ANGLESEY BLUE a gripping Welsh crime mystery full of twists (DI Tudor Manx Crime Thrillers Book 1)

There are several authors who have set police procedural crime thrillers in Anglesey lately, including in no particular order, Conrad Jones, Stephen Puleston, Simon McLeave and others, and now we have another.This book features the return of a not so prodigal son to the Island who has to quit my get down to the tasks of solving two murders. He has personal and family relationship problems along the way, and the list of murders grows. As if that isn't enough there's organised crime involvement along with an influx of a new version of a powerful drug spreading through the island.DI Marx is a complex character who works through all this despite some shocking twists and resolves most of the issues thoughtful everyone's satisfaction.The title page shows that this is The first of six books in a series. I shall look forward to reading the next one.

A middle-aged detective returns from working in London to policing his home town – or in this case home island, Anglesey off the coast of North Wales. You can check off the elements of the genre detective, he has a past, he’s divorced, he drinks too much, he drives a classic car.It’s redeemed by the plot which concerns a murderous takeover of the island’s drugs trade with a side order of revenge. The characters are mostly plausible too.It could have done with the closer attentions of an editor, however. There are too many silly errors in describing events – people opening things that are already open or releasing things they’ve already let go of for example.Overall then a workmanlike detective novel let down by presentation.

I have had this for a while before I decided to actually read it and I am very pleased I did. The characters are very interesting, especially Manx, who has more baggage than a cargo ship. However unlike other authors Jones does not immediately go full flow into the back story but slowly gives little insights that do not detract from the main story. There is a fair amount of "heavy thinking" in the narrative from Manx, but where this normally drives me mad, I actually read it all and found it rather interesting and profound which took me by surprise. All the characters were believable, as was the storyline. I'm sure I'm not the only one that had trouble with the Welsh, but there wasn't too much and it would not have been authentic without it.There were some spelling and grammatical errors but very few in comparison to other e books I've read recently. I did have a bit of an issue with the mixture of American terminology and spelling, but as he is a resident of both I can understand it I suppose, although it is one of my pet peeves with books to be honest, the Brits are expected to read American terminology but the Americans can't read English? Surely this is being unfair to the USA, that they can't work it out? Sorry, rant over.I would highly recommend this book to everyone, so much so that I bought number two immediately and am now off to read that!

This debut novel from Dylan H Jones is a very well written, fast paced and solid story from start to finish.The main protagonist, Tudor Manx, makes for an engaging and likeable character, and his troubled past is hinted at throughout, an interesting sub plot running alongside the main story line of hideous serial killings and seedy drug dealings.The fact that we also have an insight into the home lives of his colleagues in the police force adds to the depth of the tale. Too often, this is an area somewhat over looked by some crime and thriller authors, but personally I like this aspect as it enables the reader to build a fuller picture of the characters in all walks of their lives.I am a real fan of this genre, and now having discovered Anglesey Blue and thoroughly enjoyed it, I shall certainly be following this author and waiting eagerly for his next offering - the cliff hanger ending certainly points the way to a sequel.A few minor editorial and grammatical errors in the book were noted, but by no means spoilt my enjoyment of this very tense and engaging page turner.

I enjoyed the story but disliked the amount of swearing. There didn't seem to be any character that was "normal" and there is still much to discover about what happened to the lead detective in the past. Quite gruesome, so don't read it if you dislike that type of description. I didn't care enough about the characters to read the next in the series!

A 4 star because the second half had me glued to my seat for several hours! it was gripping and very visual, so much so i was in danger of catching a bullet..I liked the police characters and imagine there is a lot of scope for their development. I found the first half harder to concentrate on but possibly because I read on kindle and prefer a paper book so that I can check on new characters until I have them memorised. humour, grit and life with some interesting descriptions. I did feel in the early chapters the author was trying too hard with some descriptions. It felt a bit like he was sitting with a thesaurus and I don't read to imagine the author at work but he chose a beautiful heroine in Anglesey and it was a pleasure to revisit some of the island through the eyes and words of others.

A new author for me and was pleasantly surprised, the main character Tudor Manx would never have picked that name but as unusual as it is the storyline had a strong plot and also good policing methods, the first few chapters didn't hold me perhaps the author tried too hard but as the story progressed it really was absorbing. I take it there will be another in this series, as the main character had previous issues when he was young and moved out of the area and is now back, even he is not sure whether he will stay, but there is another storyline there. A lot of Welsh names which I found a bit difficult to get my tongue around but good geography of the area.