Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Crime]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=000845552X
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|author=Will Carver
|title=Where Ravens Roost
+
|title=Psychopaths Anonymous
|author=Karin Nordin
+
|rating=3.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Thrillers
 +
|summary=Maeve is a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously and also, curiously, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing and critiquing the AA steps she is mainly using the groups to find targets...targets for sexual encounters, targets to feed her desire to hear of people's misery, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems to be searching for others who think as she does, and when she's unable to find like-minded people in any of the groups she decides to set up her own, hoping to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous is born.
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|isbn=1913193756
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1784165263
 +
|title=Invite Me In
 +
|author=Emma Curtis
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Inspector Kjeld Nygaard had been estranged from his father, Stenar, for more than a decade but when he got the rather muddled phone call from him saying that he'd seen a murder in the barn on his land he didn't hesitate to drop everything and go to VarsundActually, 'drop everything' rather overstates the situationNygaard was on suspension following the shooting of a suspect in the Aubuchon murder enquiry.  There had been a complication: the Kattegat Killer turned out to be Nils Hedin, Nygaard's best friend.  Still, the ten-hour drive from Gothenburg in the south of Sweden to Varsund in the far north shouldn't be underestimated.
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|summary=Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being let.  If she didn't get home, there would be trouble.  There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick to be understandingHe was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment''.  All this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being available.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838773428
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|isbn=1784742775
|title=The Art of Death
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|title=A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)
|author=David Fennell
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|author=Susan Hill
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was an art installation of the type which does appear in Trafalgar Square: a depiction of three homeless men in glass cabinets surrounded by liquid. Only this time it's not a depiction: these are the bodies of Billy Perrin, Stan Buxton and 34-year-old Noel Tipping. The installation is the work of @nonymous, underground artist and extreme version of Banksy. He's made a macabre promise: more will follow.  In fact, we've already met the artist although not by name: he's been in the Lumberyard Cafe with his Moleskine notebook, Maki-e fountain pen, MacBook Air and iPhone.  Elaine Kelly is there with her son, Jordan, and she's explaining to her best friend, Jackie Morris about the state of her marriage. Actually, it doesn't take a lot of explaining: Frank's attentions are obvious on her face despite the foundation she's applied.  Chau Ho is behind the counter.  There's someone online, CassandraH, that the artist has his eye on, too.
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|summary=Drugs hadn't really been that much of a problem in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of time. They still were, to a great extent, but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldn't be the correct one) of the person who was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in the organisation. The police might catch a few of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher up.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08NZ4LV2R
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|isbn=B09HTWX47X
|title=Dark Memories (DS Nikki Parekh 3)
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|title=Endless Obsession
|author=Liz Mistry
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|author=Dai Henley
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Peggy Dyson was in her sixties and hadn't worn well.  She was a drug addict and was living under the arches in Forster Square Station in Bradford.  Her killer thought that he was probably doing her a favour by putting her out of her miseryDS Nikki Parekh and DC Sajid Malik are on the case.  Nikki can't quite understand why she's been sent an anonymous letter with a press report of the deathIt had been impossible to make any progress in the case and the note seemed to taunt the policeThen another note arrived with a report of a seemingly unconnected death in Cambridge.  The third death - in the street where Nikki lived as a child - brought another communication, with a further clue under the victim - and Nikki was sure that there was something personal in the case.
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|summary=It's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly a DCI in the Met but now a well-respected private investigatorHe's married to Laura, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratoryFlood's daughters, Gemma and Pippa, have flown the nest, Pippa to Australia, from where she has very little contact with the family, and Gemma to married lifeShe's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope that married life will provide the support she needsFlood's business is going well and that was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Black.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787477800
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|isbn=1529379385
|title=The Night Hawks (Dr Ruth Galloway)
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|title=The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache)
|author=Elly Griffiths
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|author=Louise Penny
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=The night hawks are metal detectorists and they're out on Blakeney Point where they suspect that there's treasure to be found.  Unfortunately, the youngest of the group, twenty-one-year-old Troy Evans, finds the body of a man floating on the incoming tide.  After pulling it ashore, they call the police.  DCI Nelson thinks that it's probably the body of an asylum seeker but there's no evidence of any activity to be had from the coastguard.  The dead man turns out to be Jem Taylor, a North Norfolk man recently released from prison.
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|summary=In the Canadian village of Three Pines, we're post-pandemic: the scars are still there but life is starting to get back to normal.  The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the AubergeThey're visiting each other's homes and having friends and relatives to stayA young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in the village as the Asshole Saint.
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=0008379300
 
