Newest Crime Reviews

The Wolves of London - The Obsidian Heart Trilogy (Book 1) by Mark Morris

Fantasy

Alex Locke has grown from the young petty criminal he once was. Now a psychology lecturer with a beautiful 5-year-old daughter he has every incentive he needs to stay straight. It would take something devastating to make him return to his former life but devastation happens. Alex is coerced into doing on last job: stealing a piece of heart shaped obsidian from someone it didn’t belong to in the first place. What are the consequences? What's so special about this piece of rock? As all hell breaks loose, Alex is about to find out. Full review...

Confidentially Yours by Charles Williams

Crime

Carthage was what you might call 'backwoods' and there wasn't really all that much to do there. For recreation, hunting probably came top of the list and John 'Duke' Warren went for an early morning duck shoot before going to work. Whilst in the shoot he heard two shots from an adjoining blind and on the way out saw the car of a fellow shoot member. It was only later that he found out that the shots had caused the death of Dan Roberts. At first it looked like suicide, but Warren and the police realised that it's not often that suicide victims shoot themselves twice. Full review...

Black Noise by Pekka Hiltunen

Crime

It was just one of them quirky internet things to begin with. Empty videos appearing on the internet. Dark expanses of time: no images, no sound.

They'd been uploaded from hacked accounts: teenagers who didn't know anything about it or about each other. There were ten of them altogether. If it had stopped there it would have been one of those 9-days-wonders of the web. An oddity talked about for years, freaking a few people out, but sinking, ultimately without much trace. Full review...

Falling Freely, As If In A Dream by Leif G W Persson

Crime

In 2007 Lars Martin Johansson, the head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Sweden, was approaching retirement and he had one unsolved case which he would dearly love to clear: the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. Palme, without bodyguards, had left a cinema in central Stockholm with his wife and was walking home when he was shot in the back. He died almost instantly and his wife suffered a minor injury, whilst the assassin sprinted away into the people milling around in the city. There were witnesses to the killing and people who saw the killer as he escaped. Some time after the death a man was convicted of the murder, but he was later cleared and more than twenty years later the identity of the killer is still a mystery. Full review...

This Little Piggy by Bea Davenport

Crime

In 1984 I turned two years old, unconcerned by what the miners were up to and more impressed by being served two different drinks at once at my birthday party. I've seen the photos. For Clare Jackson, though, the summer of 1984 changes everything. A small town journalist, she gets the stuff dreams are made of: a murder on her patch, and the murder of a baby, no less. Set against the backdrop of the miners’ strike (the baby belongs to one of the scabs), it’s a tense time on the troubled Sweetmeadows estate and she's not the only one who needs a drink or two (like my 2 year old self) to get through it. Full review...

Race to Death (DI Ian Peterson 2) by Leigh Russell

Crime

A man falls to his death at York races, with the wind whistling past his ears indistinguishable from the roar of the crowd. But is the death suicide or murder? For newly-promoted DI Ian Peterson the pressure is on and his team need to solve the case quickly. Unfortunately the killer is also following events as they unfold. Full review...

Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates

Crime

I think I have finally understood why it is that over the last few years, authors have increasingly insisted on non-linear structures for their novels. It is a deliberate and possibly conscious ploy to try to make them un-filmable. The Hollywood rights are certainly lucrative, but if my theory doesn't leak like the Jumblies' boat then our complex-structure-loving writers are not just being too clever for their own good, they are trying to be true to the great works of literature that they aspire to emulate. Full review...

Bitterwash Road by Gary Disher

Crime

Shots fired on Bitter Wash Road, is the call that comes in, three weeks after he arrived. Hirsch is the only cop in town, so obviously it's up to him to try to figure out exactly where 'the tin hut' might be and discover whether this is just a local looking for rabbit stew or something more sinister. Full review...

Darkness, Darkness: Resnick's Last Case by John Harvey

Crime

It's difficult to believe that it's thirty years since the miners' strike, not least because a lot of the enmities still live on. It wasn't so much that it was the miners against the government and the police as the fact that it was neighbour against neighbour - and sometimes the problem was within a family. The Nottinghamshire miners were less militant than some of their northern counterparts - and many continued to work. And so it was in Bledwell Vale. The pit there was just about played out and was scheduled for closure, so many men were continuing to work, despite the picketing. Six months after the end of the strike the pit did close, but there was no magic solution for Bledwell Vale and thirty years on another row of the old Coal Board houses was being demolished when the skeleton of a woman was discovered. Full review...

