I really enjoyed this read - the pace was perfect to keep my interest, but not so fast that it was trying too hard. A good plot, a good read that kept me up later than i should have been for a few nights in a row. Worth your time!

This was my first foray into reading this series as well as this author, and based upon this story, it will probably be my last.

The first issue that I had with this novel is the fact that there are just way too many characters involved. I often found myself having to re-read passages as I tried to remember just who was who. The second issue is that, absolutely none of them are likable in the least.

Not even our married police couple Kate and Hayden. In fact, I found it hard to believe that these two were married given the way they constantly seemed to be going at one another. In fact, the first time we meet this couple, he criticizes her for her use of "foul language" after their car breaks down in the middle of a blizzard, and she thinks him "overweight and lazy" when he scoffs at the idea of having to walk to find shelter from said blizzard.

But that is only the beginning, numerous times throughout this story, the two of them are either sniping at one another (as she tends to rush in headfirst while he takes the time to consider things), or thinking unkind thoughts about the other. At no time, did I actually buy that those two had a happy marriage.

And then we move into the plot itself. While the story had the potential to be a page turning thriller, a lot of things just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it began when every vehicle that had been parked at the hotel was suddenly (and inexplicitly) disabled. Or maybe when ALL of the cell phones belonging to the people stranded at the hotel (including those of the two police officers) went missing and no one (not even said police officers) bothered to look for them.

There were a lot of implausible, if not downright laughable scenarios happening throughout this book that it was a struggle for me to finish at all. However, if you are already a fan of this series, and the author's writing style, then you may enjoy it more than I did.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

On their way home from a short break which has been cut short due to severe weather conditions, Detective Kate and her partner in crime Hayden are left stranded when Kates car breaks down, stumbling across isolated Warneford Hall Hotel

Inside the hotel the meet a group of former university friends who mysteriously start disappearing/murdered in the most unlikely way, Kate and Hayden fear they may be next but with no phones, no main telephone line and no way out due to the weather they are stranded

Well worthy read

I thoroughly enjoyed this well plotted and twisty story: it kept me guessing and having fun.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

STORM ON THE LEVELS by DAVID HODGESDETECTIVE KATE HAMBLIN MYSTERY SERIES.
Detective Kate and her husband Hayden are on their way home from a romantic mini-break when a ferocious storm blows in and their car breaks down. Stranded on a remote lane in the blizzard, they seek shelter in a nearby hotel, Warneford Hall.
I really enjoyed this book. I liked Kate. A gripping read. 4*.

Eight students celebrate their graduation with a drinks party where the odd one out in the group gets his drink spiked, wanders off home down the riverside path and is never seen again. The other seven discover him missing, blame themselves for his apparent drowning and vow to keep it all a guilty secret. Five years later six of the remaining very diverse group have a reunion at the remote Warneford Hall Hotel on the Somerset Levels manned by a skeleton staff but soon discover the invitations are bogus and the whole weekend has been paid for by a mystery benefactor. It’s not long before the atrocious snowy weather closes in, forcing DS Kate Lewis (formerly Hamblin) and her husband DC Hayden Lewis’ car off the road. They stumble across the hotel and take shelter. Then things begin to become very strange. Kate hears someone moving around in the night and an outside door is found left open. One of the group is pulled dead from the lake. The phonelines are down and with no way of driving out, they are all effectively stranded by the mounting snow in the supposedly haunted old building and soon a bump in the night heralds another death. As the body count rises, all hopes are on Kate and Hayden unmasking a killer in this brilliant locked room type murder mystery.
Without the usual team at Highbridge CID, this time Kate really does have to live up to her reputation as a bit of a lone wolf who occasionally rushes in headfirst with no thought for herself, but as usual her husband, the wonderfully eccentric and very loveable Hayden, is there to exact a more calming influence and come to her aid. This is another fun and highly enjoyable story in a series which has really grown on me and which is well worth reading from the very first book. With a great plot to have the reader suspecting literally everyone involved, the intrigue is maintained right to the ending which leaves me wondering what next for this very likeable pair.

Another great addition to the Levels books - this time with a twist - it’s not set on the Levels at all! Nice to see Kate and Hayden trying to get away from it all, but as expected failing miserably. Firstly by getting stuck in a blizzard and then becoming embroiled with a serial killer in the hotel they seek shelter in. Great read.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Joffe Books for an advance eARC copy of the book. This is the twelfth book in the DS Kate Lewis series.

