I love this author’s work so the the thought of a new series got me a tad excited. And I was right to be. Our new main characters are Ashley & Hector, & what a fabulous pair they are. Ashley initially comes across as cold & offish whilst Hector is a fast tracked newbie & very wet behind the ears.

Basically, Cromer Beach is now going to be off limits to me & any plans to build sandcastles have gone straight out of the window. A dog walker is alerted by her charge to two inverted buckets on the beach. In my head, I was shouting don’t lift them! Too late! One contains a severed male head & the other covers a woman buried in the sand. Unfortunately, due to the rapidly incoming tide she can’t be saved. DS Ashley Knight finds herself in charge of the case; questions & bodies mount up.

A brilliant start to the series & if you haven’t read this author before, this is a great place to start. A fast paced police procedural with plenty of shocks. Fantastic.

I was so excited to see Ross Greenwood was coming out with a new detective series and this first book of the series did not disappoint! I loved the new setting and the new characters. The main detective, DS Ashley Knight, wasn’t like a traditional detective so it was a very refreshing read. Alongside DS Ashley, her team was very interesting to read about. I liked how the author focused on the life of DS Ashley as well as the crime, I felt like I got to know her while reading.

The plot was gripping and it was intriguing when there was a lot of characters who were a bit strange. It made me think and theorise along side DS Ashley who could be the killer. I couldn’t have guessed what actually happened and who the killer was, it came as a shock when it was revealed. There was a lot of twists in this book and many chapters ended on a cliffhanger which made me want to read more. I thought this plot was exciting and fast paced. I can tell this is going to be a good series.

From reading some of this authors previous books, I can see similarities in the writing style so if you enjoyed previous books then you will love this new series. There was a lot of new characters in this book although I found it easy to remember who they were throughout the story. The author built up the world and the scenery at the beginning while setting the scene of the crime so the book starts straight away. I was hooked on this book and I’m sure the rest of the series will be the same!

A great crime novel with the usual twists and turns. This is well written with lots of suspense keeping you unable to put this down!

DS Ashley Knight is in a day off when she is called to a grisly double murder on Cromer beach. She is partnered with Hector Fade, a young DC on the graduate fast track programme. It soon becomes apparent that there is more going on. Graffiti leads them to believe that the killer had a list of seven. Will the Major Investigation Team be able to stop the killer before he reaches his target number?

This is the start of a new series but it didn't really seem like it as the author cleverly gave you background information without overwhelming you. I really enjoyed this book & I'm already looking forward to the next one. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I am a fan of Ross Greenwood DI Barton Series so I could not wait to delve into this new series set in Norfolk. We are met a host of new detectives as well as several murder in Death on Cromer Beach, and this book sets the series off with a bang!

From the moment that Dora and her little dog Happy discovered the grisly double murder on the beach I just knew that I was going to be hooked on this story. DS Ashley Knight and her team which includes her new fast tracked officer Hector Fade, find themselves dealing with an ever increasing body count and connecting the dots from a party on the beach that ended in tragedy almost thirty years ago to the recent murders. As the team close in on the killer we are taken on a ride as we try to figure out who could possibly be behind it all.

I loved our new DS and really hope that we see more of Hector in the series as both he and Ashley worked well together, Ross Greenwood did not disappoint with this new series.

5 stars

As an avid Ross Greenwood reader I have to admit I was gutted when the DI Barton series ended. No way could another great police man/woman live up to Barton. Hah how wrong was I? Very very wrong. Enter the brilliantly, slightly damaged yet flippin’ awesome DS Ashley Knight.

Ross Greenwood is the master of creating suspenseful intrigue without going over board on pointless faff. He writes superbly sensitive topics, in this case mental health with care and consideration. He makes you feel that he has properly researched the topic before jumping in. This was very evident in another of Greenwoods books, Canaries in the Coalmine. A great and thought provoking book. A must read in my opinion.

