Water Clock Book

THE WATER CLOCK (Unl. Invest- Philip Dryden-England-Cont) - VG
Kelly, Jim - 1st in series
Penguin Books, 2003, UK Paperback - ISBN: 0141009330
First Sentence: Out on the Middle Level midnight sees the rising flood nudge open the doors of the Baptist chapel at Black Bank.
*** Reporter Philip Dryden nearly drowned as a boy and again when his car went into a river, leaving his wife, Laura, in 'locked-in syndrome' coma. His aversion to water is understandable when he attends a crime scene where a car, whose trunk contains a mutilated body, is pulled from a frozen river. A second body, the corpse having died 30-years previously, is found on the roof of Ely Cathedral. Dryden is on the trail of the story when it is found the two victims are tied to a crime from 1966. The investigation also ties to the night that changed his, and Laura's, life.
*** I can understand why this book was short listed for a CWA John Creasey award.. It did take me a bit to realize that while he's telling the present day story, he is also telling the events of the past and bringing the two together in an "oh, wow" ending with all the ends neatly tied up. The characters are great; Dryden is interesting and multi-dimensional and his driver, Humphrey H. Holt, could become a favorite of mine. Kelly's use of the weather is critical to the story. It was refreshing that the original crime isn't a serial killing. It is also nice that the story is not set in London, but in the Cambridgeshire Fens. This is the first book I've read of Kelly's and it definitely won't be the last.