this superb police procedural series featuring DI Wesley Peterson and based in the stunning Devon countryside.