Help for the Haunted by John Searles

General Fiction

Rose and Sylvester Mason make their living from helping the haunted, performing exorcisms and running seminars across America on the subject of the paranormal. When they are murdered in a church, their daughters, Rose and Sylvi, are left negotiating the complex legacy their work has left behind. Full review...

Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen

Crime

We all have bills to pay and many of us have felt that shiver down our spine as we realise we may be a little short this month. What we don’t do is take a scribbled note saying you have a gun into a bank and force money out of the till. For one out-of-work accountant, Carter Tomlin, this is the option he chooses over bankruptcy and one crime leads to another. Will spiky FBI Special Agent Carla Windermere and laidback local cop Kirk be able to catch this white collar criminal before his cuffs become stained with blood? Full review...

Remember, Remember by Lisa Cutts

Crime

Detective Constable Nina Foster has just returned to work after after a stabbing which nearly killed her. Everyone - even Nina - thinks that she's going to be taking it gently and easing herself back into the job. She's working on cold cases - this time it's a train crash which happened in 1964 - but what she's given is just a little tame compared to the cases which her colleagues are struggling to cope with. Drugs deaths and robberies are a lot more immediate, but then - with one of those peculiar quirks of fate - evidence emerges which links the crash which happened half a century ago to the current spate of drug deaths. The woman who is supposed to be taking it easy is back in the thick of it. Full review...

The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons by Lawrence Block

Crime

The return of Lawrence Block's wonderful burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr, 9 years after the tenth novel in the series, was my most-anticipated book release for an awfully long time. It is an absolute pleasure to report that the character has lost none of his charm, Block's writing is as superb as ever, and the plot is as ingenious as in any of the previous 10. I say that having reread them all in the twelve months before reading this one. This is up there along with The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart as my favourite in the series. For newcomers to the series, I'd definitely recommend starting at the beginning, but if you do want to dive into this one, you definitely can without feeling too lost. Full review...

The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell

Crime

Before the Second World War a series of tunnels were dug under the green fields of Loughton in Essex. As children will they played in them, acted out small dramas and made them their own - until they were told not to go there again by the father of one of the children. He was known as Woody - a man with a sharp temper along with a disinclination to work, which he managed to achieve because of the money which his wife had inherited and which was supplemented by some inheritances of his own. There was a child in the family - Michael - but neither parent took any interest in him and his mother spent most of her time indulging herself. When Woody discovered that she was being unfaithful to him he murdered her and her lover, cut off one of their hands and buried both in a tin box far out in the fields. Full review...

The Axe Factor by Colin Cotterill

Crime

Jimm Juree's family is beyond dysfunctional. Her mother apparently hired her father, one brother is her sister as well as a computer genius and her other brother is dating a body builder old enough to be his mother. Jimm is relatively normal: a thirty-four-year-old crime reporter living in - and helping to run - a dilapidated beach resort on the Gulf of Thailand - but without a crime to report on. Until, that is, she was approached by Nurse Da about the fact that the Doctor from the health centre had gone missing. There doesn't actually seem to be a crime, but Jimm agrees to find out what has happened to Dr. Somluk. Full review...

The Dark Meadow by Andrea Maria Schenkel and Anthea Bell (translator)

Crime

It was at the end of the war that Afra Zauner returned to her parents' cottage in Finsterau. She'd lost her job as a waitress and it was some time before she realised that she was pregnant. When Albert was born her father turned against her and the boy and there was little sympathy for her in the village - but they didn't expect that Afra would be murdered. The obvious suspect was Johann Zauner. It was no secret that there had been constant arguments between him and his daughter and he had some injuries which he couldn't entirely explain. When a policeman 'obtained' a confession it seemed that this was an open-and-shut case. Full review...

Train That Carried The Girl: 2 (Riccarton Junction) by W Scott Beaven

Women's Fiction

A few years have passed since we last met Kikarin, the then teenager growing up in the wilds of the Scottish borders surrounded by some pretty wild people. Her parents have gone back to live in Japan while her brother has fled abroad as a result of the family's near fatal brush with the criminal underworld. This leaves Kiri to continue her life with her friends Ainslie and Melanie filling the void. Although disappointed to have missed out on her honours degree in archaeology, Kiri finds alternative employment selling double glazing for commercial premises. Some things change but Kiri is still scarred by the past. She wants to settle down but will this past let her? Full review...

