'Omens of Death' by Nicholas Rhea: A Small Village Whodunnit That Could Have Been More

I voluntarily read and reviewed a finished copy of Omens of Death. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley & Agora Books for this free copy.

Title: Omens of Death
Author: Nicholas Rhea
Publisher: Agora Books
Pub. date: 19th December 2019 (first published 1 January 1996)
Series: Montague Pluke #1
Page count: 224
Source: NetGalley
Genres: adult fiction, mystery

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A bad omen. A sign of sorrow. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy…
Detective Inspector Montague Pluke has always been superstitious, so when he sees a lone crow fly over the Crowther’s home, he’s sure death is waiting in the wings.
And it doesn’t take long for Pluke’s premonitions to become a reality: the naked body of a young woman is found in a Druid’s Circle — a place thought by locals to be the site of black magic. Rumours circulate about human sacrifice and dark rituals, but Pluke’s not convinced the murder was committed in the circle.
Trusting his intuition, Pluke returns to the scene of that first omen of death: the house of Cyril and May Crowther. And when two more victims perish in suspicious circumstances, Montague Pluke is ready and waiting to catch the killer…
Omens of Death was first published in 1996.

Content warnings: death, murder, sexual content (mentioned), suicide (mentioned)

When I was younger, I used to read an overwhelming amount of Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton’s countless mystery reads. Something about Omens of Death reminded me of those old timey whodunnit vibes and I was left craving some good mystery. So here we are!

Omens of Death is the first book in the Montague Pluke Cases. In the small town of Crickledale, Pluke is the man everyone relies on to keep the peace in the village. When the town is baffled by the appearance of a naked dead woman at the Druid’s Circle, Montague Pluke and his team of policemen are pressed for time to solve the case, especially when more bodies turn up.

I was thoroughly baffled by the mystery behind the naked dead woman at the Druid’s Circle. It kept me guessing till the very minute Pluke made the discovery himself.
Pluke was quite an interesting character with his quirky fashion sense and his reliance on superstitious beliefs to predict developments in the case.
I really liked the small village setting with its cast of quirky but homely characters. I also loved that Pluke knew everyone in the village and the funny personalities the reader meets along the way.

Despite the wide variety of characters, I didn’t really feel deeply about any of them or form attachments to any of them. I usually like having at least a main character that I am rooting for but here, I didn’t really feel that deeply about anyone.
There were instances when the writing was way too descriptive and rambling.
I found the writer’s descriptions of females and female bodies to be rather cringe-inducing. I can’t really justify the author’s decision to include these details and I was repelled by these passages.
However much I liked the mystery, the story’s pace starts out sedate and ends up way too brisk in the second half. It felt like the author was rushing to bring everything to a close and felt like that ruined an otherwise great mystery.

Despite being centered around a great mystery with a quirky cast of characters, Omens of Death by Nicholas Rhea failed to impress me. I found the writing too dense and the author’s writing of females way too cringe-inducing. Even with the haphazard pace of the story, I still enjoyed reading Omens of Death though I wish it could have been more.

More Omens of Death content: Alex’s review

Nicholas Rhea is the pseudonym of former policeman and prolific writer Peter N Walker who was born in 1936 in Glaisdale on the North York Moors.

Born to an insurance agent and a teacher, he was the oldest of three children, winning a scholarship to Whitby Grammar School. He left in 1952 at the age of 16 and, dreaming of writing for a living, applied to the local paper, the Whitby Gazette. He was rejected and so went on to become a police cadet before joining the North Riding force full time in 1956.

He never gave up on his writing though, and began to put serious effort into it in the late 1950s, having his first short story published in the Police Review magazine at the age of 20. He fervently believed he would one day have a book published and wrote 13 separate novels in the then popular ‘kitchen sink’ genre, all of which were rejected. It was only when someone suggested he wrote about what he knew, police and crime, that his breakthrough came, and his first novel, Carnaby and the Hijackers, was published in 1967.

Continuing to rise through the ranks at the region’s police headquarters in Northallerton, he retired to write full time in 1982, having achieved the rank of inspector, and having had almost 30 books published. By then, he was press officer for North Yorkshire Police and was awarded a commendation for his media-facing role in the hunt for multiple murderer Barry Prudom.

Rhea is most recognised for his Constable series (now republished by Joffe Books) which spawned the hugely successful TV show, Heartbeat. Filmed on the North York Moors and centred around the village of Goathland, it ran for 18 seasons, over 350 episodes, and at its height achieved 18 million viewers in the UK, while also being broadcast internationally. He is also known for The Carnaby series, The Mark Pemberton Series and The Montague Pluke Series, as well as writing many factual books, particularly about the North Yorkshire countryside he loved so much. He was an active member and former chairman of The Crime Writers’ Association, and was awarded its John Creasey Award for services to the Association in 2007.

Married with four children, Rhea died of prostate cancer at St Leonard’s Hospice in York on April 21st 2017.

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