As the series begins, DI Walsh has just been saved from a permanent suspension thanks to a transfer to the “Last Chance Saloon” crime unit. His first case involves a letter sent by a woman who was murdered 20 years prior. That letter brings new suspects into the picture, and DI Walsh and his colleagues will have to try to make sense of the very cold case if they're to bring the real culprit to justice. Poe is a Detective Sargeant in the hinterlands of northern England. He, his everpresent brilliant digital genius and their boss, DCI Stephanie Flynn (who once worked for Poe, prior to his suspension for behavior inappropriate to his job. Now he works for her and everyone seems to find that very workable although there is a lot of kvetching. But that is largely because Poe is intolerant of many things, like those people who do not agree with him and he clearly does not suffer fools gladly so he frequently pisses off others.

Why did you decide to pair up two completely different personalities, who, on paper, look like they wouldn’t work well together? Always a fan of M.W. Craven and his Washington Poe series, I raced to get my hands on the latest thriller. Each novel in the series has been highly unique and this was no exception. Someone is killing people through highly complex toxins, though the means by which they are administered remain the greatest mystery. Washington Poe and his team work to decipher what’s going on and how they can stay one step ahead of a killer given the moniker The Botanist. A chilling story that reads so easily, proving Craven’s superior abilities. The Killing Field– While having breakfast and debating how to spend the remainder of their holiday, Poe and Tilly are requested to head to a Cumbrian airfield once known as the killing field.The Mercy Chair (2024) – Washington Poe has a story to tell. And he needs you to listen. You’ll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder . . . He’ll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it. He’ll tell you how the man’s murder was connected to a tragedy that happened fifteen years earlier when a young girl massacred her entire family. You get humour - omg this one had me laughing out loud and giggling hours later when I thought about some of the things that happened to Poe because of course it was going to happen to Poe. Tilly’s innocence and never ending loyalty are beautiful and filled with laughs. Poe as always is his dry and grumpy self which just never gets old. He adores his friend Tilly and will always defend her - never end this friendship it is truly delightful. 🤣

While the series has been optioned for television, we've yet to see any casting notices, production updates, or air dates. Sadly, options are just that – they give a producer the OPTION to produce a show or renew the contract within a given timeline. They don't always turn into finished productions.Should one decide to proceed with the serial killer theme, the best ones create empathy for the victims and even sometimes the killer. But here, the author fails. Even with the threat that unknown innocents may die, one instinctively knows it won’t happen, so any sense of real danger is lost. Sadly, the one scene which was, one supposes, intended to be clever, mimics a scene from “The Thomas Crown Affair.”