Like visiting friends you've not seen for ages

What a pleasure to revisit Ely and the Fens of eastern England in Jim Kelly's crime mystery novel Nightrise. It's a couple of years since I read my last Philip Dryden book, The Skeleton Man, and this one is set five years after the fictional journalist's previous outing.

It was a bit like visiting friends you've not seen for ages and who have hardly changed. Dryden's wife Laura has come out of her coma and just given birth to their son. The Crow, the local newspaper where Dryden works, is struggling in the new media climate. Humph is still driving the journalist around and learning foreign languages, this time Estonian.

The story takes place over one week and as with previous Dryden mysteries, weaves together several seemingly unconnected events. It touches on how the death of a loved one affects people, how deaths are registered, identity theft, and IT changes in journalism.

One of the things that Jim Kelly always does well is describing the Fens. Chapter 15 is particular vivid, when Dryden witnesses a re-flooding.

"the landscape was lifeless, which made the sky the most important facet of all, because it was the only moving, living thing. And so it didn’t matter how much water they let through the sluices, the sky would always be there; in fact, there’d be more of it, reflected in the water. Not a sea at all, or even a lake, carrying the inverted outlines of hills or mountains, pine trees, or lakeside homes; but instead just more sky."

There's not much to dislike in Nightrise. Only a churlish nerd would point out that the iMac laptop isn't a thing, but you can overlook that. It's best read in summer rather than in the middle of a cold snap, since it's set during a heatwave. Although the backstory is explained, making it unnecessary to read the previous five books, more enjoyment is gained if you've been with Dryden since 2003's The Water Clock. Re-discovering his immobile face "as if carved in stone on some cathedral tomb", that he's still finding food in his pockets that "he’d stowed away a few days earlier" and that Humph’s car's glove compartment is still "crammed with miniature spirits and wines" adds to the pleasure.