|title=The Shadow Man
 
|author=Helen Fields
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|summary=Fergus Ariss is in his late thirties and he knows that he's dying.  His body is giving up on him, his internal organs beginning to putrify but before he dies he wants a wife, a child and a brotherHe's been on the lookout for the perfect people and he's made certain preparationsThe flat where the family will live is prepared and even windows with curtains, and pictures in frames have been painted onto the walls.  Angela Fernycroft was to be his wife.  Her husband, Cal, had taken the children - a boy of seven and a girl of five, away for the weekend.  Unfortunately, it doesn't go according to plan and Angela dies.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08BC4D58S
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|isbn=183885410X
|title=Winterkill (Dark Iceland)
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|title=The Dark Remains
|author=Ragnar Jonasson
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|author=William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin
|rating=4
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ari Thor Arason is the police inspector in Siglufjordur and he's still living in the house on Eyrargata which he shared with his wife Kristin and son Stefnir before Kristin left to go to Sweden to do a Masters degree, taking three-year-old Stefnir with herThey were supposed to spend Christmas together but Kristin cancelledIt's now the Thursday of Holy Week and his family is due to arrive in Siglufjordur that afternoon.  Ari Thor is having trouble sleeping but when he finally managed to get to sleep the phone rings: the body of a young woman has been found on Adalgata, the main street of the town.
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|summary=Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere to one of the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow.  DC Jack Laidlaw is on the CID team charged with the investigationI say ''on the team'' but Laidlaw never really seems to be a part of itHe does his own thing, goes his own way and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers the truth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubs.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178089905X
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|isbn=1942410255
|title=Serpentine
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|title=Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
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|author=Michael Pronko
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It wasn't exactly the case Lt Milo Sturgis had been dreaming about: a death from thirty-six years ago and the daughter of the woman who died wanted some answersShe had money and money translated into clout and so the problem was dropped onto Milo's toes.  Dorothy Swoboda was twenty-four years old when she died in a car which went off a cliff on Mulholland Drive and burst into flames.  It turned out that she wasn't actually married to the man with whom she'd left her daughter but Dr Stanley R Barker, optometrist, was a good man and he took out adoption papers for Ellie - and she took his nameEllie was three when her mother left her with Dr Barker and she has nothing of her but one photograph of her mother and father and a necklace made of serpentine.
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|summary=''Zangyo: overtime work, often unpaid''
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It's the culture, isn't it?  The hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of the minimum you'll be required to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru OnizukaWhen he was found dead in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the way of regret or grief, even from his family, but there was a mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from the roof of the building or been assisted in his descentGossip revolves around the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employee, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlier.  She'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing her to work an unreasonable amount of overtime.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=000820831X
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|isbn=0241425425
|title=The Coffinmaker's Garden
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|title=The Man Who Died Twice
|author=Stuart MacBride
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|author=Richard Osman
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=At the coastal village of Clachmara, the headland is slowly eroding into the seaStorm Trevor speeds up the process.  A ship - the Ocean-Gold Harvester is stuck on the rocks and young Alfie Compton cannot resist sneaking out of the house to see what's happening.  Margaret runs after her son and as she grabs him to pull him back to safety she glances across at the newly-exposed cliff front and sees human bonesGordon Smith's home is falling into the North Sea and the evidence of what he's been doing for decades is going with it - except for what Ash Henderson of LIRU can grab as he later escapes the tumbling ruin.
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|summary=Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received the letter.  It came from a man whose body she had helped to pull from the Thames and who had never existed but then this is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basisWhen she visits the sender of the letter (he's moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used to be her husband.  He's made a bad mistake - something to do with a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds and a few death threatsHe's now in hiding with a young woman called Polly, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitress.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Saima Mir
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|author=Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston (translator)
|title=The Khan
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|title=The Rabbit Factor
|rating=5
