The Monk (The DS Cross Mysteries #5) by Tim Sullivan Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: crime thriller, mystery
Series: DS George Cross #5
Pages: 384
Published by Atlantic Crime on April 7, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
For at finde en drabsmand skal man have et motiv ...
Kriminalassistent George Cross bliver tilkaldt, da liget af en munk bliver fundet brutalt myrdet i et skovområde nær Bristol.
Man ved intet om broder Dominics fortid. Hvordan kan Cross opklare forbrydelsen, når han ikke ved noget om offeret? Og hvorfor skulle nogen ønske at gøre en munk fortræd?
De finder ud af, at broder Dominic ikke havde nogen fjender – eller i hvert fald ikke nogen, der er åbenlyse. Men hans fortid afslører, at han engang var en velhavende mand, og at han ofrede det hele for sin tro.
For en mand, der intet har, virker det mærkeligt, at grådighed kan være motivet for hans drab. Men grådighed er trods alt en synd ...
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"Et intelligent mysterium fuld af spænding, men også af humor og medfølelse. George Cross er ved at blive en af mine yndlingsdetektiver." - Elly Griffiths
"Jeg er smaskforelsket i George Cross." - Stephen Fry
"Det ultimative et spændende plot med en engageret kriminalassistent, som jeg ville følge til verdens ende. Bare genialt!" - Marion Todd
"En genial kriminalassistent af den gamle skole med et moderne tvist ... fra de komplekse følelser i hans privatliv til de knivskarpe detaljer i politiets efterforskning. Spot on!" - Russ Thomas
"Tim Sullivans detektiv, kriminalassistent George Cross, er autist. Hans tilgang til efterforskningen er uortodoks ... han fungerer overraskende godt som en fiktiv karakter, der behandler spor på en måde, der minder om Poirots 'små grå celler'." - Sunday Times
"Endnu en tour de force ... Hvis du er på udkig efter en god krimiserie, kan du ikke få meget bedre end denne. George Cross er en absolut fornøjelse." - Biskop Stortford Independent
My Review:
The question on the minds of everyone involved with this case is “who would want to murder a monk?” Because the sight of a monk, in full habit, dumped in a ditch, duct-taped to a chair and literally and obviously beaten to death, causes pretty much every mind involved to rabbit around the wrong question. Not that it’s not both important and heinous that Brother Dominic is dead – particularly in such a brutal and gruesome fashion. Even DS Cross gets caught up in it and sent off track as rarely happens to him.
But it’s not about a monk. Or any monk. It’s about this person, whether as Brother Dominic or as the man he used to be. Whoever that might have been. Because no one commits this much brutality against a random stranger – or even a random strange monk. He was someone very specific to somebody who specifically wanted him dead.
The question is why? Which begs the question of who the man was before he joined the monastery and retreated from the world. Who did he let in? Or who discovered where he had shut himself in?
The case, as is usual with Cross, went places that no one really wanted him to go. Because that’s what he does. He is compelled to discover the truth. Not an approximation of the truth, not something adjacent to the truth, not something ‘close enough for government work’ to the truth.
The actual truth. No matter how much it drives his DCI out of his tiny mind (and it IS rather small) AND the way it makes his colleagues groan because he usually has one last (important) tangent to uncover after a case is theoretically closed.
That in this case EVERYTHING is complicated – not just by the usual secrets and lies – but by the mystery that surrounds the victim’s identity. The way that identity casts confusion into Cross’s own life makes this entry in the series even more of a puzzle than usual. And pushes Cross into multiple discomfort zones even as it brings him an unexpected bit of community in a place he never expected.
Escape Rating A: This story has been calling my name since I finished the previous book in the series, The Politician, just a few weeks ago. (Time flies when you’re either having fun OR reading. Especially reading.)
The story also teased me because it reminded me just a bit of one of the Inspector Gamache books, which turns out to have been The Beautiful Mystery. Because that story is also set in a monastery and also involves a murder that occurs because the monks let the outside world IN a bit more than was wise. Or perhaps even godly. Not that Cross is a religious believer of any stripe. Faith just isn’t logical to his rigidly ordered mind.
The case is a bit of a mess this time around. Or, to be strictly accurate, DS George Cross is a mess this time around. A different mess than he usually is in a way that knocks him a bit off his game in ways he is having difficulty dealing with.
Everyone involved focuses on the habit the victim is wearing and not the man inside the habit. Brother Dominic’s vocation discombobulates everyone around the case. Because no one expects someone dedicated to a religious life to be murdered – to even have anything worth murdering FOR. It offends the sensibilities.
Cross would claim he doesn’t have those. But of course he does, they’re just triggered differently. In this case, they’re triggered first because everyone is wasting time around their disbelief and not investigating the case of who it was done to so they can figure out whodunnit.
When Brother Dominic’s earlier life is finally uncovered, Cross is sent off track in a different way. Because Brother Dominic’s brother, his biological sibling, is one of Cross’s few friends. Not that Cross likes to admit that he has those or that he’s invited nearly as many people into his internal circle as have managed to inveigle themselves there.
At the same time, the reveal of Brother Dominic’s original identity opens up multiple new cans of wormy clues to his murder. Which leads back to the destruction of a family legacy, to an inability for some of the privileged to acknowledge their own actions or the consequences thereof, and to the old motives of revenge being a dish best served both ice cold and all around.
And it’s that last that keeps Cross investigating – and the reader guessing – until the very last page.
This series has been an absorbing delight to read. Which means that I’ll be back in a month or two with the next book in the series, The Teacher, as soon as the ‘round tuit’ circles back around to DS Cross and his fascinating cases.
