Today I am thrilled to share my review of THE BAG OF SECRETS by Joy Ellis. This is book 6 in the brilliant Matt Ballard series and is a stunnning read you don’t want to miss.
THE BAG OF SECRETS
Format – Kindle
Publisher – Joffe Books
Publication Date – 15th November 2023
Genre – Crime thriller, mystery and suspense
Author – Joy Ellis
Buy from AMAZON
Read more on GOODREADS
Brand-new from multimillion-selling author Joy Ellis comes the book that everyone will be reading this Christmas.
Matt and Liz may have retired from the police, but that doesn’t guarantee a quiet life.
An abandoned carpet bag full of mysterious handwritten notes. A body in a marshy lagoon.
Matt is intrigued when his partner Liz brings home an old carpet bag she found dumped in the local library. It contains a pile of mysterious handwritten notes. Liz is convinced the bag belongs to Old Molly, a local woman who lives on the streets.
The following day, a body is discovered in a marshy lagoon. It’s Old Molly. Suffocated with an expensive men’s handkerchief.
Molly clearly knew something that got her killed. Liz believes she was trying to tell them something important. She calls on her nephew David to help decipher the carpet bag notes.
Meanwhile Matt is hired to find teenage runaway Liam Cooper. Liam has been missing for ten days now, and Matt has a very bad feeling about him.
A few days later, a second body is discovered in an old barn out on the fens.
Matt and Liz must piece together the cryptic clues Molly has left for them before more people die. The answers lead to the remote fenland village of Marshdyke-St-Mary — and a series of shocking secrets stretching back many years.
DISCOVER A TOTALLY ENTHRALLING MYSTERY.
This utterly gripping crime thriller is perfect for fans of L.J. Ross, J.D. Kirk, Angela Marsons, J.M. Dalgliesh, Elly Griffiths or Ann Cleeves.
READERS LOVE THE BAG OF SECRETS:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I love all of Joy Ellis’s books, but I do believe this is the best yet.’ Amanda P.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I love Matt and Liz. A fantastic book.’ Joanne N.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A stunningly captivating read. Wow, just wow!’ Misfits Farm
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A fascinating and intriguing read. Not to be missed.’ Carol S.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Suspense, intrigue, fantastic characters and some crazy twists and turns. Had me glued to my Kindle!’ Debbie B.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Matt and Liz are such great characters . . . Terrific.’ Louise G.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Another winner! So many twists and turns and red herrings, you won’t stop turning the pages.’ Bonita S.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I always read Joy with a cuppa and some chocolate . . . Loved it!’ Kelsey S.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘An excellent read . . . Plenty of suspense.’ Martha B.
THE SETTING
England’s rural fenland is a strange place, with its never-ending fields, winding tracks, and long straight droves (the old livestock routes) that lead to nowhere. The lonely lanes are flanked either side by deep drainage ditches and are, for a good part of the year, filled with tall, whispering reeds. Closer to the Wash, high seabanks form a barrier between river and marsh, and the richly fertile soil of the drained land. But when the mists come down, as they so often do, perspective is destroyed and all sense of direction lost, and then the fens become a rather frightening place of mystery and danger. Somewhere that you do not want to be at night.
Review
This is another absolutely gripping book by the brilliant Joy Ellis. This is book 6 in the Matt Ballard series but the books work perfectly as stand alone. the author has really knocked the ball out of the park with this one. Adrenaline pumping suspense from the first page to the last but so much more entwined into the story that I just had to keep reading and when I got to the end read it again. WOW just WOW.
Matt and Liz are detectives but had to retire from the Police service on health grounds after a very harrowing case. However, detective is in their blood so they set up a private investigation company: Haynes and Ballard Detective Agency. They work with the police on occasions and have a very good relationship with DCI Charley Anders.
