Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"

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[[Category:Crime|*]]
 
[[Category:Crime|*]]
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529077745
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
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|author=Ann Cleeves
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens.  The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up.  D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer.  Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529428289
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|title=A Grave in the Woods (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
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|author=Martin Walker
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Because of various property transactions, people were searching for the grave but when they found it, it came with three sets of bones.  They dated back to World War II and it fell to Bruno, the Chief of Police for St Denis, to discover the identities of the bodies and establish whether or not a crime had been committed.  As if this isn't enough to worry about, the Dordogne River - normally tranquil - is flowing at record levels.  It's not just the local autumn rains that have caused the problem: various dams upstream on another river have had to release water and St Denis faces the possibility of a devastating flood.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=152919640X
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|title=The Suspect
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|author=Rob Rinder
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=The nation's favourite daytime TV presenter, Jessica Holby, was murdered live on television and it seems that there's only one suspect.  He's celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks and his contract stated that he must not serve anything containing miso to Jessica Holby.  She's seriously allergic and carries an EpiPen in case of emergencies.  Everything seemed as normal - as normal as they can be in a busy, live television studio - and Brooks served a ragout to Holby.  Her EpiPen was nowhere to be found and she was dead within minutes.  It was soon clear that this was no accident.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0CYV674G2
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|title=Swanton Morley (John Tanner)
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|author=David Blake
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It seemed like an open-and-shut case. A man, covered in mud and blood - and carrying a knife, comes into the police station shouting that he hasn't killed the man. A body at the bottom of a freshly dug grave at Swanton Morley church - he's been stabbed to death. DCI John Tanner is just back from his honeymoon, which coincided with the birth of his daughter Samantha. You would think he'd be grateful for an easy answer but the words 'perverse' and 'John Tanner' were made for each other. He's sleep-deprived to the point of falling asleep at work but he's determined to keep going - probably because he can't get any sleep at home.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Stuart Douglas
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|title=Lowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the Dress Rehearsal
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=During location filming for his 1970's sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the dead body of a woman on the edge of a reservoir.  The police seem happy to assign it as an accidental death, but something about the whole thing bothers Lowe, and he enlists the help of a fellow actor, John Le Breton to help him investigate matters further.  They travel across the country during their days off filming, uncovering more possible murders and, seemingly, a link to death during the Second World War.  But is there really a link between the deaths?  And will they manage to uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives?
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|isbn=1803368209
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008517061
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|title=Death in a Lonely Place
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|author=Stig Abell
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky.  There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter?  For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1786482126
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
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|author=Elly Griffiths
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway.  There was no skull.  Was this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson.  It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago.  Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008551324
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|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
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|author=Neil Lancaster
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police.  Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death.  This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants.  And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date.  Not much to ask, is it?  The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008405026
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|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
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|author=Jane Casey
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night.  She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt.  Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed.  Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious.  What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder.  Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0571379877
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|title=The Kellerby Code
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|author=Jonny Sweet
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza.  Robert's a theatre director.  He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him.  Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert.  Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Jo Callaghan
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|title=Leave No Trace
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock.  It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases.  But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project.  Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
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|isbn=139851120X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1035021803
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|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
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|author=C L Miller
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up.  She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole.  Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least.  Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly.  Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved.  After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1398524085
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|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?
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|author=Nicci French
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up.  Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not.  Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river.  It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt.  The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529900360
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|title=The Ghost Orchid
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|author=Jonathan Kellerman
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases.  His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while.  Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again.  She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed.  The next case did look simple, though.  Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air.  He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian.  But which of them was the primary target?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=178763681X
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|title=Knife Skills for Beginners
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|author=Orlando Murrin
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia.  He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted.  Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own.  The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead.  Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529421284
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|title=Laying Out the Bones
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|author=Kate Webb
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave.  In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier.  He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced.  Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone?  There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time.  Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529425867
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|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)
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|author=Simon Mason
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins.  Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed.  D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not.  He's not any of those things.  He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies.  They're usually in lime green or acid yellow.  You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs.  Well, you're not.  The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin.  Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well.  Sometimes it's problematic.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529431735
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|title=The Winter Visitor
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|author=James Henry
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising.  He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade.  The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live.  It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra.  Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0861541774
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|title=A Nye of Pheasants
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|author=Steve Burrows
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman.  Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka.  Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man.  Now he could be facing the death penalty.  Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1521129886
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|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)
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|author=Keith Redfern
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he charges.  It's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delighted.  Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness.  Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears to have killed himself.  Stuart's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thriving.  Lucy, he says, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted that the death was suicide,  but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil died.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0CK3MYJ56
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|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)
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|author=Ann Macarthur
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old.  He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession?  On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something.  Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing.  Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train.  Greg's been asked to investigate.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1838954481
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|title=The Misper
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|author=Kate London
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that.  He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw.  He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer.  And so lives must go on.  For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1448309743
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|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)
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|author=Caro Ramsay
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered.  The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will follow.  The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body.  The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529077699
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|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)
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|author=Ann Cleeves
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?''
  