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jia Khan has alway lived by the motto be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men. This has served her well in her rise through the criminal justice system and by the time she is called home for her sister's wedding after fifteen years in self-imposed exile, she is at the top of her game. Returning to the city of her birth, to old scars and fresh wounds, Jia must confront her past and reconcile her visions for the future with her sense of honour and duty.
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|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, he's perfect for his job in the insurance company – until they decide he's not a team-member, that they'd prefer everyone to be all open-plan, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has died, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everything. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes in the finances – it runs at a steady money-moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and the amount vanished. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people are quickly on the scene to explain that missing money – it's been turned into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan...
|isbn=1786079097
+
|isbn=191319387X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08BTXSS84
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|isbn=B0925KS87N
|title=Fallen Angel (Gaby Darin Book 3)
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|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)
|author=Jenny O'Brien
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Acting DI Gaby Darin is twiddling her thumbs: the usual flood of cases has slowed to less than a dribble and she's looking through cold cases for inspiration as to which one she should have a good look at.  DS Owen Bates suggests the murder of eighteen-year-old Angelica Brock in 1995 and Gaby is intriguedShe can't see any immediate failings in the original investigation: Angelica disappeared from a room in a securely-locked house, wearing her pyjamas, and was found dead by a dog walker on the Gt Orme in Llandudno the next day.  She was wearing a hand-made nightdress which her mother had never seen beforeBates hasn't ''quite'' told the whole story: he's married to Kate Brock, Angelica's younger sister.
+
|summary=Tam Hardie had been determined to find the grave - and it took some finding, in an overgrown old cemetery.  It was a strange thing for Scotland's premier criminal to do, but Tam was getting old and there were things he wanted to doOnly, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found the grave - the one which said that it shouldn't be opened - and his three sons began to worryTam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldn't normally go to the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and they were worried.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1472134710
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|author=Doug Johnstone
|title=Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
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|title=The Great Silence
|author=M C Beaton
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Agatha Raisin has taken early retirement and she's left South Moulton Street for a cottage in the Cotswold village of Carsley.  She's have preferred one of the more romantic names but at least Carsley is off the tourist trail with all the problems that brings.  Now the problem is settling into a different way of life - and Agatha has never done small talk or even being pleasant to people. The first move is to enter the village quiche-baking competition and the beginning of the campaign is taking the judge, Reginald Cummings-Browne, and his wife Vera out to dinner.  She knows she's being ripped off at the pub in the next village but this is necessary and it's a good investment as she knows that she's going to win. How?  Well, ''her'' quiche is coming from a Chelsea Bakery...
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|summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married a scot and ended up helping to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been in the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next term.
 +
|isbn=1913193837
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Gunnar Staalesen
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|isbn=0008269041
|title= Fallen Angels
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|title=Risk of Harm
|rating= 2
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|author=Lucie Whitehouse
|genre=Thrillers
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Varg Veum, lone wolf detective, is back. After attending a former friend's funeral, Veum catches up with old friends but soon historic grievances and wounds are opened and the sins of the past are exposed to the light of the present. A horrific murder threatens these tenuous bonds and Veum is thrust into an investigation to root out the clues hidden in his own history and to catch a killer.
+
|genre=Crime
|isbn=1913193063
+
|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Met.  She might have been reinstated but the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouth.  She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years before. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out of her parent's home into a rented house but there's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young child. He's married to Natalie, now and has a young child but he's still got it in for Robin.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529410347
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|isbn=1846975719
|title=Death Awaits in Durham (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)
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|title=For Any Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley)
|author=Helen Cox
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|author=Denzil Meyrick
|rating=4
