A murder mystery set in a police training academy where all the suspects are police officers! When the killer is an officer of law, they would know better than to leave behind any evidence.

The mystery behind the murder was really good. The digging for clues was impressive too. Having said that, the investigators jumping into conclusions is something I did not expect to read this in a murder mystery. I did not like it, either. The investigators seemed so 'sure' of the fact that they were right in their assumptions.

Also, the character portrayal was too mushy for my taste. A glimpse into the characters' personal lives does make the story better but in this case, we see a whole lot of cooing and emotional outbursts.

First, I would like to say a big thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Books for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Detective Blade gets called to the local police academy to investigate the murder of Ashington - a man he has no warm feelings towards. From the start, the list of suspects is not short; however, Blade and his family could be implemented.

This is a quasi locked-room mystery - who could have killed Ashington and managed to dump his body in the middle of a busy police academy? The plot thickens as suspects are ruled out but more potential murderers come to light.

A strangely weird story line involving police, murdering police and those connected to the Brams Hill police college. A story interwoven with police bullying lower rank officers, not an easy read but enough to make you read to the end.

Wow. I think this book is very realistic and I felt the drama and tension! Of course, I love a good crime book, but this one just felt different. A good different. Can't wait to read more from this author!

Thank you for allowing me to read this and give my honest opinion.

A murder, you say? A body found in an antique chest in at the world famous Police College? Ok, sure, I’ll check it out.
Turns out more than one murder and oodles and I mean oodles of people to solve it. So many cooks are stirring this pot, it gets too busy in the kitchen. In fact, lots of them and some of their families knew the victim and had perfectly good reasons to do away with him. So a proper mess and it’s down to the excellently named detective Ralph Blade and his intrepid team to figure this out. Which they do and in pretty reasonable time, all things considered.
Police procedurals are some of my least favorite types of murder mysteries, but when done right, they are perfectly palatable. This one was done…well, kind of right. It’s very British, which is always nice. It’s decently written. It has a lot of leads and clues and all that to confuse the readers away from the real culprit. And it’s short, which is just excellent, because succinctness can be really admirable in a genre often prone to overwriting.
On the other side, I didn’t love the characters, found their involvement with each other to be overwhelmingly tangled and their love lives all too intricately convoluted. And the overall tone was very…mild, somehow, despite the, you know, dead bodies.
This isn’t a cozy mystery by any means, but the thrills here are measured and it’s easy to picture an elderly British gentleman of staid bearing and tweedy attire retiring to his respectably sedate study to smoke a pipe while reading it.
Perfectly decent, if not especially memorable or exciting, quick read. Thanks Netgalley.

Murder mystery set in a Police Training College where the victim, the suspects, and the investigators are police officers. What could possibly go wrong!

Though by (my) normal standards this is a short book at only 164 pages, it feels much longer. The chapters are not overly long, as we follow DS Ralph Blade and his team as they investigate the murder of a man for whom many will not shed a tear, and as such, there is an abundance of suspects and motives that need to be investigated.

I enjoyed the storyline and the fact that the author used a real location and object in which to set his crime.

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Book Review ⁣⁣⠀
The Syndicate Six Murder ⁣⁣⠀
Geoffrey Osborne⁣⁣⠀
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The Syndicate Six Murder immediately caught my attention when I read the synopsis. I’m a huge fan of crime fiction murder mystery’s. ⁣⁣⠀
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A body is found stuffed in a trunk, in the building where the police are trained. When the officer in charge shows up he recognizes the body of his long time adversary. ⁣⁣⠀
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The beginning of this book was good, and had me hooked. It wasn’t long though before I figured out the murders. The middle of the book was long and drawn out. The characters were lacking development. ⁣⁣⠀
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Overall this was a very basic murder mystery with no twists or surprises. I was bored through most of it and had a hard time finding the motivation to finish it. ⁣⁣⠀
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Thank you to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ⁣⁣⠀
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I love a good procedural murder mystery where everyone looks like the killer. This book is fast paced and very entertaining.

DS Ralph Blade and his team work to solve the murder of Detective Harold Ashington. The first problem for DS Blade is that he has a strong dislike for the victim. The second problem for DS Blade is that his wife doesn't have an explanation as to where she was the night the victim does.

Detective Harold has many enemies that he has created due to him being a blackmailer. Thus everyone is a potential killer.

This is a quick short read that is not lacking in detail. Since this book is short, the author didn't have to be repetitive to lengthen the book which I love!

The ending reminded me a lot of Hercule Poirot books when he brings in all the characters at the end to solve the murder.

