Ruin Beach by Kate Rhodes

Ruin Beach by Kate Rhodes

Review of the novel Ruin Beach by Kate Rhodes

Published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

First Published: 2018

Dedication: For the heroic staff and volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Cost: £7.99 (UK Paperback 2019)

ISBN: 978-1-4711-6546-7 (Paperback Edition - 399 pages – starts on page 3)

This story is set around the Isles of Scilly with much of the action taking place on the Isle of Tresco. The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago lying 28 miles off Lands’ End, the South West tip of Cornwall, in the UK. There are five inhabited islands, but there are numerous other rocky islets (numbering about 140 in total). Tresco is the second-largest island with a population of 180 people (2001 census). Kate Rhodes provides a map of the isles and a larger one of Tresco, with a key setting out a number of the locations mentioned in the story. As we discover ‘there are no cars here, but the lanes are wide enough to accommodate local traffic, which consists of horse-drawn carts, bicycles and golf buggies for the elderly’.

The story is set over a ten-day period 11^th May to 20^th May and opens with:

It’s midnight when the woman begins her steep descent down Tregarthen Hill. Excitement washes through her system as she follows the rocky path, with the breeze warm against her skin. [….] When she drops down to the beach, she can feel someone’s eyes travel, across her skin, but the sensation must be imaginary; if she had been followed, she would have heard footsteps pursuing her through the dark.

The following day, as Detective Inspector Benesek Kitto ponders over a letter regarding his review meeting - which will decide if he can continue as Deputy Commander of the Isles of Scilly Police - he spots a traditional fishing smack heading from the isles of Tresco towards him on the quay on Bryher. The fisherman describes a body he has seen in the water at the entrance to a cave on the northernmost tip of Tresco. The boat turns around and with Kitto aboard, it’s not long before Piper’s Hole, a deep-water cave reveals its contents at the entrance; a body floating on the water is secured to the rocks by the oxygen tank attached to the corpse’s back. Tied to the body is a sealed bottle containing a poem.

The Isles have a been referred to as “the land that crime forgot”, but the body of a professional diver becomes serious business for the local police. As Kitto reflects, the islands’ population is so small he can almost name every inhabitant, but his knowledge of them is not sufficient for him to identify a likely suspect.

Having recently returned to the Isles of Scilly after a ten-year absence spent in London, as an undercover police officer, Kitto enjoys renewing his acquaintance with the local inhabitants. As the Detective Inspector walks from West to East and North to South, Kate Rhodes vividly describes the landscape of the island of Tresco, as the list of suspects could be any one of the local population. Kitto reflects on the situation: “The suspect would most likely have access to a sturdy boat that could be steered between the rocky crags and a capable captain that would more than likely have knowledge of the tides and beaches of the island”.

Three days have passed since Jude Trellon’s death, facts about her personality slowly emerging. She was a thrill-seeker who suppressed her love of danger once she had a child but may have found other risks to satisfy her thirst for excitement. I’m even more certain that whoever killed the young mother knew of her failings, and had no qualms about subjecting her to a terrifying death. It would take cold, intense rage to force an object into someone’s mouth then watch her drown. The killer’s method needs to be taken into account, as well as motivation. Whoever murdered Jude must have had access to a boat and strong sailing skills to escape the incoming tide, so every vessel that has visited Tresco recently needs to be searched.

There is no local police station on the island, so the manager of the New Inn Hotel offers up his attic as a temporary headquarters, and from here Kitto collates the pieces of the investigation. However, it is Kitto’s dog, Shadow, a sleek grey wolf-hound with glacial blue eyes that seems to have an intuition as to where his owner should be searching.

As the killer realises that in such a small community, almost anyone might know or have observed his behaviour, even though they might not have realised what they have seen. As further attempted murders occur, and further poems in bottles are found by Kitto, we discover a little about the rules and guidelines that all divers need to be aware of (PADI), however, a fuller insight would have added to the suspense implied in the story.

Vital to the investigation is the bitterness between various inhabitants that are being torn apart by the questions that DI Kitto asks, as he digs deeper into the history of the island and the notorious shipwrecks that surround the Isles of Scilly. It’s the victim’s husband, Ivar Larsson, a Swedish academic carrying out scientific research, that takes the brunt of the verbal attacks, and at one point, physically on his home and later on himself. To the islanders he will always be an outsider, not having been born on the isles.

Although the storyline follows the movements of DI Kitto, there is a second narrative told by the teenager Tom – the font and story descriptions noticeably change. Tom feels bound to the island as a result of the disability of his mother. Taught to dive by the murdered victim, the killer is convinced that Tom must know something about the movements of Jude, as they spent the previous summer driving off the northern coast of Tresco. They suspect the two of them were diving for treasure trove on one of the ancient shipwrecks, which is a theme behind the murder. Breaking up the Kitto investigation chapters, Kate Rhodes has Tom reveal his most anxious moments as he has concerns for his life. Tom is kidnapped and shut in the smelly hold of a local fisherman’s boat and when he reveals nothing to the killer, he is left to die in a cave as the incoming tide attempts to engulf him.

The story concludes with a bitter fight in the waters of Piper’s Hole, as DI Kitto struggles to overcome his attacker and at the same time haul an unconscious Ivar Larsson through a tight passage as the incoming tide nearly seals off their escape route.

The story is well written and captivating, but this is not a psychological thriller. Kate Rhodes breaks up the plot with side issues that try to convince the reader that DI Kitto is a man with issues; he has a love link with the owner of the local pub and has a difficult working relationship with his boss. However, for me there is one concern about the investigation and that is that Kitto, who has been on the island for the last three months, does not appear to know any of the local residents, although there are only about 180 people living on Tresco and I ask myself where he had been over the last three months. I enjoyed having the map of Tresco but found myself returning to it frequently and I thought the Rhodes should have described in more detail as to where Kitto was heading on the island. I must admit that I would certainly read further novels by the author, hoping they were just as captivating. Rating 4 stars.

Dr Sheppard

12 March 2019