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kitt Hartley's assistant, Grace Edwards, has left her library job and taken a place on the Venerable Bede Academy's vocational library studies course in Durham. It's an unusual place to study as students with government grants are not accepted, so most of the people attending are scions of the seriously rich, scholarship students - or they've managed, somehow, to scrape together the moneyGrace, who's 22, comes into the last categoryHer parents agreed to fund the course but told her that if that was what she chose to do then they were finished with herNot long after she started the course, Kitt Hartley came for a visit - and immediately discovered an unsolved disappearance of a student from a year ago.
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|summary=We learn that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward places.  But that's London, isn't it? What's happening in Kinloch?
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 +
When a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airport, DCI Jim Daley and his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off for the airport straight awayIt soon becomes evident though that both occupants of the plane were dead before take offHow could that be?  The sort of tech which would make that possible isn't available to the paying publicAnd why have the man no identification on them - or even labels in their clothes?
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Deborah O'Connor
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|isbn=1409181669
|title= The Captive
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|title=The Maidens
|rating= 4
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|author=Alex Michaelides
|genre= Thrillers
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|rating=5
|summary=Hannah knows the cage, intimately. It lurks in the corner of her eye. Soon, it will be occupied. Then what? What if he speaks to her? What if he escapes? What if he hurts her? What if she hurts him?
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|genre=Crime
|isbn=1838772650
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|summary=Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them both.  She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed.
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Everything - or so she thought - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge.  She'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niece, Zoe, had telephoned her in distress.  Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling to cope.  Mariana wasn't ''entirely'' happy about having to go to Cambridge, but she caught the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of Mariana's husband, Sebastian, in a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlier.  Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Eliza.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838887334
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|isbn=0241400120
|title=Deadly Cry (D I Kim Stone)
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|title=The Girl Who Died
|author=Angela Marsons
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|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria Cribb
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Kim Stone and DS Jim Bryant were on their way back from Diversity Awareness trainingThe need for coffee overtook Stone - the course had been a complete waste of time for her as she knew that she was equally rude to everyoneIt was in the shopping centre that Stone caught sight of a little girl clutching a teddy bear in the absence of her motherStone and Bryant didn't realise the extent to which this case was going to occupy their minds as the body of Katrina Nock is discovered some hours later.  Her neck had been broken and it had all the hallmarks of a quick, functional kill, but who would do that to a young mother out shopping with her child?
+
|summary=Una was not thriving in Reykjavik: it was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then she'd given up her medical studies and retrained as a teacher.  She was thirty years old and money was tightHer friend, Sara, showed her an advert for a job in Skalar on the Langanes PeninsulaThere were only ten people in the village but a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid and accommodation providedUna was the only applicant and the job meant that she could let her flat in Reykjavik and, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract covered.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838770046
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|isbn=1529407249
|title=Body Language
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|title=The Perfect Lie
|author=A K Turner
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|author=Jo Spain
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Twenty-five-year-old Cassie Raven is the senior mortuary technician and not only does she talk to the dead, she also hears what they have to say to herIt's not something she's inclined to share with people as she's pretty certain about what their reaction will be. She's certainly not going to share it with the new pathologist, Dr Archie Chuff, wearer of a genuine Barbour jacket and old HarrovianHe's very conscious of his position and isn't even inclined to ask for the view of the anatomical pathology technicians despite the fact that they have a lot more experience than him and he has only a limited amount of time to spend on each bodyThat will prove to be a mistake.
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|summary=It was July 2019 and Erin was happyShe and Danny Ryan were planning a few days away: that's always a dangerous thing to do when you're married to a cop but she was hopeful.   They'd been married for six months and life was good with a decent apartment by the sea in Newport, Long IslandThe knock on the door was insistent and when it was opened, Danny's partner, Ben Mitchell was there with a couple of other officers.  Danny took one look, turned, walked to the open window and jumped to his death from the fourth floor.
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Eighteen months later, Erin would be on trial for her husband's murder.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1472255917
