A detective mystery set in GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Crime mystery set in PENZANCE, CORNWALL
4th August 2026
The Mermaid’s Cry by Kate Rhodes, crime mystery set in Penzance, Cornwall
The Mermaid’s Cry is the latest in Kate Rhodes’ series featuring Detective Inspector Ben Kitto. After the traumatic death of his wife and unborn child on Bryher, Isles of Scilly, Ben has relocated to Penzance. Here he hopes to escape his grief and during his compassionate leave he will try to focus on his toddler son, Noah. Penzance is familiar to him and he finds work as a carpenter, while Noah settles in to the local daycare setting. Ben goes for a walk toward the harbour with Noah in his pushchair to be alone with his thoughts. He watches as a young woman walks along the harbour wall with a pram, holding her baby. Suddenly someone dashes forward and snatches the child, throwing it into the water. Without thinking, Ben dashes to rescue the baby from certain death by drowning.
The book has glimpses into the potential murderer’s motivation. Certain chapters describe the thoughts of this unknown stranger, who is obsessed with the local legend of the Mermaid of Zennor. The Mermaid, it was said, had lured a young husband to live with her below the waves. The stranger believes the Mermaid is calling for a child to live with her. They must serve the Mermaid by finding an innocent child, neglected by its parents, and send it to live with the Mermaid below the waves. They leave clues, in the form of mermaid statuettes, in the vicinity of potential victims.
Ben meets a variety of people with complicated pasts and wonders about their stories, while the reader tries to guess whether they are sufficiently damaged to be the murderer. The author certainly gives us plenty to choose from and almost nobody is ruled out until the very end. Ben, meanwhile, has rejected a request from the local police to work on the case. He doesn’t trust himself, but when it becomes apparent that his own child might be at risk, he has no choice but to try to find the perpetrator.
The setting is very well described. The author’s affection for Cornwall is clear from the way she observes both the beauty that appeals to tourists and the deep-rooted love the Cornish characters have for their home.
I liked the storyline much more than I expected to, though I was a bit frustrated by the lack of rigour in the police investigation and a few oddities about the text that hopefully were edited out of the published version. On the whole I found it very enjoyable and you don’t need to have read the other books in the series to find this one worthwhile.
Sue for the TripFiction Team
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