Anyway back to Death on Cromer Beach. As I was saying there is no messing about, Ross gets straight to the plot and opens with two gruesome murders which quickly leads to another and weird rhymes going on about 7 and the sea and heaven and its all very perplexing. The team built around DS Knight are great and we get to know them really well and how they gel. I must admit I really liked the rather pompous, fast track officer Hector Fade. He clearly has a sharp mind and gets Knight to open up about why she returns to the seemingly quiet seaside town of Cromer. I know Cromer well and it was great to read about the area and clearly I actually didn’t know it as well as I thought. It is definitely not all old people and happy families on a summer holiday. It has its dark underside and Greenwood has crafted an excellent new Crime series that I can not wait to follow. A rival to Barton and no mistake

This is the first in the new DS Knight series by Ross Greenwood and was published by Bookouture on April 26th, 2023.
The book begins in early April. Dora Thorne and her chihuahua Happy are having their regular walk along the beach when they stumble across something unexpected… Well, it was definitely an interesting start to the story, as it makes you want to read on and find out what has happened.
The setting of Cromer in Norfolk is a great place for a novel. You think of a pretty seaside place, which contrasts well with the murders that happen there.
Detective Sergeant Ashley Knight is the main character here and her partner is new guy Detective Sergeant Hector Fade. We get to know the main members of the police team throughout the book, building up a picture of their professional lives and glimpses into their private lives. I enjoyed this aspect of it and also many of the other characters. I especially loved Geoffrey the fisherman and Ashley’s elderly neighbour Arthur.
I loved how the investigation developed, trying to pick up the clues and work out who the murderer is. As you’d expect from this genre of book, the story is full of twists and turns. It’s also very well-paced and exciting, but you get chance to know the characters too, it isn’t just action by any means.
I was happy to keep reading and stayed up late two consecutive nights to find out what was going to happen next. It didn’t disappoint! I’m looking forward to the next installment in the series.

A woman is walking her dog along the beach when the dog finds two upturned buckets with stones on them. When she takes the stones and buckets off she gets rather more than she bargained for. DS Ashley and new, fast track Hector, and team are assigned to the case. Ashley has passed her inspector exams and is assigned as deputy SIO. Hector, this being his first detective assignment, thinks he knows everything and Ashley is doing her best to gently guide him before he digs himself a hole he can't get out of. The victims are two hippie type characters who would do no harm to anyone. Who would want to do such a heinous crime and why?


I very quickly got into this and I always love Ross’s writing style. Despite the subject matter there is an ease of reading and wonderful character development. I found myself rapidly taking to Ashley and smiling at Hector- to me the skill of a brilliant author. , the two of them making a veritable team. There’s a cracking plot line which has several twists and turns along the way and I found myself reading “just one more chapter…” and another and another. I’m very much looking forward to the next in the series. A wonderful, seaside crime read I can't recommend highly enough. 5*

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This is the first book in a brand new series by Ross Greenwood with a new lead female detective as the main character and I settled in, excited to learn about her back story and her colleagues, as well as tag along for an exciting investigation. The crimes to be solved in this book are a bit on the gruesome side and Ross doesn’t hold back from plunging us straight into the action from the first chapter with a shocking and grisly discovery on a peaceful Norfolk beach. From there on, this is an exciting, complex, twisting murder mystery.

I really liked the main character, Ashley, who is an independent, clever and empathetic detective. It is great to see a female taking the lead in these novels, even better when the author gives her a young, ambitious male junior to put in his place and teach the ropes. I thought the friction and developing relationship (professional, not romantic) between the two was an interesting dynamic in the novel. There were a lot of other characters in the rest of the team to get to know as well, so many that a couple of times I got lost as to who was who, but I think there is good scope for a lot of interesting stories to come out of this team in the future.

The murder plot was well handled and engaging and kept me guessing to the end, which is how I like a crime novel to be and I was invested in the plot throughout the book. I really enjoyed the setting of the novel in a close knit, Norfolk community. East Anglia is becoming a very popular place for novel settings I’ve noticed in recent years. Will it overtake Cornwall and Northumberland in this regard?

