Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I explained why all of Britain is talking about a 65-year-old radio soap opera, The Archers — check out my late addition of a link to Stephen Fry’s introduction to the show. Sim continued her virtual walk in London by staying in the same place to tell us all about the history and architecture of the Natural History Museum. Tina was disappointed by the lack of Austen in the book All Roads Lead to Austen. Jackie shared more photos from her 1986 trip to England — this installment covered Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon. Becky reviewed two children’s books: War Dogs, which she liked, and Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig, which didn’t work as well.

Book: Lost and A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur and Bantam
Publication date: 2013 and 2014
Pages: 391 and 448

Source:purchased as e-books

Lost (Lacey Flint #3) by Sharon Bolton

Summary: Lost and A Dark and Twisted Tide are the third and fourth novels in the Lacey Flint series by Sharon Bolton. Lacey Flint is a young London-based police detective with an impoverished background that, on the surface, makes her unsuited to police work (or life). Her flashes of brilliance due to her out-of-the box methodology and thought process help her solve crimes and save lives.

In Lost (titled Like This, For Ever in the UK), Lacey forms a fragile friendship with a neighbor boy just at a time when boys in her neighborhood are going missing and turning up dead along the Thames. In A Dark and Twisted Tide, Lacey has taken up the dangerous hobby of swimming in the Thames, which gets even creepier when she discovers a body.

A Dark and Twisted Tide (Lacey Flint #4) by Sharon Bolton

Thoughts: These two books wonderfully satisfied my cravings for more Lacey stories after Now You See Me and Dead Scared. Lacey is the kind of protagonist that you want to shout at to curb her obviously self-sabotaging behaviors, but she is so self-aware and always growing that you can’t wait to see what she learns next.

The London setting is wonderfully drawn. I particularly liked the explorations of the Thames and the canals after my fantasy visit to a yacht hotel in London a couple of months ago.

Appeal: This series is best read in order since Lacey and her relationships develop through the books. I love these stories even though they are grittier than my normal choice of mystery, so give them a shot even if your tastes are on the cozy side.

Have you read these books? What did you think?