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
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Well yes, it is.  Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon.  Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''.  I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book.  Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?
<!-- Neil White -->
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529427045
[[image:1785764608.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785764608/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons
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|author=Karin Smirnoff
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=''Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example''.
  
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Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush.  The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward.  Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without trace.  It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's death.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1787636607
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|title=The Trap
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|author=Catherine Ryan Howard
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning.  Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get home.  Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis available.  Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages.  The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'.  For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her home.  She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his.  There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1405957174
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|title=A Death at the Party
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|author=Amy Stuart
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well.  The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needs.  What we don't know is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him die.  I'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.
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}}
  
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Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]
===[[The Darkness Around Her by Neil White]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
Lizzie Barnsley was escaping from her abusive boyfriend when she was murdered on the canal towpath on New Year's Eve.  It obviously wasn't the boyfriend as he was still being held by Lizzie's friends at the pub, but before long Peter Box was arrested and charged.  He'd sought treatment at the local hospital for an injury to his head which was the same shape as the heel of Lizzie's shoe - and her blood was on the shoe.  Dan Grant was called in to represent Box, but there's a problem.  Box won't talk - won't talk to the police or to Grant, so how is he to represent the man?  And had Box killed Lizzie?  It was obvious that he hadn't known her - so why would he kill her? [[The Darkness Around Her by Neil White|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- M C Beaton -->
 
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===[[Agatha Raisin and the Dead Ringer by M C Beaton]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
St Ethelred's Church in the idyllic Cotswold village of Thirk Magna has a team of dedicated bell ringers, with the keenest being twins Mavis and Millicent Dupin and when we first meet them they're preparing for the bishop's visit.  Now you might be expecting an older, perhaps rather grey man, but this bishop is a little different.  One description is 'sex on legs' and even Agatha Raisin is a little smitten - at first - but there's the merest whiff of a scandal about the bishop.  It's the mystery of the bishop's ex-fiancee, local heiress Jennifer Toynby, who disappeared very suddenly and neither she nor her body have ever been found. [[Agatha Raisin and the Dead Ringer by M C Beaton|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by M B Vincent]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
Dr Jess Castle, the self proclaimed failure of the prestigious Castle family has returned home to the sleepy, idyllic chocolate box town of Castle Kidbury. Rather than being delighted, her family are suspicious, especially her father, the judge. Luckily for Jess, she doesn't have to try too hard to dodge her family's suspicions as a series of gruesome local murders are taking place and that's all anyone is talking about. Jess accidentally finds herself in the thick of the investigation, and to her delight finds that she can actually be useful. But with the small population dwindling and the sense of danger moving ever closer to home, has Jess made a grave mistake getting involved? [[Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by M B Vincent|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Relentless Tide (DCI Daley) by Denzil Meyrick]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
The site was rumoured to have been the home of Viking warlord Somerled so the discovery by Professor Francombe and her team of archaeologists of the graves of three women initially caused great excitement, which rapidly turned to horror when they realised that the women had died just over twenty years ago.  The graves would bring some closure though - these were the bodies of the three missing victims of the 'Midweek Murderer' who operated in Glasgow in the early to mid nineties.  It was also an opportunity for DCI Jim Daley to confront a failure in his past.  He'd been on the original case and the murderer had never been found.  He'd also lost a close friend and made some enemies, one of whom would return to taunt him when Police Scotland's Cold Case Unit arrived on the scene. [[The Relentless Tide (DCI Daley) by Denzil Meyrick|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Rachael Blok -->
 
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===[[Under the Ice (DCI Jansen) by Rachael Blok]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
It's eleven days to Christmas and the cathedral city of St Albans is looking particularly festive with a covering of snow, but this belies the atmosphere: the body of a young girl has been found frozen in the local lake.  DCI Jansen's only lead comes from Jenny Brennan - but can you put any credence on statements made by the sleep-deprived mother of a four month old child, particularly one who claims to have seen visions?  Can you believe her statements that she's been sleep-walking in the middle of the night when she find evidence that the police have missed?  When another girl goes missing the tiny city is in melt-down and for Jenny it all seems close to home.  Far too close to home. [[Under the Ice (DCI Jansen) by Rachael Blok|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all as V, is dead. Jack sits in his cell refusing to talk to the lawyer tasked with his defence. Starting at the murderous finale, Hall skillfully weaves together the stories of his key players, in a tale of love spanning decades and states, marriages and tragedies. By the time the truth is revealed, V will be dead but who else will lose their life?  [[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Stein -->
 