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|isbn=1788549759
|title=The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner)
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|title=The Distant Dead
|author=Quintin Jardine
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|author=Lesley Thomson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=On New Year's Eve, Sir Robert Morgan Skinner was celebrating at the golf club with his wife, Professor Sarah Grace, daughter Alex Skinner and the man with whom she shares a house, Dominic JacksonJackson would be better-known to the criminal fraternity of Edinburgh as Lennie Plenderleith but he's reformed and the new name reflects a new manThe Skinners don't stay much after midnight at the clubhouse and are dropped home not long into the new yearSkinner's tempted to let the phone ring but knows that he cannot: it's Mario McGuire asking for his presence at a crime scene in the centre of Edinburgh.  Skinner's not technically with the police now - he's chairman of InterMedia UK - but the police value his knowledge and experience.
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|summary=It was December 1940 and twenty-four-year-old Maple Greenhill had gone out for the evening 'with her friend Ida' leaving her three-year-old son, William, at home with her parentsThe boy thought that Maple was his sister - it was better for the family than the shame of illegitimacy, but Maple had high hopes of putting her life (and William's) on a better footingShe was going to meet her well-to-do fiancé, hoping to persuade him to come and meet her family the following weekLater, her body would be found in the bombed-out home where he had taken her.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1800321104
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|isbn=0008404925
|title=The Body on the Island
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|title=The Killing Kind
|author=Nick Louth
+
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=A prison transport left HMP Wakefield, heading for HMP Spring Hill.  Steve and Aaron were accompanying Neil Wright who was 67 years old and had served six years for the manslaughter of his wifeOnly that wasn't who he was.  Sixty-three-years-old Neville Rollaston had served thirty years for the murder of five boys between the ages of ten and seventeen.  He was being ghosted out of Wakefield and into a new identity set up in a deal whereby he divulged the whereabouts of the body of one of his victimsThe Bogeyman was going to be set free on 2 July 2019.  He appeared to be a reformed character but he had a list of people upon whom he wished to exact revenge.
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|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of a surpriseAfter all, it was her cross-examination of the 'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentence.  He'd been accused of stalking the woman but it didn't take long to establish that - if anything - it was the other way aroundSoon Ingrid never seemed to be free of John Webster and then she came to see him as a threat and was forced to remember that the police officer at his trial had told her that this was the best chance they'd had to put Webster away for a long time: he was a very dangerous man.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B087JXQ3JQ
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|isbn=walker14
|title=The Long Dark Road
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|title=The Coldest Case  (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
|author=P R Black
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|author=Martin Walker
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Thrillers
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Two years ago Dr Georgia's Healey's nineteen-year-old university-student daughter went missing as she walked along the lonely A928 at Ferngate Bridge.  There was a furious storm going on and she'd already refused the offer of help from one man in a big vehicleWe'll see - but no one else will know - that another car stops and Stephanie is bundled into the car and driven off. There has been no sign of her - or her body - in the two years since.  Georgia is back is Ferngate, determined to find out what happened and she's not going to be stopped.
+
|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth Daynes' work in the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief of police Bruno Courreges had the idea which he thought might help his boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, to solve a case which had haunted him for thirty yearsThe body of a young male was found in the woods but he was never identified and his killer never brought to justice.  What if an artist could recreate the face from the skull and the resulting publicity be used to identify the young man? J-J calls the skull 'Oscar' and has a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesn't want to forget Oscar until his killer has been brought to justice.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=David C Mason
+
|isbn=1471181405
|title=Pandora's Gardener
+
|title=Nighthawking
|rating=3
+
|author=Russ Thomas
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classifiedThat is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day.  
+
|summary=Sheffield's [http://www.sbg.org.uk/ Botanical Gardens] (on Clarkehouse Road, if you'd like to visit) are an oasis of calm in what's otherwise thought of as an industrial city but this was disrupted when the body of a young woman was discovered.  It had obviously been buried in one of the beds but who would have started to dig her up?  It had been in the earth for months and could have been undiscovered for years.  The police need to establish who stabbed her - and who left the two, very rare, gold aurei on her eyes.  DCI Diane Jordan is the Investigating Officer and her foot soldiers are DS Adam Tyler and DC Mina RabbaniThey're joined by DS Guy Daley who's just returned from extended sick leave.  Mina thinks he's as obnoxious as ever but suspects that he's not fully recovered from his injuries.
|isbn=0956180523
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]

