A Tiding of Magpies is the 5th book in the Birder Murder mystery series by Steve Burrows. Released 6 Sept. 2018 by Oneworld, it's 384 pages and available in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

This book, and the series in general, are built up gradually. There's a lot of nuance with the returning characters and the setting and plot. There's a fair bit of background which isn't really reviewed, but isn't absolutely necessary to enjoy the book. The 'hook' of the series is that the main character, an expat Canadian police inspector living and working in rural(ish) England is an enthusiastic birder and environmentalist and it's fascinating how the author manages to entertwine all the disparate threads into a cohesive whole. I also appreciated the fact that the book wasn't strident or preachy.

This series is definitely not a thrill a minute roller coaster. It's sedate. I didn't find it slow at all, just steady. It is on the long side for a procedural, but that allowed the author some leeway with development and plotting.

The entry point in this book for Jejune and co. is a call to investigate a grisly burned corpse. I didn't find the descriptions overly graphic. They are somewhat clinical, but there's not anything objectionable that would offend the average modern murder mystery/procedural reader.

All in all this is a methodically and thoughtfully well written series and I enjoyed this book as well as the previous ones. I wouldn't recommend reading this particular entry as a standalone, though it certainly is understandable by itself and the characters are well drawn and understandable enough that readers won't miss much of the plot if they've not read the earlier books.

Definitely would recommend this one to English procedural lovers.

This is 5th book in the Birder Murder Mystery series, and the first I have read in it. It's an interesting mix of birding and police procedural. Jejeune is an interesting character- flawed and human, but with an uncanny ability to solve cases. But as his second in command starts to question if he made a critical error in a previous case, that appears to be linked to their current one, even he has to rethink his actions. As the cases run on and there seems to be no solution, it takes the work of the entire team,and their 'review officer' to find the truth, and solve them. It's a great book and series, and one I'd recommend!

A Tiding of Magpies is the latest in the Domenic Jejeune mystery series, with the Canadian cop firmly ensconced in Norfolk solving mysteries and adding to his lifetime birding list. This time he’s got lots of troubles; an internal investigation from his Met days, the lurking possible presence of a killer who’s out to destroy Dom by targeting his girlfriend, Lindy, and the investigation of the murder of a Polish national and how that’s involved with local politics. And that’s in between finding birds.

Much of the book is taking up with Dom worrying about Lindy and what will happen if Ray Hayes, the bad guy, catches up with her. There’s a lot more of that than I was happy with; in truth, I thought the book dragged much in spots, with paragraph after paragraph of angst and guilt-ridden thoughts. The investigations are all well and good; dogged persistence and ferreting out the truth is the order of the day, for Dom as well as his sergeant, Danny Maik, who’s busy doing some serious investigations on his own. I just didn’t think this book came together as well as the earlier books in the series. And the fact that it ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger didn’t thrill me at all.

Steve Burrows is a talented wordsmith, definitely knowing how to put sentences together. His characters are always well developed and defined. This book was more caught up with the personal lives of the characters than I like in a police procedural. Won’t stop me from reading the next one in the series.