Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene0008517061|title=Fritz and KurtDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and KurtFormer Metropolitan Police detective, and their muckersJake Johnson, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and has settled into his rustic life at a vocational schoolLittle Sky. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as There’s perhaps a light switch. But this is little uncertainty about the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's willfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis outher daughter Diana, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as moving in Germany, as did all the round-ups together would mean a lot of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with compromise: does Jake give up his mother off-grid and sisters anxious relaxing life to hear word of an evacuation move in with Livia or does Livia move to Britain Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the US, while Fritz future she wants for herself and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the same train to Buchenwald present and putting the stone quarry therefuture on the back burner. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|isbn=024156574X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294212411786482126|title=Stay BuriedThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Kate WebbElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Matt Lockyer is on Major Crime Review which sounds quite grand until you realise that it's actually a cold case unit and there are just two of them doing Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the job. Lockyersite was going to hold seventy-five 's not unduly worried, though although heluxury's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable apartments - when they discovered the bones of something bettera child beneath a doorway. It There was no skull. Was this a bit of a shock when he got the phone call from Hedy Lambert: she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for ritual killing or murder - and it was Lockyer who put her there? Inevitably, fourteen years agoDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. SheIt's keen to see him and to tell him difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but is pregnant with his child as a result of the body turned out one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decadessudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BQXSYYTF0008551324|title=Just LookingThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Matthew TreeNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian FictionCrime|summary=It was 's unusual for anyone from the summer of 2035 and on a cruise ship in Marseilles, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth and Hardie family to approach the end of his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by a man! police. He's watching Neither side likes or has any respect for the tornado - they're more common other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in Europe these days - thatprison and he's keeping prepared to tell the cruise ship in port police where the body of a missing person is buried and falls into conversation with Jean-Pierrewho was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, a French journalist in 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 thirtiessentence and to get an early parole date. He writes for a relatively Not much to ask, is it? The new paper, the right-wing ''La Tribune Gauloise'Deputy Police Constable doesn' t think so and heshe's interesting if a little wordy on subjects such as even prepared to do the difference between 'France' other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and 'the French'. His partner, Helen, anyone whoworks with him is kept well away from what's English and Jewish, keeps him in check to some extenthappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=057137493X0008405026|title=The Other HalfA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Charlotte VassellJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It''The room was full of the sort of people ''Tatler'' thinks you should know.'' ''The Other Half'' is the story of two men, both with what looks like the same surnames sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Rupert Beauchamp is She was never found and the heir investigation ground to a baronetcy and his thirtieth birthday party is a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Townhalt. Think Bollinger Now, her mother, Helena, and cocaineher father are dead in their bed. His surname is pronounced Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector with s something about the positioning of the Metropolitan police bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and is bi-racialher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. His surname is pronounced What looked as you see though itwas going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. The two encounter each other when Caius, out for a run, stumbles across Kerrigan is convinced that the body of Clemmie Oexplanation lies in Rosalie'Hara, Ruperts disappearance: others (such as Derwent's girlfriend. Rupert thought that she was being deliberately late for his party. She was dead under a bushboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joe Thomas0571379877|title=White RiotThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always the danger of making it too reactionary; too raw. KneeEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-jerk observations class friends, Robert and hot takes that donStanza. Robert't age well or properly capture the spirit of the moment. It takes s a truly talented writer to be able to capture the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political historytheatre director. Austerity Britain He's also self-obsessed, the student riots, Donald Trump, Brexit – so much of what isdemanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been, written in the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven by time love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature), the best writing about current political events is tell Edward that which a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is written when left to stumble upon the events two of them kissing in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective viewdark passageway.|isbn= 1529423376
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Heather FawcettJo Callaghan|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of FaeriesLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Emily Wilde When a man is an expert academic scholar found crucified on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulouslythe top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to write the case alongside her lifesidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's worktheir first live case together, the having previously been very first encyclopaedia of faeriessuccessful with several cold cases. Whilst she But when there is brilliant at research and speaking to faeriesa second body found crucified a few days later, she Kat is not so good suddenly struggling with peoplea potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. So when she finds herself far, far North Will they be able to solve the case in the small village of Hrafvsniktime, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem or will Kat find herself and put her final investigations for her book back on taken off the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome case and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delightpotentially, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnikout of a career?|isbn=0356519120139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18484584361399613073|title=Just the Nicest CoupleMoral Injuries|author=Mary KubicaChristie Watson|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=''The whole thing has spiralled out of controlOlivia, turning into someone I'm not.''  ''Just Laura and Anjali met on the Nicest Couple'' is the story first day of two couples: Christian medical school and Lily Scotttheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and Nina and Jake Hayesa trauma doctor. The connection between Anjali is the two is that Lily and Nina teach in free spirit of the same school: Nina teaches English group and Lily covers high school algebrashe becomes a GP. The couples have mixed as When we first meet them they're at a foursome but drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's not a regular thinggoing to end in tragedy. Christian is a market research analyst and Jake is a neurosurgeon: they We don't have much in common except their wivesknow who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. Lily hasn't said anything yetThis time, but sheit's pregnant. She has a lengthy history of miscarriages so she doesn't want to tempt fate by making the knowledge publictheir teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19145854020241636604|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=David F RossGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=I reviewed David F RossIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's book [[re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Therewas no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Only One Danny Garvey by David F RossGuide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|Theresummary=It's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of 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 remember being absolutely floored by how powerful Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and affecting it the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur wasthe reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. It was 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 gripping, emotionally wounding readcafe, met and rereading my review married James (on the rebound from the love of it my main takeaway her life, who was that I might not murdered) and Freya and James have lavished enough praise on itnow divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178563335XAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Sea DefencesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Hilary TaylorBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they'Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're held when you need to pick the children upeighteen. Her husbandWell, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds I must confess that there have been more than a sobbing parishionerfew decades of technology in my lifetime. ThelmaI've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's daughterall getting away from me. Some of it is -infrankly -law won't let her see her grandsonquite frightening. HolthorpeOf course, on I could research the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with possibilities and the parish - probabilities and sheend up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then shem reading someone who knows what they's been doing re talking about or the job for more than thirty yearslatest conspiracy theorist. Rachel I needed people I knew I could trust and Christopher hoped that who could deliver information in a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missingway I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hadeer ElsbaiSunny Singh|title=The Daughters of IzdiharHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=FantasyThrillers |summary= Drawing inspiration The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from Egypt, ''The Daughters of Izdihar'' explores the lives of two women terrorists who could not be more differentare rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women a wartime photographer and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against them. NehalAbhi, born into the upper class, wishes hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to attend care remotely for the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join residents who are still alive in the militaryhotel, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage he forms a bond with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure Sam who refuses to provide for her family be cowed by events, and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings keeps on venturing out of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for womenher room to try to capture what's rightshappened through her photography. Giorgina also happens to be in love with Nico. What follows is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty Although they only ever talk over the phone, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and overcoming their personal obstaclesthey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=0356520471086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Todd Taylor1529153298|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful The List of SpyingSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]]woman? I mean, Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy and as a master at all things French and fancy and fondanthonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, as the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on the French railwaysthough. Women have been disappearing. HereWell, we start on a bateau-mouche in Paristhey've been murdered, and even though the espionage isnbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't a complete success it proves to Alice and her handlers that things are afootsound quite so frightening. And there will never be more feet than at the WorldMiv's upset because she's Fair, reviving the huge expo overheard that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing all her interwar glories off father wants to move the worldfamily 'Down South'. Once again Alice will have to present the front to the world of being When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a humble yet world-class cake decoratorfrightening, foreign place, while seeking out cluesbest avoided. At stake? For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. Pioneering flight technology She's not worried about the dangers or that the enemy just cannot be allowed her Mum's stopped talking - to smuggle out…|isbn=1839940972anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amanthi Harris1398524085|title=Beautiful PlaceHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= PadmaCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, a young Sri Lankansons Niall, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of Paul and Ollie and her home countrydaughter, Etty. This are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is a place she spent her formative yearsnot. It is not a place she was born intoShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, but find the one she thinks body of as home. How she came to be at the VillaGreg's father, how it became her homeDuncan Ackerley, and in the river. It was an easy assumption for the machinations police to make that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novelguilt. Padma The Salter children are not convinced but there's present fails to escape her past little else they can do but get on with their lives and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villawonder about what really happened.|isbn=1784631930