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===[[Unrest by Jesper Stein]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
DCI Steen is assigned a puzzling case – the tortured body of a man found in a cemetery in Copenhagen but left there during a riot – a riot that had the area swarming in police. How could anyone have been murdered and left in the open with so many police on site? Unless the killer is one of them… As the case becomes more and more complicated, it soon begins to take a toll on Steen's already troubled personal life. He won't stop until the killer is caught, whatever the consequences. But the consequences may turn out to be greater than expected – especially for Axel himself… [[Unrest by Jesper Stein|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Lynda La Plante -->
 
|-
 
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===[[Murder Mile (Jane Tennison 4) by Lynda La Plante]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
It was February 1979 in the strike-ridden 'Winter of Discontent' when a body was discovered in Peckham.  It was to be the first of two bodies in two days, but the first - that of a young woman - would remain unidentified for some time.  The second - an older lady - was found in the boot of her car by her son.  Jane Tennison has been promoted to Sergeant and finds herself in the midst of an investigation hindered by press articles about police incompetence and pressure to get a quick result.  Four days later and another body to add to the count, the police have named their suspect, but Tennison has her doubts. [[Murder Mile (Jane Tennison 4) by Lynda La Plante|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Broken Ground by Val McDermid]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
As the Officer in Charge of the Historic Cases Unit, DCI Karen Pirie rarely finds herself at the scene of the crime, but for once, she's in the right place at the right time when a body is dug up in the Highlands.  Initially it looks as though the death dates back to WWII, but the fact that the dead man is wearing a pair of Nikes means that the case is Karen's.  A little while later she'd come to think that she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time when she overheard a conversation in a cafe.  Intervening, she thought that she'd prevented a crime, but what she said would come back to haunt her. [[Broken Ground by Val McDermid|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- LaPlante -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:1785659626.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785659626/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[Half Moon Bay by Alice LaPlante]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
Half Moon Bay is a small town on the west coast of America, a little down from San Francisco.  Jane has just moved there, to start a new life after losing everything when her teenage daughter was killed and her husband left her.  Although she has begun to find a little peace in the quiet, seaside town, one day a child goes missing, bringing back painful memories for Jane of her grief and loss and, also, rousing the suspicions of the local townsfolk that she is somehow involved in the disappearance. [[Half Moon Bay by Alice LaPlante|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Peter Lovesey -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:0751570672.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0751570672/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[Beau Death (Peter Diamond Mystery) by Peter Lovesey]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
Children love wrecking balls, so the young lad wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to watch one hit a building through one of those very tempting holes in fencing which you find around building sites.  The problem was that when the dust settled a skeleton, sitting in an armchair and clad in clothes which looked to be a few hundred years old, was visible in the loft of the half-demolished building.  The lad's father ceased his explanations about kinetic energy and hurried the boy away.  Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond was not so lucky.  Viewing the corpse from a cherry picker, an unfortunate adjustment to the controls left him eye to, er, eye socket with the corpse and the picture was caught by a press photographer.  It was too good not to go viral. [[Beau Death (Peter Diamond Mystery) by Peter Lovesey|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Claire Askew -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:147367302X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/147367302X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[All the Hidden Truths (Three Rivers) by Claire Askew]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
As a news item, school shootings always terrify me:  the deaths are bad enough, but even the young people who survive are always going to be scarred by the fact  that this was done to them by one of their number.  It doesn't end on the day, either.  School shootings cast a very long shadow.  May the 14th had the makings of being a normal day until Ryan Summers used three modified starting pistols to shoot thirteen fellow students - and one last bullet to kill himself.  We follow the story through the lives of three women: Moira Summers, the mother of the murderer, Helen Birch, the newly-promoted detective inspector who will investigate the killings and Ishbel Hodgekiss, the mother of one of the victims. [[All the Hidden Truths (Three Rivers) by Claire Askew|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Pearse -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:0718189248.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718189248/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[The House Across the Street by Lesley Pearse]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
Have you ever found yourself staring out the window slightly longer than needed to see what your neighbours are up to? This is a common occurrence for Katy Speed who regularly watches 'The House Across the Street' as a frequent stream of women are brought there in the same black hummer and seen leaving a short while later. Although slightly unusual, not much is said aside from your typical neighbourhood gossip, that is until Katy is woken up in the early hours one morning to find out that the same house has been burnt to the ground, along with the woman who lives there. This situation is made a whole lot worse for Katy when her father is arrested for starting the fire. What follows is an engrossing depiction of Katy's quest to prove her father's innocence whilst dealing with her unbearable mother and ultimately having the safety of many people's lives in her hands. [[The House Across the Street by Lesley Pearse|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- van LENTE -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:1683690346.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1683690346/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]]
 