They currently have a heavy workload including trying to track down a missing teenager but their interest is piqued when they receive a bag of random notes left behind in the library by a homeless woman. The notes make no sense and there are a lot of them. When the owner of the bag is found murdered the couple realise the bits of paper could hold the answers to her murder and nephew David is called in to help with the mammoth task of working out what they all mean.
What follows is a very complex treasure hunt to find out what Molly, the homeless woman, is trying to tell them. At the same time the missing teenager is still ongoing and it soon becomes clear there is something sinister going on but what is it and what is the secret Molly has kept for so long>
Absolutely gripping and intriguing with so much suspense and twists and turns my mind was spinning. The characters fit the story perfectly and it all slots together like a jigsaw towards the end. So many curve balls flying around it was just the most amazing book I have read in a long time. Read it, you wont be disappointed.
5 golden stars from me.
JOY ELLIS
UK #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE JACKMAN & EVANS AND DI NIKKI GALENA SERIES; SHORTLISTED FOR BOOK OF THE YEAR FICTION: CRIME & THRILLER AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2021
OVER 3 MILLION BOOKS SOLD!
Joy grew up and lived in Kent, trained in floristry in Mayfair and ran her own highly successful floristry business in Weybridge for many years. In the mid-1990s, she followed her lifelong love of books, first as the manager of an independent bookshop in Leatherhead, Surrey, then as a writer. When she retired, Joy and her partner Jacqueline and their two spaniels settled in a village just outside Boston, captivated by the Lincolnshire Fens.
Joy’s happy home life is far removed from her storylines, however, and while she loves living in the misty Fens, the area provides a remote and eerie backdrop to her novels. Joy is also able to add the authenticity vital to any crime thriller by drawing on Jacqueline’s inside knowledge, to confirm procedures and the reality of tackling brutal crime and criminals in a modern police force.
BOOKS BY JOY ELLIS
DI NIKKI GALENA SERIES:
-
CRIME ON THE FENS
-
SHADOW OVER THE FENS
-
HUNTED ON THE FENS
-
KILLER ON THE FENS
-
STALKER ON THE FENS
-
CAPTIVE ON THE FENS
-
BURIED ON THE FENS
-
THIEVES ON THE FENS
-
FIRE ON THE FENS
-
DARKNESS ON THE FENS
-
HIDDEN ON THE FENS
-
SECRETS ON THE FENS
-
FEAR ON THE FENS
-
GRAVES ON THE FENS
-
DETECTIVE NIKKI GALENA BOOKS 1-5 BOX SET
-
DETECTIVE NIKKI GALENA BOOKS 1-3 BOX SET
-
DETECTIVE NIKKI GALENA BOOKS 4-6 BOX SET
-
DETECTIVE NIKKI GALENA BOOKS 7-9 BOX SET
JACKMAN & EVANS SERIES:
-
THE MURDERER’S SON
-
THEIR LOST DAUGHTERS
-
THE FOURTH FRIEND
-
THE GUILTY ONES
-
THE STOLEN BOYS
-
THE PATIENT MAN
-
THEY DISAPPEARED
-
THE NIGHT THIEF
-
SOLACE HOUSE
-
DETECTIVES JACKMAN & EVANS BOOKS 1-3 BOX SET
MATT BALLARD SERIES:
-
BEWARE THE PAST
-
FIVE BLOODY HEARTS
-
THE DYING LIGHT
-
MARSHLIGHT
-
TRICK OF THE NIGHT
STANDALONE NOVELS:
-
GUIDE STAR
SHORT STORIES:
-
JOFFE BOOKS MURDER MYSTERY & SUSPENSE SHORT STORY COLLECTION
FOLLOW JOY ON
AUTHOR WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
GOODREADS
I organise Book Tours for Joffe Books and a few self-published authors. If you would like to join in the fun you can sign up via the link below or email me at: booksnall.blog@gmail.com for more information. Everyone is welcome to join in and help to share the book love.
https://mailchi.mp/74b299fbb681/bloggersignup