Revision as of 16:24, 21 October 2021

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Review of

Psychopaths Anonymous by Will Carver

3.5star.jpg Thrillers

Maeve is a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously and also, curiously, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing and critiquing the AA steps she is mainly using the groups to find targets...targets for sexual encounters, targets to feed her desire to hear of people's misery, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems to be searching for others who think as she does, and when she's unable to find like-minded people in any of the groups she decides to set up her own, hoping to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Full Review

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Review of

Invite Me In by Emma Curtis

4.5star.jpg Crime

Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being let. If she didn't get home, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick to be understanding. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza you're good at being a disappointment. All this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being available. Full Review

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Review of

A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler) by Susan Hill

5star.jpg Crime

Drugs hadn't really been that much of a problem in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of time. They still were, to a great extent, but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldn't be the correct one) of the person who was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in the organisation. The police might catch a few of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher up. Full Review

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Review of

Endless Obsession by Dai Henley

4star.jpg Crime

It's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly a DCI in the Met but now a well-respected private investigator. He's married to Laura, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratory. Flood's daughters, Gemma and Pippa, have flown the nest, Pippa to Australia, from where she has very little contact with the family, and Gemma to married life. She's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope that married life will provide the support she needs. Flood's business is going well and that was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Black. Full Review

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Review of

The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache) by Louise Penny

4.5star.jpg Crime

In the Canadian village of Three Pines, we're post-pandemic: the scars are still there but life is starting to get back to normal. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the Auberge. They're visiting each other's homes and having friends and relatives to stay. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in the village as the Asshole Saint. Full Review

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Review of

The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin

3.5star.jpg Crime

Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere to one of the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow. DC Jack Laidlaw is on the CID team charged with the investigation. I say on the team but Laidlaw never really seems to be a part of it. He does his own thing, goes his own way and The Dark Remains uncovers the truth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubs. Full Review

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Review of

Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi) by Michael Pronko

4.5star.jpg Crime

Zangyo: overtime work, often unpaid

It's the culture, isn't it? The hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of the minimum you'll be required to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizuka. When he was found dead in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the way of regret or grief, even from his family, but there was a mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from the roof of the building or been assisted in his descent. Gossip revolves around the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employee, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlier. She'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing her to work an unreasonable amount of overtime. Full Review

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Review of

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

4.5star.jpg Crime

Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received the letter. It came from a man whose body she had helped to pull from the Thames and who had never existed but then this is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basis. When she visits the sender of the letter (he's moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used to be her husband. He's made a bad mistake - something to do with a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds and a few death threats. He's now in hiding with a young woman called Polly, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitress. Full Review

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Review of

The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston (translator)

3.5star.jpg Crime

Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, he's perfect for his job in the insurance company – until they decide he's not a team-member, that they'd prefer everyone to be all open-plan, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has died, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everything. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. YouMeFun is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes in the finances – it runs at a steady money-moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and the amount vanished. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people are quickly on the scene to explain that missing money – it's been turned into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan... Full Review

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Review of

Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4star.jpg Crime

Tam Hardie had been determined to find the grave - and it took some finding, in an overgrown old cemetery. It was a strange thing for Scotland's premier criminal to do, but Tam was getting old and there were things he wanted to do. Only, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found the grave - the one which said that it shouldn't be opened - and his three sons began to worry. Tam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldn't normally go to the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and they were worried. Full Review

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Review of

The Great Silence by Doug Johnstone

4star.jpg Crime

For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married a scot and ended up helping to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been in the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next term. Full Review

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Review of

Risk of Harm by Lucie Whitehouse

4.5star.jpg Crime

DCI Robin Lyons is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Met. She might have been reinstated but the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouth. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years before. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out of her parent's home into a rented house but there's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young child. He's married to Natalie, now and has a young child but he's still got it in for Robin. Full Review

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Review of

For Any Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley) by Denzil Meyrick

3.5star.jpg Crime

We learn that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward places. But that's London, isn't it? What's happening in Kinloch?

