A fun Crime mystery

The story starts out as something that looks to be a cosy mystery. After attending her book club that discusses a book on wild swimming by a local celebrity, Jess ends up skinny dipping in one of the spots described in the book. Not only does a dog run off with her clothes but she also meets the writer when she stumbles on a dead body. The tone is set when the investigating officer, DI Leo George turns out to be friendly, dark, tall, and handsome.
The story changes into more of a serious murder mystery when it becomes clear that this murder is just the 1st one in a series. All of them occur on places described in Jago’s book. A strange habit of the killer is that he dresses up in and acts out the life of his last victim.
There are other issues that play at the same time. Michael (profiler and ex-boyfriend of Jess) is being trolled on the internet and the threats extend to Jess who’s searching for a teenage girl that ran away with her stepdad.

Here we come across another woman who was told by her mother to wear your best underwear in case you’re run over by the proverbial bus. There are quite a few good one-liners in the book that are bound to put a smile on your face, although some references might be a bit obscure for non-Brits.
1 was seriously under the impression that this was number 2 or 3 in a series, but to my surprise, it turns out to be the first one. There is some serious backstory with acquaintances and relationships that intertwine. This complicates the story a bit as we’re not yet acquainted with the characters. I can only assume that this is a spin-off from another series. I just found out that the characters appear in a standalone ‘don’t trust me’ that I haven’t read. I’m sure that it all makes things easier if you have read that first but I managed just fine.
Jess, the main character is a bit of a mess. The relationship with her boyfriend is ‘on hiatus’ and she lives with her friend Cory and her children. She used to work in the funeral parlour of her boyfriend’s parents where she mucked up somehow and now she temps as an office clerk. Her main interest is her PI business that specialises in finding missing persons.
DI George is a relatively normal guy, for a book detective that is (he hasn’t got any murdered or missing relatives). He’s passionate and determined to catch the murderer and he just thinks about Jess a bit much; I’m sure that they’ll meet again in the next adventures.
As the book focuses on wild swimming, I must admit that I’ve been guilty of that myself (not nude though) and it is greatly enjoyable on hot summer days. Down here in Belgium it is illegal, but I don’t think that many fines are issued; usually, you get off with a warning. The reason for that is the danger of drowning in unsupervised lakes, rivers, or canals and there have been a few cases of that over the last 2 summers with extreme heatwaves. You don’t drown because you’re a bad swimmer but because of undercurrents, shock from sudden temperature change in the water. There’s an added danger for leptospirosis (I haven’t heard of any recent cases though) and botulism (seen warning signs but no cases). You’ve been warned. Enjoy swimming but be careful not to go alone or don’t dive into obviously polluted water, I’d say.
This was a fun book to read with several likeable characters. I’m not too fond of Jago though and Drew, well he’s an ass and doesn’t deserve to be with Jess. Di George is the man to go for if you ask me. So yes, there’s more than enough romance in the book as well but luckily it never gets soppy. There’s a meaty crime (or rather 3 of them) to explore where a lot of people are possible suspects.
I thank NetGalley and One More Chapter for the free ARC they provided; this is my honest, unbiased review of it.