Kate and her husband, Hayden are returning from a short break when a record snowstorm blows in the Somerset and Avon area. Kate and Hayden are forced to seek shelter at a run down, soon to be closed hotel. They're not alone at the hotel. A group of six friends from university have been invited for a five year reunion. It's all rather mysterious as no one admits to doing the inviting, and the friendships from university have gone by the wayside after a tragic incident at the end of their final year. It's not long after Kate and Hayden's arrival that one of the friends is found dead. A tragic accident or something much worse? Kate's copper's nose is twitching. Soon, another body is found, and storm stead, with no cell service and no land line, it's up to Kate to discover the truth.

It's a great book. A variation of the locked room mystery. I knew early on who dunnit but not the why. A great read as all of the books are.

I will try and be generous here and concentrate on the positive elements. It was a good, light read and passed some time. It wasn't difficult or taxing and was an enjoyable ramble. But, unfortunately, as mysteries go it was basic. No mystery if the perpetrator is glaringly obvious. The characters too, very basic. They seemed to be larger than life detestable caricatures. With no real substance. So it was slightly startling to suddenly be given a partial physical description of a couple at past 70% which was nothing like my own idea of them by then. A glaringly obvious predicable plot, Characters without one redeemable or likable feature between them who I found myself hoping were all "next" in order to hurry it along, I presumed this was a reasonable effort from a first time or younger naïve writer. So for that I can give 2 stars.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for an advance copy of Storm on the Levels, the twelfth novel to feature DS Kate Lewis, née Hamblin, of Avon and Somerset Police.

Kate and her husband,Hayden, are returning from a weekend away when their car breaks down. They take refuge in a nearby hotel and soon find themselves snowed in with a group of six old university friends on a reunion. Kate suspects that the group have secrets and that seems borne out when one of them is found drowned in a frozen lake and the next day another drowns in the bath. Snowed in with no communication it is up to Kate to keep the rest safe and find a killer.

I enjoyed Storm on the Levels, which is a fun read with a whodunnit attached. The plot is fairly ridiculous (in a good way) with people getting picked off in all sorts of inventive ways - who knew there were so many ways of drowning - the lack of communication and the snowing in. Ideal for a murderer to run amok, with the main question for Kate being who and why and for the reader, who, as the why is made clear early on.

In between the murders the plot follows Kate’s investigation as she tries to work out what is happening and warn the group to take precautions. Of course, as entitled graduates they know better and look what happens. I found it interesting to follow her investigation and fun with so many events, not just murders.

Kate and Hayden have a very strange relationship. She’s all go and he’s so laid back he’s horizontal. I understand that he’s there to temper her excesses, but he comes across as lazy.

Storm on the Levels is a fun read that I can recommend.

I like the Kate Hamblin series of books, this one not so much, although it can be read as a stand alone. I struggled to get into the story and the relationship between Kate and Hayden was just not that of a couple. there is a bit of suspense, although the pace was slow and I never really empathised with any of the characters. A serial killer, marooned in a storm and reminiscent of Midsomer Murders, makes it a cosy, light-hearted mystery. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

snow-season, crime-thriller, procedural, series, unputdownable, suspense, closed-circle-mystery, stranded, law-enforcement, married, Somerset, multiple-murder, squabbling-partners*****

I really liked this double twist on a vanishing suspects theme. The main suspects are snowbound in a rather remote and somewhat seedy hotel and one of them has an agenda. Enter the married police presences of Kate and Hayden whose car breaks down nearby and they have to tramp through deepening snow to that same place. Then the deaths begin. Suspense!
I requested and received an EARC from Joffe Books. Thank you.