If I had any minor quibbles about this book I would say there were a couple of places where I could tell that the main character was a woman as written by a man, because some of her language or actions didn’t quite ring true. There was also one throwaway line which, as a lawyer, I didn’t believe was accurate which niggled a bit but I doubt anyone without a legal background would think anything of it, so I’m being a little pedantic here and I know sometimes I have to let things go for the sake of poetic licence! Idid also listen to part of this book in audio format and, I have to say the narrator was a little chirpy in places for the gruesome story he was reading out!

These are all small niggles that did not affect my overall enjoyment of the book, it was a solid four star read for me and I would not hesitate to pick up the next novel in this series or anything else that this author has written. It was a well-crafted, entertaining and engrossing police procedural with an interesting new character to follow and I would be happy to recommend it.

Alerted by her dog, a lady finds two upturned tubs on Cromer beach. Lifting the first reveals a dead man’s severed head, but the second has an even bigger shock in store. The woman buried up to her neck in the sand is still alive but dies before she can be rescued. Her last whispered word seems to be “monster”. With her DI taking sudden sick leave, DS Ashley Knight from Norfolk’s MIT becomes SIO on the case, together with some old hands and a new fast tracker. Inquiries lead to three suspects but when another woman is found drowned on the beach, it looks like someone far more organised and ruthless is responsible. With a sinister hooded figure spotted and graffiti messages painted around the town indicating seven people will die, they soon discover a connection between the victims, but Ashley and the rest of the team will need to be quick to unearth secrets from the past that might be very close to home in order to stop the beach from claiming three more lives.
Veteran officer Ashley has a traumatic past but plenty of experience makes her a great detective. Hector has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, understandable as the “fast track” tag comes with the expectance that he won’t be very good at the job, but when Ashley gives him a chance to prove this wrong, he’s actually quite talented and together the whole team are very likeable. The plot is very twisty and each time I thought I knew what had happened, this talented author turned everything around in an engrossing and complex storyline. Battles with mental health struggles in some of the characters were also very sensitively portrayed. I very much enjoyed meeting Ashley Knight for the first time. This is great start to a new series and I am definitely looking forward to more.

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

This seaside set crime thriller is set in Norfolk in the town of Cromer. One morning Detective Sergeant Ashley Knight is called to the beach where a double murder had occurred.

Whilst investigating another body turns up and although it looks like suicide, some local graffiti suggests there may be more deaths to come.

The urgency is increased as they work out who the next victims may be, uncovering a secret from a party many years ago.

What happened at the party? Who could be next?

I loved that this crime thriller is set close to where I live, it made it more relatable and with the characters interactions throughout the storyline it felt I was reading about a real-life case.

I found although it started with a shocking murder, it started quite slow, but as you carry on reading the suspense builds and you want to read faster to find out what is going to happen and who could be involved.

Ashley’s character showed strength and growth throughout the storyline as she comes to the realisation, she needs to make positive changes to her life. I felt she is a strong female character which is always good in these kinds of books.

Overall, a seaside set crime thriller where the race is on to discover who the next victim could be.

The first in a new series featuring DS Ashley Knight. Dora Thorne and her dog Happy find a body washed up on Cromer Beach. From there a investigation begins into the brutal murders. I liked the characters in this book and the plot is well thought out. This is the second book I have read by Ross Greenwood and I really want more. I love that it's slightly longer than your average book. The police procedural goes into depth and keeps building the tension. I really would like to get to know Ashley Knight a little more and a bit more of her background. A grizzly, dark crime thriller that I can't wait for more!

The story:
When a brutal murder of two seemingly harmless individuals is discovered on Cromer beach, DS Ashley Knight is one of the first on the scene. It soon becomes apparent that this was no random attack, and a highly organised killer is at work.

Not only is Ashley dealing with an absent DI, she is working with new, and somewhat cocky partner in Hector Fade, a young DC working his way through a fast-track program and destined for leadership. Sparks soon fly between them, but the whole of the Norfolk Major Investigation team must pull together to get to the bottom of the horrific murder. Especially when another body is found...