When a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airport, DCI Jim Daley and his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off for the airport straight away. It soon becomes evident though that both occupants of the plane were dead before take off. How could that be? The sort of tech which would make that possible isn't available to the paying public. And why have the man no identification on them - or even labels in their clothes? Full Review

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Review of

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

5star.jpg Crime

Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them both. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed.

Everything - or so she thought - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge. She'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niece, Zoe, had telephoned her in distress. Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling to cope. Mariana wasn't entirely happy about having to go to Cambridge, but she caught the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of Mariana's husband, Sebastian, in a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlier. Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Eliza. Full Review

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Review of

The Girl Who Died by Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria Cribb

4star.jpg Crime

Una was not thriving in Reykjavik: it was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then she'd given up her medical studies and retrained as a teacher. She was thirty years old and money was tight. Her friend, Sara, showed her an advert for a job in Skalar on the Langanes Peninsula. There were only ten people in the village but a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid and accommodation provided. Una was the only applicant and the job meant that she could let her flat in Reykjavik and, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract covered. Full Review

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Review of

The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain

4.5star.jpg Crime

It was July 2019 and Erin was happy. She and Danny Ryan were planning a few days away: that's always a dangerous thing to do when you're married to a cop but she was hopeful. They'd been married for six months and life was good with a decent apartment by the sea in Newport, Long Island. The knock on the door was insistent and when it was opened, Danny's partner, Ben Mitchell was there with a couple of other officers. Danny took one look, turned, walked to the open window and jumped to his death from the fourth floor.

Eighteen months later, Erin would be on trial for her husband's murder. Full Review

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Review of

The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson

4.5star.jpg Crime

It was December 1940 and twenty-four-year-old Maple Greenhill had gone out for the evening 'with her friend Ida' leaving her three-year-old son, William, at home with her parents. The boy thought that Maple was his sister - it was better for the family than the shame of illegitimacy, but Maple had high hopes of putting her life (and William's) on a better footing. She was going to meet her well-to-do fiancé, hoping to persuade him to come and meet her family the following week. Later, her body would be found in the bombed-out home where he had taken her. Full Review

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Review of

The Killing Kind by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

Difficult clients were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of a surprise. After all, it was her cross-examination of the 'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentence. He'd been accused of stalking the woman but it didn't take long to establish that - if anything - it was the other way around. Soon Ingrid never seemed to be free of John Webster and then she came to see him as a threat and was forced to remember that the police officer at his trial had told her that this was the best chance they'd had to put Webster away for a long time: he was a very dangerous man. Full Review

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Review of

The Coldest Case (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker

4star.jpg Crime

It was when he saw Elisabeth Daynes' work in the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief of police Bruno Courreges had the idea which he thought might help his boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, to solve a case which had haunted him for thirty years. The body of a young male was found in the woods but he was never identified and his killer never brought to justice. What if an artist could recreate the face from the skull and the resulting publicity be used to identify the young man? J-J calls the skull 'Oscar' and has a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesn't want to forget Oscar until his killer has been brought to justice. Full Review

1471181405.jpg

Review of

Nighthawking by Russ Thomas

4.5star.jpg Crime

Sheffield's Botanical Gardens (on Clarkehouse Road, if you'd like to visit) are an oasis of calm in what's otherwise thought of as an industrial city but this was disrupted when the body of a young woman was discovered. It had obviously been buried in one of the beds but who would have started to dig her up? It had been in the earth for months and could have been undiscovered for years. The police need to establish who stabbed her - and who left the two, very rare, gold aurei on her eyes. DCI Diane Jordan is the Investigating Officer and her foot soldiers are DS Adam Tyler and DC Mina Rabbani. They're joined by DS Guy Daley who's just returned from extended sick leave. Mina thinks he's as obnoxious as ever but suspects that he's not fully recovered from his injuries. Full Review

Move on to Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews