Clara’s Verdict
LJ Ross has done something most crime writers only dream of: built a series that improves with each instalment while maintaining the procedural rigour and emotional warmth that established its original audience. Berwick is the 24th DCI Ryan Mystery – a number that might suggest diminishing returns, and yet here we are, with a plot that puts the series’ emotional core under greater pressure than anything that has come before. Can Ryan trust the woman he married? It’s a question the reader doesn’t want to confront, and Ross forces the confrontation with considerable skill. Jonathan Keeble’s narration, a constant throughout the series, remains one of audio crime fiction’s great assets.
About the Audiobook
DCI Ryan – one of the country’s foremost murder detectives – receives the call no spouse ever wants: his wife Anna has been arrested for the murder of a well-known author. The evidence is circumstantial but building. Anna is a quiet academic, a devoted mother, a good friend – but her father was a killer, and he taught her how to use a gun. Ryan knows he cannot work this case. He also cannot not work this case.
Ross handles the familiar Northumbrian landscape with her usual pictorial care – the spectacular coastline around Berwick, the borderland landscapes – but the real territory here is psychological: the architecture of trust within a long marriage, the question of whether we ever fully know the people we love, and the weight of inherited darkness. The procedural elements are, as always, sound. The characterisation is the series’ strength, and this novel particularly in the depiction of Ryan’s internal conflict, which is drawn without melodrama and all the more effective for it.
The Narration
Jonathan Keeble is essential to the DCI Ryan experience – his voice has become so identified with Ryan and Phillips and the Northumberland landscape that it’s difficult now to imagine the series without him. He brings exactly the right balance of tension and warmth to Berwick, handling the most emotionally pressured passages with restraint and the procedural elements with clarity. At 9 hours and 13 minutes, this is a comfortable single-weekend listen.
What Readers Say
A 4.5-star rating from 9 early listeners – all five-star reviews except one four-star from a reader who has read every DCI Ryan book and simply notes it as “another good story.” Angela describes it as having “loads of OMG moments” and a plot that “did NOT disappoint.” Jaquie, who has read the entire series, calls it “one of the best series of crime novels I have ever read.” Jay Dunlop, reviewing after finishing Berwick, praises Ross’s fidelity to real police procedure and the moral complexity she brings to her villains. The consensus: the series keeps getting better, and the wait for Book 25 begins immediately.
Who Should Listen?
DCI Ryan readers should be at this series from the beginning – starting at Book 24 will mean missing considerable emotional context. New listeners who enjoy crime fiction with a strong sense of place, genuine procedural detail, and characters you come to care about should start with the first Ryan mystery and settle in for the long haul. Fans of Ann Cleeves’s Vera, Kate Ellis, and M.W. Craven will find themselves very much at home here.
Listen on Audible UK: Get Berwick on Audible UK.
