The Jansson Tapes by Colin Garrow
When a familiar leggy blonde slides onto the back seat of his cab with the offer of work, taxi-driver and amateur sleuth Terry Bell isn’t keen. However, compared to the tedium of driving a cab all day, the lure of another mystery is too strong to resist, and Terry agrees to help.
Tracking down a missing writer and his tape recorder sounds simple enough, but following the clues to a remote village, the case takes a dangerous turn when the man turns up dead. After the police take over, Terry and his sidekick Carol return home to find their flat ransacked—and that’s not the only surprise.
Caught between a suspicious detective inspector and the machinations of a mysterious woman, can the wily investigator unravel the mystery before the killer strikes again?
In this murder/mystery series set on England's northeast coast, The Jansson Tapes is book #3 in the Terry Bell Mystery series.
True-born Geordie Colin Garrow grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland and has worked in a plethora of professions including taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate. Colin has published three stage plays, six adventures for middle grade readers, two books of short stories, the Watson Letters series and the Terry Bell Mysteries. His short stories have appeared in several literary mags, including: SN Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Grind, A3 Review, Inkapture and Scribble Magazine. These days he lives in a humble cottage in North East Scotland where he writes novels, stories. poems and the occasional song.
Review
I am a Terry Bell groupie now! Colin very kindly sent me the two previous books in the series to read as well as The Jansson Tapes and I have to say I loved them all! Who would have thought that a taxi driver detective would work so well! They are funny, down to earth, definitely have the flavour of the North East and have great plots! What more can you ask for?!
The Jansson Tapes is the third in the Terry Bell mysteries but it can be read as a stand-alone. However, I do recommend reading the rest as they are so darn good! In this one Terry is asked to look into a missing Swede and of course he stumbles across a few bodies on his way! All the characters that you have loved from the previous books are there - Ralph, Mrs Carver, and of course Terrys’ crime fighting partner and lover Carol! Who else but Terry and Carol could eat a pizza when there is a body in the next room?! I love it!
The story in this one was great. Some characters get their comeuppance, Terry is lead on a merry wee dance round the caravan parks of the coast and occasionally picks up a few taxi fares as well. Although, he has decided to also set himself up a private detective.
It’s due to books like these ones that I love doing blog tours as you find treasures that you wouldn’t otherwise know about. I am a convert to these books and will be making sure that I read them whenever new ones are released!