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nigel Baines1035906708|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Cooper loves We tend to perform magic tricks. His father think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was a magicianborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooperonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. But sadly CooperHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesnCallas't quite know who to be, or how to bemake it more manageable in the States. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to himWhen she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|isbn=1444960261Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1542037239Christopher Edge|title=Death in Heels|author=Kitty MurphyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Set against Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the backdrop nickname of Dublin's drag sceneThe Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they''Death in Heels'' tells the story re looking forward to lots of Fi McKinnery exciting films, and her best friendmany, many snacks! However, Robynas the movie starts, who is they very quickly realise that something about to debut as drag queen Mae B. What this new film format is meant to be a night of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queenvery different, Eve, takes to the stage and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to mock Mae B. As if the night could not get any worsenext, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi can they figure out what on earth is adamant that Eve was murdered, yet going on? Will they ever get back to the drag communitycinema, and the Guards, accept it as an accident. Fi takes it upon herself to solve the mystery as she fears for her friends, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeper.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800465270Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Lensky Connection|author=Conrad DelacroixCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri Grozky, it's June 1995 and he's at I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the Serafimov Cemetry answering beat in St Petersburgmy heart. He's ' Rosevear, a pallbearer for his elder brotherremote and partially forgotten island, Timur, whose death was drug-relatedsurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Valeri and Timur's fatherMira, Ketolike her mother before her, is also a pallbearer one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and he's disgusted by what his son had becomeany treasure that lies within. Valeri thinks differently: heBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's determined to make his own stand against organised crime leader and avenge TimurMira's father. Desperate to save him from death. Within a matter of months, his obsession will have cost him his marriage to Marisha and created Mira makes a dubious link bargain with Natassja Petrovskaya, a journalist. She's determined to expose any wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and all corruption - and she's less concerned than she ought with only coordinates to be about her own safety. To guide her, he's she sets off in search of a good sourcefamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. For himWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, itas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's a way to get information publishedterritory, which wouldn't otherwise Mira must be possibledetermined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399702289James Sherwood Metts|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=After Things have been a harsh winter, bit sticky for the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springEarthlings. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache AI and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. Gamache had offered help to a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd automation have been less certain about her charismatic brother. For Jean-Guyproceeding apace, it had always been the other way around. Now often replacing jobs they're both in the village paid to do and neither can fathom what's happeningother tasks that took time to accomplish. Armand will soon find that Just as they're not just in Three Pines but in his home were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and in his life, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BHR8KWSKMatthew Tree|title=Dukkha|author=Martin HydeWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorLiterary Fiction|summary=Sam wakes up chained in Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a basement. He rails against his captor drunk and the injustice chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his imprisonment? Why? ''Why?'' But artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of course, he knows why. Sam is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down and dirty life by going to a retreat and emerging as a neophyte Buddhist monkself confidence. Recently returning So Tim applied himself to join the community in his old neighbourhoodstudies, he knew cultivated his abilities rather than his past would be hard to escape daydreams and set himself high but he hadn't imagined it exploding into this new life in quite such a violent fashionachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09XWSXSKYA G Slatter|title=Maestro Orpheus and The Briar Book of the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiDead|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. A tuneThis secret magic of my own, all mine, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mindat last. It happened every time he came I just want to visit his grandfatherenjoy it for a while. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do s, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is tell the time. And time isn't good first non-witch to be born into her family for anything..generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions.When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the townAnd that was why he was looking at s leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the clock beside rare ability to communicate with the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but dead, putting her at midnight the clock chimed only six timesheart of a maelstrom of chaos. There was nothing for it but Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to go trust and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all determine what to do as the clocks stopped at twelve oBriar witches'clock?legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287111529900360|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'Ghost Orchid|author=Hans BodmerJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'The history of 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 development help of IT could fill books of several hundred pagesa psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of involvement was something that the Control Data Company, CDCman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, for whom he workedthough. It's Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a fascinating tale, told remote property in a mixture of technological summary Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and wry anecdoteit's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293566601529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The SanctuarySecret Life of a Vet|author=Emma HaughtonSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the quiet which woke Zoey up strain that being on- or, rather, call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the absence opportunity of the noise which doing work experience with a family friend who was a constant in New York. Here it vet and was convinced this was silent and the heat was overwhelmingjob for him. When she looked out of the window all she could see Before long, he was the desertat Liverpool University. How did she get here? Zoey was houseIt hadn't - as with so many students -sitting for Uncle Dan and been his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been out with Franny and Rocco last nightdream since he was a child. She knew that she If anything, he'd had quite a lot wanted to drink but how could she have got to the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but as she thought back, a memory of sirens, flashing lights and of being pushed into be a car snagged on the edge of her mindprofessional footballer.
