The Birdwatcher by William Shaw.

Follow Sergeant William South in this British crime thriller set around Dungeness along the Kent coast. William is a regular community beat bobby but he gets involved in a murder inquiry when his friend and neighbour is found murdered.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Birdwatcher and it ticked all the boxes for me. Characterisation was spot on, there were no shallow characters in this book. The plot was lovely and complex. I liked how real locations were used. I loved the rural locations and the remote landscape. I liked how William’s hobby of birdwatching gave added value to this story. It was not the actual birds but how people run their hobbies and how those skills affect other things they do. I know nothing about birds but loved reading about the dynamics of birdwatching as a hobby, which is so very different to bus spotting! Although birders and bus spotters both like to catch the unusual rather than the everyday. I expect their bags, notebooks, cameras and anoraks are the same!

The plot of The Birdwatcher was complex and the pace steady. I liked the quality of the dialogue between the characters. I liked how doubts steadily built up in your mind as William searched around to find the killer of his friend. Doubts also grew about the victim as both the reader and William wondered what secrets the victim may have been hiding.

I loved the ending and the buzz it gave me as I wondered all the “what if’s” that happened throughout the story. Had the many minor details not happened or been spotted, the story would have had a very different ending. Very early on, I thought The Birdwatcher was a very good read and this impression remained constant all the way to the end. I consider The Birdwatcher to be an OUTSTANDING read that gets the top score of 5 stars from me.

William Shaw is a new author for me and I found his writing style very easy to get into. In many ways his writing, the way this story is told and the general feel of this book is very similar to Tana French with her Dublin Murder Squad series. I was so impressed with The Birdwatcher that I am now reading the next in the series called Salt Lane.

The Birdwatcher was written in 2016 as is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.