It’s time to start book sharing again – it’s only been a year! My husband and I have recently enjoyed Martin Edwards’ eight-book series, The Lake District Mysteries. Starting with The Coffin Trail, Edwards sets interesting and fairly complex stories in the landscape and history of England’s Lake District. Fans of Beatrix Potter will know the area as the location of her home, and Wordsworth aficionados will know that he is buried there. The Cold Case Review Team of the Cumbria Constabulary is front and center here, led by DCI Hannah Scarlett. Other characters include her antiquarian bookseller partner Marc Amos and the former Oxford don and TV presenter Daniel Kind.

Cold case files aren’t always about things in the past. As new revelations are brought forward in each book, we learn more about the countryside, the history, and the lives of the protagonists. These are highly enjoyable books and you’ll want to start from the beginning to appreciate how all the plot lines intertwine.

Edwards says there won’t be more of these, and he has clearly moved on to his fascinating Rachel Savernake books (see post on Mortmain Hall), as well as editing the wonderful British Library Classic Crime series. But one can hope he’ll take another turn with Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind sometime in the future.

Here are the books in order: The Coffin Trail (2004), The Cipher Garden (2005), The Arsenic Labyrinth (2007), The Serpent Pool (2010), The Hanging Wood (2011), The Frozen Shroud (2013), The Dungeon House (2015), The Girl They All Forgot (2021)