 
 
Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator. [[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Brooke Fieldhouse -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:1789013992.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789013992/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[The Gilded Ones by Brooke Fieldhouse]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
 
 
 
It was a hot day in 1984 and Pulse had two job interviews for the day, but the heat wasn't the only reason why he wasn't feeling on top form. He'd had a disturbing dream the night before.  He'd been following a Porsche on a difficult route, probably somewhere in the Alps when the Porsche went off the road.  The passenger, a man, was dead, but the woman was still alive.  ''I'm Freia...'', she said.  ''It's spelled the German way.''  Of the two job interviews, the first was with an up-and-coming design studio in Brighton and it would almost certainly be good for Pulse's career.  The second was with a run-down practice based in an old London house and headed by Patrick Lloyd-Lewis, whose wife, Freia, had recently died in unexplained circumstances.  The link with the dream of the night before was too much for Pulse to refuse the offer of a job.  He couldn't resist the lure of the mystery. [[The Gilded Ones by Brooke Fieldhouse|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Lange -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:161963502X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/161963502X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[The Chaos of Now by Erin Lange]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
Eli, a talented hacker, is one of those people who manage to fly below the radar. When new friends offer him the chance to enter a prestigious competition he soon realises this golden opportunity has a sting in its tail. How many people can hand on heart say that they have not made mistakes? Most people are fortunate not to have a permanent online reminder, the very presence of which refuses to allow you to adapt, to change, to grow.  Eli has a few mistakes skulking online, moments of madness that if discovered would change his life forever. [[The Chaos of Now by Erin Lange|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Quentin Bates -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:1472127765.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472127765/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery) by Quentin Bates]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
Gunna wasn't too keen when she was taken off police duties to become a bodyguard.  It wasn't just the sheer inconvenience of it - away from home for however long the job took and with no contact with the family - she wasn't the only one to have doubts about the man she was guarding.  Invited to Iceland by prominent politician Steinunn Strand, Ali Osman was either a saint who devoted himself to helping refugees escape the carnage in their Middle Eastern homeland, or a money-laundering gunrunner.  The truth was probably a combination of the two, but whichever or whatever was correct, there's money on Osman's head and this is the reason why he and Gunna are holed up in an isolated house outside Reykjavik, with Gunna toting a gun under her fleece and with a group of armed police in a nearby house. [[Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery) by Quentin Bates|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- J P Delaney -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:178747240X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178747240X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[Believe Me by J P Delaney]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
Claire Wright wanted to be an actress, but she was penniless and living in New York. She might have had a scholarship to cover her school fees, but she still had to find the money to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. There was a solution, although it didn't provide a regular income: she became a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers. The job was to trap straying husbands and tape them as they propositioned her. There were rules though: she couldn't hit on them directly - they had to proposition her. There was no intention to trap the innocent. [[Believe Me by J P Delaney|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Dard -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:1782272011.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782272011/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[The Gravediggers' Bread by Frederic Dard and Melanie Florence (translator)]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
 
 
Blaise is at a loose end, for having left Paris on a wild goose chase for a job, which was his friend's idea, he's stuck outside a call box waiting to report back before he gets the train. The woman in the post office using the payphone finally finishes her business, and leaves him with a strong impression – as well as a wallet dropped to the floor containing several days' good money, and, when he tracks her to the village funeral directors', signs of her infidelity. Lo and behold he is given a job as the woman's husband's assistant, although she also starts to employ him in sending messages to her amour, her childhood love before circumstances changed. Blaise is of course deeply in love with the woman by now, and hates the two obstacles preventing him from being with her. One is the lover, a brutish bloke with little prospects and a bad case of epilepsy. Surely he will not fall by the wayside, and surely the brick wall of fate keeping Blaise from his intended destiny will remain two men tall? [[The Gravediggers' Bread by Frederic Dard and Melanie Florence (translator)|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Waites -->
 
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===[[The Old Religion by Martyn Waites]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
 
