The Third Sin

Aline Templeton

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

Pleasure is the highest good: the group who called themselves the Cyrenaics embraced the hedonistic principle until the death of one of their members from an overdose. Sobered, the group went their separate ways. One headed for Canada, another disappeared and a third was believed to have committed suicide - at least until his body turns up two years later in the wreck of a car swept up on the Solway mud flats.

The murky relationships among the Cyrenaics, revived when they start returning for a party celebrating Scotland's Year of Homecoming, bring more suffering and death.

DI Marjory Fleming, called in to help the neighbouring division with the struggling murder enquiry, faces obstruction and hostility that begins to hinder her investigation of another murder on her own patch. With tensions both in her team and at home, Fleming starts to feel the odds are stacked against her. Can she piece the puzzle together before someone else dies? And in the greedy pursuit of pleasure, just how far might a Cyrenaic go?

About the Author:
Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh with her husband and their Dalmatian dog in a house with a balcony built by an astronomer to observe the stars over the beautiful city skyline. She has worked in education and broadcasting and has written numerous articles and stories for newspapers and magazines. Her books have been published in translation in several European countries as well as in the United States. She has been Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland and has been nominated for the Crime Writers' Association committee. See www.alinetempleton.co.uk for more information.

Review by A. W. Colclough (311215) Rating (8/10)

Review by A. W. Colclough
Rating 8/10
Do what you will is all of the law for the pleasure seekers calling themselves the Cyrenaics, until one of their number dies from an overdose and another commits suicide. Sobered up they go their separate ways, then the missing body of the members believed to have killed himself turns up on the Solway mud flats. Battling unhelpful colleagues as much as evasive suspects DI Marjory Fleming must untangle a web of lies and rivalries with murder at its heart.

This is a solid, if not massively original crime novel, if that sounds like damnation dressed up as faint praise then it shouldn't. Novelty isn't always a good thing in a novel, at least not if it leads down a pretentious dead end.

The Third Sin touches all the bases you'd expect, there is a closed community, two in fact, that formed by the Cyrenaics themselves and that of the small Scottish town against the conservative values of which they think their self-indulgence is a reaction. Long buried secrets and rivalries are brought out into the light and there is no more deadly enemy than someone you think is a friend.

All of this can be found in innumerable books in the crime genre both old and new, what Templeton brings to the table is a set of characters who are fully three dimensional. Fleming in particular is a refreshing alternative to the all too usual run of solitary, divorced, drink more than they should, fictional cops of both genders, with a family life every bit as complicated as the cases she investigates.

Templeton also has a strong feeling for place, the landscape of the Solway Firth with its moody atmospherics is almost an extra character.

For all that is doesn't break much in the way of new ground this is a book by a writer who knows and respects the conventions of her genre; more importantly she is able to use them to tell an engaging story.
A. W. Colclough (31st December 2015)