I will definitely be reading more of Geoffrey Osborne's books.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

This book is set in a police training college Bramshill. A body is found in a chest within the college, this is where Superintendent Roger Blade enters the story. The dead man is Harry Ashington a police officer and , he had history with Blade and also his family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery it reminded me of murder/ mysteries of old. It was an easy read and kept me reading chapter after chapter to reach the conclusion. The main character has his flaws but is a likeable , well rounded detective. His team also have likeable personalities that could be developed in further books. I also was pleased to see the book had an epilogue which rounded the story off detailing the murderers sentence and bringing the book to a close.

Thanks to Joffe books and Netgalley for this copy.

this was a great mystery novel, I really enjoyed getting to go on this journey. The characters were great and I really enjoyed reading this book.

I was drawn to the book cover. I have to admit, that was the main reason that I picked this up. I also have a penchant for British murder mysteries, so this was right up my street.
The story is a police procedural set in rural Hampshire. A police Detective is murdered at a police training college and Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade has to investigate his colleagues to get to the bottom of the case. Matters are exacerbated by the fact that Blade and Ashington have a 'past.' This also creeps into the present, when Blade's wife and son become suspects.
I like police procedurals, if they are done right. This is a good read. The pacing was fine and although it was not a thrilling page turner, neither did I have to plod through it (pun intended).
I did have a few doubts though - taking Blade's negative association with the victim would he have really been allowed to head the investigation? Especially when his own son was implicated? That was a bit difficult to believe. Also, the culprits were not too hard to figure out...
So I'm on the fence with this one...

Rating: 2.75/5

A body was found in a very old chest in the world-famous Bramshill Police Staff College. Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade is assigned to solve this murder, but the victim turns out to be an old rival of DS Blade. As cops investigate cops, this fast-paced mystery is not solved without many complications.

This is a pretty small book, so it reads pretty fast. Despite my rating, I did enjoy most of this book. The fast-paced beginning was on point and made me very interested on continuing to read. Many mysterious facts were laid out from the start and that kept interested. I loved the writing style as well. Especially for the first half of the book. The way everything was described made me imagine this story as a detective tv show and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

I did have many issues though. My main issue was the thought process of the characters. At first, there is a lot that I did not understand, which is totally normal, since it is a mystery. But the more it went on, the more I had trouble keeping up with the different hypotheses. I didn't understand why some characters were putting up a certain hypothesis when nothing in the story supported it. They made no sense to me whatsoever. I did find it hard to keep up with their trains of thoughts throughout the book. And unfortunately, the resolution did not make up for it. It was a little predictable, but even if it was, I still don't understand on what evidence the DS Blade character solved the murder. And nothing in the book explained why the body was found in the chest at the beginning. A lot of these hypotheses were not supported by the plot or the facts stated in the book. This is the main reason why I rated this just under 3 stars. I have watched a lot of detective/police/crime shows as a teen and as an adult, so I was disappointed with this aspect.

Another thing that bothered me in the book is some of the relationships that went on like roller coasters. It didn't feel realistic to me to have characters being great together one day, then being very mad at each other because of something that happened, and then being great again the next day, as if nothing ever happened.

It may be because it was set in England and there was a cultural difference, but it bothered me how many cops were involved in the investigation and I have to admit I got lost as to who was who. But that was a very minor issue.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book. I preferred the first half, but still enjoyed it in general. I do not recommend this book to avid crime readers. But if you do like fast-paced mysteries and small books, you could certainly enjoy this.

This is a short if intense crime mystery from Geoffrey Osborne set in Hampshire where a body has been discovered in an antique chest at Bramshill Police Staff College, the dead man one Detective Harry Ashington. Leading the murder inquiry is Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade who did not like the murder victim, Blade had married Julie, a woman who used to be involved with Ashington. Despite the conflict of interest, Blade and his team which includes Dorothy Fraser and John Hyde try to work through a host of suspects in circumstances where almost everyone could be said to actively dislike the dead man, a bully and a blackmailer. Included in the suspects is Blade's wife, Julie and his son. In a police procedural that gives the reader a glimpse into the personal lives of the police team, Blade and his team are under pressure to find the killer as soon as possible. Many thanks to Joffe Books for an ARC..

The setting of murders in a renowned Police Training College is an unusual start. Ralph Blade, the lead detective, is a convincingly created character who brings the two murders to a satisfying conclusion. Having by accident a detective who can lip read would sound like an asset all police interviewers could do with! Throughout the book, there are many suspects but the team gradually releases information to the readers. It is also a relief to read a detective story where the police do not all have dysfunctional private lives! The involvement as suspects of very senior officers gives extra spice to the story. This is a well crafted, carefully written story. I recommend it strongly.