 
The Cornish village of St Petroc isn't on the tourist trail: there's nothing particularly pretty, or historic, or interesting about it, which might be one of the reasons why Tom Killgannon is there.  He had been an undercover policeman, but something had gone badly wrong and now he's in witness protection and working in the local pub.  St Petroc feels safe and it's put a good deal of distance between him and some very violent people.  He's got an on-again, off-again relationship with the local policewoman, with the on-again bits coinciding with the times when her husband's away.  It's not an exciting life, but right now it suits Tom just fine.  Until he meets Lila, that is. [[The Old Religion by Martyn Waites|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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Latest revision as of 10:09, 9 September 2024

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Review of

The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. Full Review

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Review of

A Grave in the Woods (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker

4star.jpg Crime

Because of various property transactions, people were searching for the grave but when they found it, it came with three sets of bones. They dated back to World War II and it fell to Bruno, the Chief of Police for St Denis, to discover the identities of the bodies and establish whether or not a crime had been committed. As if this isn't enough to worry about, the Dordogne River - normally tranquil - is flowing at record levels. It's not just the local autumn rains that have caused the problem: various dams upstream on another river have had to release water and St Denis faces the possibility of a devastating flood. Full Review

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Review of

The Suspect by Rob Rinder

4.5star.jpg Crime

The nation's favourite daytime TV presenter, Jessica Holby, was murdered live on television and it seems that there's only one suspect. He's celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks and his contract stated that he must not serve anything containing miso to Jessica Holby. She's seriously allergic and carries an EpiPen in case of emergencies. Everything seemed as normal - as normal as they can be in a busy, live television studio - and Brooks served a ragout to Holby. Her EpiPen was nowhere to be found and she was dead within minutes. It was soon clear that this was no accident. Full Review

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Review of

Swanton Morley (John Tanner) by David Blake

3.5star.jpg Crime

It seemed like an open-and-shut case. A man, covered in mud and blood - and carrying a knife, comes into the police station shouting that he hasn't killed the man. A body at the bottom of a freshly dug grave at Swanton Morley church - he's been stabbed to death. DCI John Tanner is just back from his honeymoon, which coincided with the birth of his daughter Samantha. You would think he'd be grateful for an easy answer but the words 'perverse' and 'John Tanner' were made for each other. He's sleep-deprived to the point of falling asleep at work but he's determined to keep going - probably because he can't get any sleep at home. Full Review

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Review of

Lowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the Dress Rehearsal by Stuart Douglas

3.5star.jpg Crime

During location filming for his 1970's sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the dead body of a woman on the edge of a reservoir. The police seem happy to assign it as an accidental death, but something about the whole thing bothers Lowe, and he enlists the help of a fellow actor, John Le Breton to help him investigate matters further. They travel across the country during their days off filming, uncovering more possible murders and, seemingly, a link to death during the Second World War. But is there really a link between the deaths? And will they manage to uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives? Full Review

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Review of

Death in a Lonely Place by Stig Abell

4star.jpg Crime

Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner. Full Review

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. Full Review

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Review of

A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Full Review

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Review of

The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet

3.5star.jpg Crime

Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway. Full Review

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Review of

Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

4star.jpg Crime

When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career? Full Review

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Review of

The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C L Miller

3.5star.jpg Crime

It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. Full Review

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Review of

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French

5star.jpg Crime

Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. Full Review

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Review of

The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman

4star.jpg Crime

It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target? Full Review

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Review of

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin

4star.jpg Crime

Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul somehow got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect. Full Review

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Review of

Laying Out the Bones by Kate Webb

4.5star.jpg Crime

It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate. Full Review

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Review of

Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery) by Simon Mason

4.5star.jpg Crime

In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not really his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic. Full Review

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Review of

The Winter Visitor by James Henry

4star.jpg Crime

It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home? Full Review

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Review of

A Nye of Pheasants by Steve Burrows

4star.jpg Crime

DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. Full Review

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Review of

They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries) by Keith Redfern

4star.jpg Crime

Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he charges. It's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delighted. Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness. Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears to have killed himself. Stuart's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thriving. Lucy, he says, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted that the death was suicide, but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil died. Full Review

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Review of

Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries) by Ann Macarthur

4star.jpg Crime

It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession? On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something. Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train. Greg's been asked to investigate. Full Review

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Review of

The Misper by Kate London

4star.jpg Crime

Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer. And so lives must go on. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan) by Caro Ramsay

4star.jpg Crime

In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will follow. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him. Full Review

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Review of

The Raging Storm (Two Rivers) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?

Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round celebrity. I nearly said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip? Full Review

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Review of

The Girl in the Eagle's Talons by Karin Smirnoff

5star.jpg Crime

Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example.

Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without trace. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's death. Full Review

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Review of

The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get home. Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her home. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes. Full Review

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Review of

A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart

4star.jpg Crime

From the first page, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well. The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needs. What we don't know is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him die. I'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening. Full Review

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