Best-selling crime novelist Jim Kelly has written Death Wore White, a superb mystery which introduces his readers to Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant George Valentine. Kelly has done an outstanding job of making this odd pair of sleuths three dimensional. Shaw is young, athletic, and ambitious. He wears an eye patch because of a recent injury. He has an interracial marriage. Valentine is elderly, widowed and lonely. He likes to drink, smoke, and gamble. The two dislike each other for several reasons. Valentine hates working for a younger man. Most importantly, Peter Shaw is the son of Valentine's dead partner, Jack Shaw--a disgraced officer accused of planting evidence to convict a filthy child murderer. Valentine has vowed to clear his former partner's name. Peter Shaw also wants to convict the killer but he doesn't agree with Valentine's methods. Nevertheless, Shaw and Valentine are adept detectives and the reader will grow to like them as I did.

Jim Kelly doesn't waste a single word. The plot for Death Wore White is extremely complex. He throws in plenty of deaths to keep it fast paced. (Anyone who knows me can tell you I relish a high body count.) The CSI procedures are very interesting. The tiniest clues yield the largest results. Every character who is interviewed by the detectives appears to be guilty of something illegal. This is one of many reasons why Death Wore White reminded me of the Agatha Christie novels that I loved reading as a child. Concerning the characters, it would be negligence on my part not to mention the most significant one: the cold, bleak, deadly weather. The weather has been given a name--Death--and it wears white. People become trapped and die because of the frigid temperatures of the ice and snow. Like a bottle of liquid white, the weather hides clues as to what really happened that fatal night on Siberia Belt.

For those of you who love a good mystery, Death Wore White is highly recommended. It has elements of other genres, such as horror and romance. There are plenty of horrifying shocks and surprises. For example, there is a creature that most readers will find absolutely creepy and terrifying. The relationship between Peter Shaw and his wife and daughter is very touching; he struggles to find time to spend with them.

I look forward to reading more of Jim Kelly's novels featuring Peter Shaw and George Valentine. Hopefully, these men will learn to become better friends and partners. Also, there were some loose ends in Death Wore White that still need tying up.

A former journalist, Kelly is the author of the popular mysteries involving Philip Dryden, a crime reporter for a weekly newspaper in Cambridgeshire, England. Kelly's debut novel, which also featured Dryden, is the award-winning The Water Clock.