Clara’s Verdict
A good second novel has a quiet burden to carry. It has to prove that the debut was not a fluke, and Sycamore Gap does that with real assurance. LJ Ross takes the DCI Ryan Mysteries into their second outing and, to my ear, tightens almost everything. The setting is more dramatic, the emotional stakes for Ryan run deeper, and the puzzle at the centre is a cold case with genuine bite.
What I like is how confidently Ross trusts her landscape to do half the work. A skeleton hidden in Hadrian’s Wall for a decade is a marvellous premise, part history lesson, part fresh wound, and she keeps the pressure rising without ever losing the human warmth that softens the darker turns. It is a step up from a strong start, and it left me in no doubt that this series had legs.
I appreciate, too, how Ross deepens Ryan himself here. The demons he is forced to confront are not merely plot furniture. They give the detective a private stake in the bones at Sycamore Gap and make the cat and mouse pursuit feel like more than a procedural exercise. As an editor I always looked for that marriage of case and character, the sense that solving the mystery costs the investigator something. This book has it, and it is the better for it.
About the Audiobook
The second DCI Ryan Mystery opens with Ryan believing he has finally put his turbulent history behind him. Then, in the early hours of the summer solstice, the skeleton of a young woman is found inside the Roman Wall at Sycamore Gap. She has lain undiscovered for ten years, and it becomes Ryan’s job to piece together who she was and how she came to be there.
From that discovery, the enquiry lines cross and merge until Ryan is forced to confront his own demons and enter a deadly game of cat and mouse with a killer who seems unstoppable. Ross sets the whole thing amid the spectacular scenery of Hadrian’s Wall country in Northumberland, and once again the land is more than a backdrop. It presses in on the investigation, ancient and indifferent, while the murder and mystery are peppered with the sprinkling of romance and humour that regular listeners will recognise as her signature.
The Narration
Jonathan Keeble returns for a listen of roughly nine and three quarter hours, and he clearly relishes the darker, more personal register of this instalment. There is a restraint to his reading of the cold case material that I found effective. He lets the horror of a decade-old death sit quietly rather than reaching for melodrama.
He also handles the growing cast with a sure touch, keeping the banter of the team distinct from the menace of the killer and the tenderness of Ryan’s private life. The pacing suits a story built on a slow reveal, gathering weight chapter by chapter until the final confrontation. It is the sound of a narrator settling comfortably into a series he plainly understands.
What Readers Say
With an average of 4.4 stars from 50 ratings, Sycamore Gap draws warm and often loyal responses. A number of reviewers who know the region well single out how faithfully Ross renders it. One who lives in the area and visited Hadrian’s Wall on holiday called it the perfect choice and praised descriptions so vivid you could picture places you had never seen. Several describe it, on a second read, as still keeping them guessing.
The reviews also speak warmly to the craft of the writing itself. One reader, familiar with the difficulty authors face in following a strong debut, felt Ross more than sustained the quality, bringing the same storytelling skill to her second book. Another, holidaying along Hadrian’s Wall, found the descriptions so precise that they could picture each location perfectly, and promptly bought the next book at a visitor centre near the site.
There is a gentle consensus in the reviews that this book improves on the first, and more than one reader recommends starting with Holy Island to get the fuller picture rather than treating it purely as a standalone. Even the four-star notes are affectionate, praising the same level of writing and storytelling skill as the debut. Taken together they describe a very British crime thriller that readers finish and then immediately buy the next.
Who Should Listen?
This one is for the reader who loves a cold case wrapped in real landscape, and for anyone who enjoyed Holy Island and wants to watch Ryan and his world deepen. Newcomers can follow it on its own, but you will draw far more from it having met these people first. If Hadrian’s Wall, a decade-old secret and a patient game of cat and mouse sound like your evening, this will more than satisfy.
When you are ready, you can Listen to Sycamore Gap on Audible and follow Ryan back into the shadow of the Roman Wall.