My thoughts:
Having previously enjoyed Ross Greenwood's books in the DI Barton series, I was excited to read this first installment in a new series from the author, this time focused on DS Ashley Knight.

Whereas DI Barton is pretty much sorted in his personal life (unusually happily married for a fictional detective!), Ashely is earlier in her career and also, as we meet her at the beginning of the book, less settled in her life outside the force... Work is everything to her, and this has clearly taken its toll – she has no social life to speak of, her house is a mess and she doesn't really take care of herself (mentally or physically). She is, however, funny, empathetic and dedicated to doing her job, and I really enjoyed getting to know her character and was rooting for her throughout. At the start of the book she is also joined by new boy Hector Fade, an outwardly over-confident new detective on a fast-track scheme within the police. Already thinking he knows it all (and could do it better!), Ashley has her work cut out integrating him into the team and working alongside him!

The case itself is a pretty gruesome one, starting with the discovery on Cromer beach of the first two victims by a local dog walker. One has had their head removed, while the other has been buried up to the neck in the sand below the tide line. With all sorts of theories flying around, it is clear that the killer knows how to plan things carefully, and it's no surprise to Ashley when another body turns up. What follows is a twisting tale that takes the team back to events of 30 years previously, and shows that you never really know what's going on beneath the surface...

I found this to be a really enjoyable, fast-paced and gripping plot, and it was great to get to know a whole new team of characters at the start of their story. Hopefully we will get to follow their trials and triumphs over more books in the same way we did with DI Barton and his team in Peterborough, and I look forward to being along for the ride!

This books opens with a bang, and stays on pace til the end of the book! A great opener for a new series. Ashley has her quirks that go along with her experience, and getting stuck with a 'rush to the top' no experience rookie, isn't what she was hoping for. But as the murders progress, they quickly see that they can learn from each other, and push the other to rethink what is going on, and search for underlying clues. It's a fast pace, that will keep you reading late into the night, so be prepared! Another homerun from Ross!

A compelling and readable ,murder mystery set on the North Norfolk coast. Interesting characters but the plot itself is fairly routine and given the grisly nature of the serial killings on Cromer beach described in the novel I would have expected to see more press and public curiosity reflected in the storyline. Interesting enough however for me to look out for the sequels in the series.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

I just loved this book and I am so glad this is the start of a new series because this is a fantastic start. There was many twists and turns in this book and the number of people that could have been the killer left my head spinning, I couldnt put this book down even if i wanted to it hooks you in instantly and has left me desperate for the sequel.

Ross Greenwood is off to a good start with this first title in his new series. A double murder, an evocative setting, investigators with whom I wanted to spend time and an involving story. Perfect.

Readers are drawn in from the opening pages when they meet Dora on the seafront. The case is messy. Why more than one victim? What is/is there a link to the past? Readers will be turning the pages as they try to figure this out.

This title offers what readers of the genre are looking for. The case is tricky and the pages turn.

A group of friends have a party on the beach. One of them dies that night. Who knew that so many years later that party would come back to haunt them. All the people at that party keep dying one by one. What actually happened that night and why the revenge so many years later. Ashley and her team will have to work fast to work it all out before there are any more deaths. A good start to a new series. I look forward to reading the next book.

A brilliant start to a new series from the author of the DCI Barton series.

D'S Ashley Knight are called to reports of a body found in Cromer beach. What awaits them is more horrifying than they could have imagined. What would drive someone to do such a thing?

With great characters and a plot that's fast paced this book kept me reading late into the night.

I can't wait to read more!

The first book in a new series and one that gets the readers' attention from the start. Atmospheric and disturbing the build-up to the initial crime is excellent and uses sensory imagery well to create an immersive read. DS Ashley Knight is a complex, likeable detective, believably flawed and dedicated to crime solving. The Murder Investigation Team dynamic seems authentic, and her relationship with her new fast-track DC is integral to crime-solving. The investigation is realistically paced, with many false leads and twists. The cast of characters is well-written, and each adds a layer of interest to the story.

I like the coastal setting, the complex characters and the twisty mystery.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.