It seems like I’m reading a book from the Midsomer Murders series once every two years, which probably tracks with all the other series that I want to continue reading but always forget to do so.

A Ghost in the Machine follows the inhabitants of Forbes Abbot. It all starts when Carey, Mallory’s aunt, passes away. Sick of his job in London, Mallory and his wife, Kate, decide to move to Forbes Abbot. Along the way, their rather unpleasantly self-centered daughter, Polly, tries and succeeds on getting her hands on more money to fill a debt she owes. As they all settle into village life, a second death occurs – this time of a good family friend, Dennis, and at least one person thinks that it’s murder.

If that all sounds confusing to you, it’s because the plot is quite complicated. The murders occur in the middle of all these domestic squabbles, as we are introduced to a whole host of characters apart from Mallory and Kate. Many of them are not very likeable and some of them, if I were to talk about them, would result in part of the plot being spoiled. All this to say – you can’t really separate the mystery from the people, so even though the case is only officially investigated in the latter half of the book, you feel like things have already been set in motion for quite a while.

My biggest surprise from this book is that it’s not very cosy, which is different from my memory of the other two books and from the BBC series. Even DCI Barnaby is a lot more cynical than I remembered, and there is very little of the uplifting cosy feeling that tends to happen in village mysteries (regardless of the fact that there is a murder).

Still, the book is intriguing and I read on despite my dislike of a few characters because I wanted to know what happened. And I don’t just mean finding out who the murderer was. Because there are quite a few characters that we follow, I found myself invested in their particular storylines. Would they have a happy ending?

Unfortunately, not everyone has one. The ending felt realistic, which is not exactly the same as satisfying. Some characters fared better than others, and probably the two I was rooting for the most had a good ending, but there were also some relationships that were fractured beyond repair.

Overall, this was an intriguing mystery that featured a big cast of realistic, but not always likeable, characters. It’s been a while, so perhaps it’s just my bad memory that made me feel like this book was different in tone from the other two that I’ve read, so perhaps what I need to do is read another book in the series before another two years pass!