The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson

Thrillers

Germany may be defeated as the embers of World War II grow cold but Kasper Meier is making the most of it. His trade in black market goods and casual private investigation work augment the meagre rations for him and his dying father. When a woman asks him to find a missing British airman he refuses – it's not really his line. She blackmails Kasper and still he refuses but then the note arrives: This is bigger than you. You don't have a choice. Queers still die in Berlin. Find the pilot. It seems that he's been seen with another man and now he has a decision to make that will either cost or save his life. Full review...

The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen

Crime

The professional criminal is the type of person who gets in, does the job and then gets out again. Sounds like the perfect way to stay undetected as a lifelong miscreant, but does not sound like the most exciting narrative for a story. Instead, take a bunch of young kidnappers who are drunk on their own success, whose racket goes wrong one day when they pick up the wrong mark. Watching their lives spiral out of control would be a much more thrilling read. A read just like The Professionals. Full review...

The Killing Room: A Sandro Cellini Mystery by Christobel Kent

Crime

Work had been a bit thin on the ground for private investigator Sandro Cellini and it was the only reason that he agreed to become head of security for a luxurious private residence which overlooked Florence. The previous occupant of the job had been 'let go'. It wasn't long before Sandro realised that his predecessor had also been murdered. It was this that worried his wife, Luisa - but Sandro was more concerned with establishing who was responsible for a series of dirty tricks which had occurred at the Palazzo San Giorgio. And on top of this he has to sort out the problems without antagonising the wealthy residents. Full review...

Before You Die by Samantha Hayes

Crime

A stolen bike, a crash, a death.

Anywhere else it would be a catastrophic accident. Here, it's suicide. Another one. Please don't let it be starting all over again.

D.I. Lorraine Fisher is one of those rare creatures in modern detective fiction. She's normal. Married, with two daughters who she only partly understands, and a husband who she loves to bits, and not enough time to spend with any of them. She has a good career, because it's clearly what she was born to do. No quirks, no hang-ups, she's just good at her job, because she thinks like a copper – which means she doesn't give up at the first hurdle. When things nag at her, she lets them, until she can hear what it is they are trying to tell her. Full review...

Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri

Crime

It's quite possible that Inspector Montalbano would not have been sent to investigate the perfectly-executed robberies had it not been that it was the rich, the elite of Vigata who had been targeted. Initially he was reluctant to take on the investigation but it soon became clear that it wasn't just the fact that they'd been burgled that linked the victims. And then there was Angelica... Full review...

The Murder of Harriet Krohn by Karin Fossum

Crime

It was early November and Charlo Torp, an obsessive gambler who was so deep in debt to the people he should not owe money to that he feared for his life, set out to solve his problems. An expensive bunch of flowers which needed a signature on delivery would get him into the house of Harriet Krohn - and a spot of burglary would net him enough to pay off his debts. All goes according to plan up to a point - but then it all goes wrong when Harriet Krohn fights back and Torp uses the butt of the revolver he brought to frighten her to bludgeon her about the head and she's found dead the following morning. The only clue for Inspector Konrad Sejer is the abandoned bunch of flowers. Full review...

Riccarton Junction: 1 by W Scott Beaven

Crime

Kikarin (Kiri to her friends), moves with her family from cosmopolitan London to the wilds of the Scottish borders where not all accept her Japanese/English mixed heritage. Her father works in forestry for the local laird and her mother lives for the day when Kiri's brother, Keith, is released from the Young Offenders' Institute. However, bringing Keith home again doesn't mean the end of their problems or indeed his. Full review...

Borderline by Lawrence Block

Crime

I can imagine the scene back in 1950s America. The Hays Code was at full force meaning that movies where forced to dull their more exuberant edges. Comic books had been vilified as perverting the minds of the youth; horror had turned to All American Superheroes. That left the hidden Dime Novel, a book you could pick up for only 10 cents to revel in its vicarious pleasures. Anyone could don an old Macintosh coat and pick up something like Lawrence Block’s ‘Borderline’, a book that purports to be crime noir, but is something very different indeed. Full review...

Complex 90 by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

Crime

If you ever decide to revisit the Film Noir genre of the 40s and 50s may I suggest ‘Kiss Me Deadly’, a pretty looney film about a shining briefcase and the maverick PI sent out to recover it. This Private Investigator was none other than Mike Hammer, star of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane. Unfortunately, Spillane is no longer with us, but before his death he gave some unfinished manuscripts to prolific crime writer Max Allan Collins. ‘Complex 90’ is the result of one of their collaborations and you may be glad to know that it is almost as insane as the movie. Full review...