This is a cunning whodunit set in the fictional cathedral city of Rhyminster. I love the lucid portrayal of every day life in a close knit Church of England community. There's good olde English humour here and something much deeper. The characters are brilliantly drawn, sometimes dastardly, but often full of sympathetic wisdom.
Barker joins a long line of formidable fictional canine investigators and is just as cute and loveable as the creations of Conan-Doyle and Agatha Christie.
The writing is intelligent, stylish and evocative. The plot, which has many complexities, is laid out with cutting edge perfection.
I give praise and rejoice that there are more novels to come in this series.

A Solid Puzzle…
The first in the John Tedesco series of mysteries and a solid puzzle within a nicely presented narrative. A body is discovered in the Rhyme Chantry - an ominous looking structure known as The Cage. The local media runs with the story and Cathedral staff are thrown into the glare of the spotlight. With an engaging protagonist and a well crafted cast this is both entertaining and immersive.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read The Cage by Radu Herklots.

This is the first book in a series of books about John Tedesco and hopefully his dog Barker will continue on in the series of books with him too.

From the name of the book and the picture, I personally thought it was going to be more sinister than it actually was. It did take me a while to get into the book, with some of the terminology, however I did enjoy it and I would like to read another book in the John Tedesco series.

There was no stand out characters in this for me - I felt this book had something very unique to it though!!

I think there's a lot of potential in this series and liked this story as it's compelling and entertaining.
There's a lot of details and characters, a fascinating setting, a solid mystery.
Good storytelling, plot and character development.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

This was a gentle read set in the fictional cathedral city of Rhyme, which is situated near Plymouth and features many real life places with which I am familiar. I liked Tedesco with his sandwich preferences and Barker his dog, but there were an awful lot of characters to keep on top of and even Tedesco's partner in the PI business Lynne was not portrayed in any great detail. The PIs enjoyed an entirely harmonious and co-operative working relationship with the local police, which struck me as unlikely, as did the idea that you would employ a QC to sit with you in a police interview. My other main issue with the writing was the way Tedesco would ask some one some questions, then repeat what he had found out to Lynne, and then perhaps report the same information to the Bishop or the police, so that the reader was treated to the same details several times over.

I am a little puzzled about a couple of aspects of the plot, but on the whole this was a pleasant read.