If there’s one thing that I like doing, it’s discovering new authors. Geoffrey Osborne is certainly a new author for me. I read the synopsis for ‘The Syndicate Six Murder’ and it certainly sounded like a very intriguing and thrilling read. I wasn’t wrong either because I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Syndicate Six Murder’ but more about that in a bit.
I have to say that it took me a little while to get into this book. I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner but I was tired when I started to read the book and I found it hard to concentrate for any length of time. Once I got into the story then that was it and I was away as the saying goes. This wasn’t a book that I was able to read over the course of a single day because boring things like life got in the way, but I did binge read the book over the course of a couple of days. I would pick the book up only intending to read a chapter or two but I found myself becoming so wrapped up in the story that I would still be sat there reading three chapters and more later. I loved the cast of characters in the story and it seemed that a fair few people had motive to kill the deceased. At times I couldn’t turn the pages quick enough as I raced my way through the story. I soon got to the end of the story and I had to bid farewell to the different characters.
‘The Syndicate Six Murder’ is well written. Geoffrey certainly knows how to grab your attention and to make his book stand out from the crowd as it were. Geoffrey drew me into the story from early on in the book and then took me on one heck of a journey. The author has one of those writing styles that is easy to get used to and easy to get along with. For me this book was perfectly paced- the story hit the ground running and maintained a fairly fast pace throughout. I was gripped by the story and on the edge of my seat for most of the story. I felt as though I was part of the story myself thanks to Geoffrey’s very vivid and realistic storytelling.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘The Syndicate Six Murder’ and I would recommend this boo to other readers. I will certainly be reading more from this author in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

The Syndicate Six Murder by Geoffrey Osborne is a captivating and gripping police procedural set in and around the Halls of Bramshill Police Staff College in Hampshire. Detective Superintendant Ralph Blade is called in to a case of a body being discovered in an antique chest in the Grand Hall of the college The victim turns out to be Detective Harold Ashington, a man well known to Blade due to his various dodgy dealing and his bullying behaviour.This is a man who has a multiple number of people who could be a suspect in his death, even Blade has a reason himself. As no-one else is willing to handle this case Blade, even with his conflict of interest is left to head up the case.Blade and his team begin to interview suspects in this case that has gathered rather a lot of interest from the curious police colleagues at the college.Just to male matters way more complicated for Blade, another body is discovered.
This is a pretty original and definitely interesting read. The fact that the victim is a police officer who is as shady as they come and the killer must be connected somehow to the police service adds a frisson of excitement. Just the fact that members of the police are supposedly held to account for their behaviour and are expected to hold the line of respectability makes this book a fascinating read.
Harold, is a character that you see in these films at tv programmes, always up to no good. The victim everyone has a reason to off, and one no-one sympathises with. Certainly made a change from the victim being the one who doesn't deserve to die!
An excellent book with an original plot and characters that I had a range of different emotions for and the twists and turns within the story succeeded in making sure I didn't put the book down until I finished it.
Thanks to Joffe Books and NetGalley for the copy of the book in order to write this review for today

The syndicate six party takes us to The Bramshill Police Staff College in Hampshire England. There we meet Detective Superintendent Ralph Blade as he has a case to investigate that involves his nemesis Detective Harold Ashington. There is no love loss between these two detectives and it has a lot to do with a woman. Of course not many people really liked Detective Ashington and that might be why his body was found inside of an antique chest inside of the police staff college. While it might seem like a conflict of interest, no one else wants to take the case due to Ashington’s shady dealings and bullying behavior. Blade starts immediately investigating and asking questions. But when he gets to Julie something strange was said. She was on her way to meet Ashington the night he died. Blade starts to get more involved when there is a member from his team that is brutally attacked and left for dead. There are too many suspects to name and the bad part is that they are all either police offices or working with the police in some capacity. Why was Julie going to see her ex that night and could she have a reason to want him dead? Or could it have been her son who was supposed to be out with he that night also? There are a few twists in this story that keep you enthralled and wanting more. The author does an amazing job of blending the characters and keeping the intensity of this thriller. Police procedurals for me are hit or miss. I do not want an author to write about police work that they may have seen on television because I feel that insults my intelligence to a degree. Obviously, Osborne has done research because the story had so much validity to it. I was very impressed with the fact that not only is the premise great, the research was perfect and spot on also.

Thank you to netgalley as well as the author/publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was not my favorite. I enjoyed the storyline, but I am realizing that police procedural stories are not my thing. However, the writing was great! It was difficult for me to really get into it but I enjoyed the prose.

A real treat of a book. A police procedural looking into other police officers - all of them very senior - and their wives and families. How does a lowly detective constable ask questions of police superintendants and others with pay grades much above their own. Even the Senior Investigating Officer is junior to most of them.

Loved it - more please. This is an author I'll be watching out for.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read a free advance review copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion.

A wonderfully written Police procedural. A well plotted story line that manages to keep the tempo throughout the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the characters are by and large very human.

Thank you Netgalley, Joffe Books and Geoffrey Osborne for thr ARC