Newest Crime Reviews

	The Boy Who Fell (Inspector Tom Reynolds) by Jo Spain Crime There were six friends: four men and two women. They're all about eighteen and they've known each other since they started school. Both girls - Hazel Brophy and Charlotte Burke - have been in relationships with one of the boys, but Charlotte was determined that it would not be sexual. Hazel's views were so dramatically opposite that you wondered how they could be friends. They were all partying in a derelict house when Luke Connelly was pushed to his death from a third floor window and Daniel Konaté Jones was charged with rape and murder. Daniel was loosely associated with the group but never felt himself one of them. He didn't come from a wealthy background, is of mixed race and openly gay. Targets don't come much easier than that, except for one thing. Full Review
	The Suffering of Strangers by Caro Ramsay Crime Roberta (please call her 'Bobby') Chisholm is sleep deprived. Six-week-old Sholto doesn't ever seem to sleep, so Bobby's like a robot. There's a little light on the horizon, though: her husband James is up for a new job, which could mean quite a bit more money. When he rings to tell her that he's got it he's obviously over the moon and tells Bobby to go to the local shop and get a bottle of champagne so that they can celebrate. For once Sholto has dropped off to sleep and when Bobby gets to the shop she's reluctant to disturb him: surely there won't be a problem if she dashes into the shop to get the bubbly? She can keep an eye on the car through the shop window, but when she comes out, the car has gone... Full Review
	Bold Lies (DI Kelly Porter 5) by Rachel Lynch Crime It was the smell which announced the presence of the body in the wheelhouse of a boat and identification wasn't going to be easy as the man was stark naked. There were all the signs of a brutal, cold-blooded execution but gradually the man was traced back to Allendale House, the estate of the former Lord Allendale, and then to London, where two more bodies, naked, in a staged setting in a garage, were discovered. Senior Investigating Officer DI Kelly Porter had to go to London and was shocked to discover that the SIO for that case was DCI Matt Carter, her manipulative and untrustworthy ex-lover. It was going to be anything but easy to work alongside Matt the Tw... Ah, well let's not go there. Full Review
	The Playground Murders by Lesley Thomson Crime Rachel Cater was having an affair with her boss, Chris Philips, an auctioneer. It was, she told her mother, love at first sight. Her mother was more sceptical and wondered why, if it had been love at first sight, it had taken him so long to do anything about it. Still, more than anything, she wanted her daughter to be happy. That was what Rachel wanted too and it was why she went to the Philips' family home, determined to have it all out in the open. Instead she was stabbed fifteen times. Her lover was convicted of her murder. Full Review
	All That's Dead (Logan McRae 12) by Stuart MacBride Crime It seemed like a good idea. Logan 'Lazarus' McRae was back at work after a year off sick. He'd been stabbed in the line of duty and recovery had been slow: he still had some pain. His first case was to be a simple one - just to ease him back into work - but it turned out to be anything but. Professor Wilson, a high-profile anti-independence campaigner has gone missing, apparently abducted from his home, but nothing was left behind except some bloodstains. In much the same way that Brexit is dividing people south of the border, there's going to be a war between the pro- and anti-independence factions in Scotland - and the police are not above being involved. Full Review
	The Last Stage by Louise Voss Crime If you were looking back to when it began you'd have to say that it was before 1995. Meredith Vincent (that wasn't her name then) had gone to Greenham Common on her seventeenth birthday, dressed as a teddy bear, to protest about nuclear weapons. It was whilst she was there that she met Samantha, fell head over heels in love with her and went to live in a squat in London, leaving behind her A levels, her recently-widowed mother - and her twin brother, Pete, to look after her. Samantha was there occasionally but Meredith was drawn into forming a band with the boys from the squat and against all the odds Cohen went on to become a sensation and it wasn't long before Meredith was living in a mansion rather than the squat. Full Review
	The Body in the Castle Well (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker Crime Claudia Muller was an American, studying art history and being mentored by an eminent French art historian and Resistance war hero in Limeuil in Perigord. She was beautiful, wore designer clothes and was well-liked by everyone. She didn't parade her wealth, or her father's White House connections. In fact, her closest friend was a man recently released from prison. So when she left a lecture saying that she felt ill, and her body was later found at the bottom of the castle well it seemed that the likeliest explanation was that this had been a dreadful accident with the only people to blame being the builders who had left the well unsealed. Full Review
	Boy in the Well (DI Westphall 2) by Douglas Lindsay Crime The body of a nine-year-old boy was found at the bottom of a well which had been sealed for two hundred years - but the boy had only been dead for less than two days and there was no sign of how the body had got into the well. The owners of the property are adamant that the well was sealed when they went to open it, but DI Ben Westphall would be entitled to have his doubts. Belle McIntosh holds some strange views, particularly about the way that the government is controlling everyone through drugs which are added to the water supply which led to her wanting to reinstate the well. Her wife, Catriona Napier, is more moderate, but doesn't seem to have a lot of knowledge about what's going on on the fa Full Review
	The Body in the Mist by Nick Louth Crime Muriel Hinkley was walking her dog when she found the body on a quiet country lane, just south of Exmoor. She didn’t recognise him - no one would for a long time as it was obvious that he’d been the victim of a hit-and-run. He had no face - most of it was smeared on the road and when D I Jan Talantire came to look at the body she realised that there was absolutely nothing on him which would allow for identification. All the labels had been cut out of his clothes and there was no wallet and no phone. Hi was Mister Nobody. Full Review