Married police officers Kate and Haydon are returning from a short break when their car breaks down (ran off the road) in a snowstorm. They take refuge in an almost closed grim hotel (ex big house). The only other guests are a group of former student pals on an unexpected reunion week-end, plus the gothic horror housekeeper/cook and her husband man of all things. The former students are rather unpleasant people - now rich but arrogant, drug/alcohol fuelled - one of the originals is missing, drowned a few days before, plus the new girlfriend of the bullying macho 'lead'. One drowns himself in the lake during a midnight walk in the blizzard (yes, that kind of sense), mobile phones go missing, another drowns in her bath after a heavy drinking session. Their back story gradually unfolds involving the apparent death of one of their set the day before graduation and following a, yes, drug and drink fuelled celebration. What's really going on? We've guessed long before Kate and Haydon, and who the perpetrator is too. Descriptions of snow and landscape very well written, Kate is her usual bright, quick thinking, impetuous self, her DS husband more ponderous and careful but there to save her when she's in too deep - if you have just chased the murderer up into a clocktower, then use the ladder to reach the hatch in the bell-tower above would you really not expect said murderer to a) be up there and b) want to stop you getting to them? I really don't like Kate's attitude to her husband either, she's the senior detective but is always trying to diss him in some way, both professionally and personally. Not good in a relationship. I did like the bumbling around of local versus CID officers trying to find Kate's car and so on in the snow - need to know versus open-ness, so much time wasted. SPOILER, I'm glad that Kate and Haydon are on a long leave, with jobs being held open, to recover from their various previous encounters and hope that they do come back in due course in a better frame of mind. Time will tell. 3.5* rounded up. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Murder Most Foul..
The twelfth outing in the Detective Kate Hamblin series of mysteries finds Kate and Hayden stumbling into a situation of nightmare proportions when their car breaks down amidst a snowstorm. A remote country house hotel, a group of eclectic and unreliable guests and two dubious housekeepers make up their welcome party when they seek refuge. The trouble is that murder most foul is afoot and everyone in the house soon finds that they are stranded with a killer. An enjoyable, character driven and tension fuelled read with a likeable pair of protagonists and a well imagined setting. Quite possibly the best in the series to date and a nigh on perfect read for a snowed in Winters evening.

3,5 stars rounded up.

Multiple murder strikes at the heart of the desolate Somerset Levels in the midst of the worst snowstorm to hit the southwest of England in a generation. On their way home from a short break, Detective Sergeant Kat and her partner, Hayden, are stranded in a lonely country lane when Kate's car breaks down. Forced to take shelter in the isolated Warneford Hall Hotel, which is allegedly haunted by a faceless ghost, the detectives find themselves stuck there for several days, cut off from all lines of communication with the outside world. When one of a group of former university graduates staying at the hotel drowns in the hotel's lake in suspicious circumstances, Kate and Hayden are pitched into a complex murder investigation.

This book read quite like an Agatha Christie novel. Six people who used to share a house at university meet up at the hotel five years later. Each of them has a secret from their last night at uni. The weather as taken a turn for the worst, and Kate and Hayden's car breaks down on the way back from a weekend away. They book into the hotel. This is quite an eerie read. The characters are well-developed. Although this book is part of a series, it can be read as a standalone.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #JoffeBooks and the author #DavidHodges for my ARC of #StormOnTheLevel in exchange for an honest review.

six university friends meet for a reunion in a bleak hotel on the Somerset Levels. They all have a secret that happened as they left University.
Detective Kate and her husband Hayden have been away when a blizzard forces them to find accommodation for the night and they turn up at the hotel.
Next day a body is found in the lake and this is just the beginning. There is no phone line or wi fi in fact no contact with the outside world.
Can Kate solve the mystery before its to late.

298 pages

3 and 1 / 2 stars

I’ve read several of Mr. Hodges’ novels. I have to say that I was disappointed in this one. DS Kate and her husband, DS Hayden are on their way home from a relaxing small vacation. Their car breaks down in the middle of a horrible blizzard. The only shelter they can find is a hotel that is on the verge of closing.

They find a group of six old friends from their university days are also at the hotel. They seem a little odd to Kate: superficial and far too taken with drink. Add to this, they all have a deep, treacherous secret.

Bad things begin to happen, like murder.

The premise of this book is great. I like reading books about people stranded in bad weather. No idea why. I thought, oh great David Hodges and stranded people. What’s not to like?

I didn’t like the relationship between Kate and Hayden. It seemed she was always criticizing him. Kate rushes headlong into situations, while Hayden is the voice of reason. He wants to think about the evidence before he makes assumptions. They didn’t show any affection for a married couple. They were just bleh.

I think Mr. Hodges missed the boat on this book. It appears that I am in a minority.

I want to thank NetGalley and Joffe Books for forwarding to me a copy of this book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.

Very Agatha Christie. A group of people who went to university together in a hotel for a weekend, snowed in and joined by DS Kate Hamblin and her husband Hayden - what could possibly go wrong?

Really enjoyed it.

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.

Very cleverly done Christie type country house murder, but with a few knowing nods to Agatha. Read it, you won’t be disappointed, creepy and full of suspense.

Outstanding! Page turner! Definately 5 stars
This book has it all, great storyline that had me glued to it, a serial killer on the loose, full of action, twists and turns, a plot you can't read until the end!
Absolutely fantastic. Recommend this book

Thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Books