A Siege of Bitterns by Steve Burrows (Birder Murder Mystery, #1) * *
The story follows Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune, a French-Canadian detective who moved to England after a scandal in Canada interrupted his career. He has a reputation as an exceptional investigator, but he is also an avid birder. He lives in Norfolk, surrounded by marshes, wetlands, and bird reserves, and when several deaths occur, the investigation becomes intertwined with birdwatchers, conservation efforts, and environmental issues.
Unfortunately, this was a very disappointing mystery for me.
I gave the book two stars.
My biggest problem was that the balance felt completely wrong. I went into the story expecting a murder mystery with some birdwatching elements in the background. Instead, it felt like I got a birdwatching novel with a mystery attached to it. There were endless discussions about birds, habitats, conservation, and environmental protection. While I support environmental protection and appreciate its importance, the way these subjects were presented simply wasn't interesting to me. I found myself tuning out during many sections because they seemed to go on forever.
And that became a major problem because this is an audiobook that runs for nearly twelve hours. Twelve hours is not short for a mystery novel, and I never felt that the investigation itself justified that length. The pacing dragged badly. There were long stretches where it felt as though very little was happening apart from people discussing birds and ecological issues.
Domenic Jejeune himself was a likeable enough protagonist. I liked that he was an outsider. His French-Canadian background gave him a slightly different perspective from the people around him, and his passion for birding clearly came across. Readers who love birds will probably find him charming. Unfortunately, I simply don't share that passion, so many scenes that were probably intended to be fascinating left me cold.
What frustrated me even more was the mystery itself. Usually, even if I dislike aspects of a book, I can appreciate a clever solution. Here, by the end, I was genuinely confused. I finished the audiobook and thought perhaps I had missed something. So I actually looked at parts of the ebook afterwards, hoping that seeing the information on the page would help me understand how everything fit together.
It didn't.
Even after revisiting the ending, I still don't feel like I fully understand what happened or why certain characters acted as they did. That's probably the worst thing I can say about a mystery novel. A mystery doesn't necessarily have to surprise me, but I do want to understand it.
There were a few moments of humour that I enjoyed. One line that genuinely made me laugh was:
"But why have a collective noun for bitterns at all, if it's so unusual to see more than one at a time? I mean, nobody's ever felt the need to come up with a collective noun for intelligent men, have they?"
That sort of wit helped lighten the mood occasionally.
In the end, I can't really recommend A Siege of Bitterns unless you're already interested in birdwatching. I suspect birders and nature enthusiasts will get far more out of it than I did. But as a mystery, it simply didn't work for me. The investigation dragged, the ending left me confused, and I spent far more time learning about birds than trying to solve murders.
The title promised a siege of bitterns. What I got was a siege of bird facts, and in the end, they outnumbered the mystery.
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