	Fall Down Dead (Cooper and Fry) by Stephen Booth Crime DS Dev Sharma is delighted - if delight is the right word to apply to a murder case - but he's got a result when the husband of a murder victim is found with the knife, standing over the body, and admitting to the murder. DI Ben Cooper is concerned with a suspicious death on Kinder Scout. A party of walkers - the New Trespassers Walking Group - got lost in the fog and problems arose when one of the party was injured. The group split up to find help, or at least a mobile signal, but when they're rescued they're one short and the body of Faith Matthew was found at the bottom of Kinder Downfall. It looked like a dreadful accident, but Cooper wasn't happy about the way the body had fallen. Things are not always as they seem - in either case. Full Review
	Tick Tock by Mel Sherratt Crime We're in Stoke on Trent. A group of young women who study at Dunwood Academy are running the cross-country course. One of them - Lauren Ansell - stops behind to tie her shoelace and is murdered, to the shock and devastation of her friends. Twins Courtney and Caitlin Piggott, Sophie Bishop and Teagan Cole cling together for support - or do do as much as they can given that their parents are understandably reluctant to let them out of their sight. One of the parents is journalist Simon Cole, boyfriend of DS Grace Allendale, who is charged with investigating the murder under the guidance of DI Nick Carter. It's a struggle to keep their professional lives separate. Full Review
	Cruel Acts by Jane Casey Crime They called him 'the white knight' because he picked the women up when they were in difficulties. But they called him a serial killer too, because he murdered them and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when he went down for life. Then one of the jurors self-published his story of the trial which explained how he and another juror had looked up Stone's history and found a trail of violence. After that, he explained, they knew that Stone was guilty. The juror got two months for contempt of court and Stone was released on bail pending a retrial. Full Review
	Where the Dead Fall (DI Ridpath, Book 2) by M J Lee Crime It really shouldn't have happened. DI Ridpath, conscious that his relationship with his wife and child is hanging by a thread, is off to collect them at his mother-in-law's house for an evening out. Traffic was heavy on the M60 (a match at Old Trafford wasn't helping) but it was moving steadily. Then a man wearing only a pair of blue boxers dashed out into the traffic, briefly put his hands on Ridpath's car then ran into the path of an articulated lorry. The driver had no chance of stopping and the naked man was killed instantly. Glancing to the hard shoulder Ridpath glimpsed a man with a gun. This was now a crime scene and the resulting seventeen-mile tail back of traffic would be the least of Ridpath's worries, although no one would let him forget about it in a hurry. Full Review
	Critical Incidents by Lucie Whitehouse Crime When you reach a certain stage in life the phrase 'going home' when it refers to your childhood home is best if it means a short and hopefully harmonious visit. The woman who used to be DCI Robin Lyons, but was now just Robin Lyons, went home with her thirteen-year-old daughter after she was dismissed from the Met. She was going home to the room which she'd had as a child: she would have the bottom bunk and Elena - Lennie to those who knew her well - would have the top bunk. The room was redolent of the time she'd shared the room with her brother Luke - and they weren't good memories. Full Review
	Broadlands (DI Tanner Book 1) by David Blake Crime It was a monumental change for DI John Tanner: used to the shortened vistas of life in London it wasn't going to be easy to come to terms with the wide open skies of Norfolk. But it was his own choice: his daughter had died nine months before and his marriage had failed. He needed a new start and he'd been offered the job at Wroxham and a family friend had suggested that he could live on his boat. It was a little cramped and the facilities were limited, to say the least, but it would do until he could find a flat to rent Full Review
	Heartlands (D I Jessie Blake) by Kerry Watts Crime The story had begun some twenty years earlier when two boys raped and killed Sophie Nicholl. Jack Mackay was - on the face of it - from a decent family, but he was the ringleader. Daniel Simpson was a follower, but he still raped Sophie and he could have stopped what happened but didn't. Sophie's body was found in a shallow grave by an enthusiastic cocker spaniel a few days later and the boys were arrested, tried and sentenced to five years in a young offenders institution. There were those who thought that the sentence was too lenient, even for fifteen-year-old boys and Sophie's elder brother, Tom, was one of these. He wasn't going to let the matter rest. Full Review
	The Savage Shore by David Hewson Crime Reggio, in Calabria. It's a strange place, closer to Africa than Rome as Emmanuel kept reminding himself. He was an illegal immigrant and like most of his kind he was simply looking for a way to earn a decent living with a little dignity. Back in Nigeria he was an independent man and now he is no better than the monkey who sits in a cage on the bar he tends. The area is ruled by the Mafia. Further afield there are the Camorra and the Cosa Nostra, but here it's the 'Ndrangheta and the local boss is known as Lo Spettro - the ghost - as he's rarely seen, but he's one of the Bergamotti clan, but even that's not their real name. Full Review
	Their Little Secret by Mark Billingham Crime There are times when two people come together and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts as in the case of, say, Morecambe and Wise. Sometimes two people come together and we get Folie à Deux - a shared psychotic disorder which produces devastating consequences. One of the prime examples is Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. But - I'm getting ahead of myself as our story started with a suicide. A middle-aged woman had been gulled out of £75,000 by a man called Patrick Jenkins, but once he had the money he disappeared and ghosted his former lover. She threw herself in front of a tube train. Full Review