}}
 
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Golden0861541774|title=Road A Nye of BonesPheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the DCI Domenic Jejeune'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a thousand miles across Siberiashort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, it's one of the world's most notorious routesGuy Trueman. For months of the year it's Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into man armed with a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalypticknife -level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dust. I don't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost killed a life every metre it coversGhurka. You can easily find documentaries about it onlineInitially, but that's he faced a bit rich, for one charge of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there manslaughter but evidence came to encourage the project light that suggested that he might have planned to fruition to claw back some of murder the funds man. Now he'd invested in could be facing the pair's prior TV projectsdeath penalty. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a local beauty, diplomatic incident and fetch up wouldn't help Danny at the guide's childhood villageall. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838776184Alexander McCall Smith|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most Royal|author=S J BennettThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''The QueenPerfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, like the sunrise run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the tidesonline apps in providing a more personal, was generally a reliable way of marking time.'' It seemed to begin as a coldtailored service. Hardly surprising, reallyNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Prince Philip had been suffering Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betterwhile. HopefullyKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Queen thought, her cold would go the same waychance to come home to Edinburgh. She'd probably caught it And so begins this new story from one of the great-grandchildren. UnfortunatelyAlexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, it didn't get better thanks to 44 Scotland Street and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flu. She and the Duke were due Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to go to Sandringham by train that day but the doctor put his foot downcharm. He'd have preferred that the queen have Katie has no experience in running a few days' bed rest before venturing out business, or in match-making, but had to be satisfied with the thought that theyNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for s always her today very helpful (and Her Majesty did not like rather handsome) neighbour, William, to disappoint.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones0811771741|title=Conversations with NatureInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrafts|summary= One Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the comments made when I was offered this beautiful book for review was that it's not very long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. Having read The projects are divided by the book twice overtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, I'm brought back inescapably five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the Spanish proverb that Life may be shortprojects are attractive, but it is broadmodern and useable. In this case Iperhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'm brought to the idea but that the length of life is not the point; the point is its depth. Peter Owen Jones dives deep's me being picky.|isbn=1912992418
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1916459943Dean Koontz|title=Squeakily Baby|author=Beth WebbThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingParanormal|summary=Much as mothers love their babies, there's something they all dread - Benny is having a squeakily babyterrifically bad day. He's so tired but he can't - or won't - go to sleep: insteadloses his job, he just lies on loses his blanket fiancee, and ''wails''his house gets trashed. The sea offers Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to help. It rocks Baby gently his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the waves sing ''hushthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, hush''Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto He is a sandy beach and you have the sound perfectlynice person. The mermaids join in - ''la lou, la layA really nice person...'' And So fortunately for a moment Benny it seems turns out that the delivery to have worked as Baby closes his eyeshouse is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Then a seagull '''shouts''Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny' s enemies, if he, Benny, and we know exactly whatHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's going to happen nextwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin StevensAdam Stower|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=May Wong Murray is supposed to be a long way from her family in Hong Kong. She’s stuck in her schoolhumble, Deepdeantidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and desperate to get awayeat and sleep and, well, and do something useful to help end whatever takes his fancy next of the war and to get hometwo. She just knows that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned away by into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the Ministrycatflap they both use can chuck them out, she takes matters not into her own handsthe regular back garden, along with but into a boy she meets outside the Ministry, Ericworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. They both go undercover in This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a large country housetroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, pretending to be evacueeshonest, in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Nazis. But there is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them but he's turned up and he'll have imagined, and suddenly they find themselves in the middle of a murder scene, with even more to try to unravel and solve.do…|isbn=02414298620008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1919635017B0C47LV1PC|title=A Thief to Catch a KillerFragility|author=Kitt TownsendMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= Solomon Klyne isnCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''t a bad ladjoke? And if you could, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberiesthe question should you make it? And how Or is the question if you did he learn to crack safes, would it land? You'll have to wait to get an answer to The catch is that the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmotherboth could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=13985153881529431735|title=The Boy and the DogWinter Visitor|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floorIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which created made Bruce Hopkins' return all the tsunami and this, in turn, caused more surprising. He'd been exiled on the nuclear meltdownCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The result was complete return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and utter devastationhasn't long to live. The deaths were uncountableIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the loss boot of livelihoods was widespreada stolen Ford Sierra. The fact that many pets were separated Is it a warning from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't Spanish gang or a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa problem closer to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529153050Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim BensonThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=HumourConfident Readers|summary=Seeking some light relief from Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the current political turmoil which dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sporta generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, I was nudged towards ''BritainEli's Best Political Cartoons parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of 2022''a magical beast. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through This has made the race anathema to the year: pair – but when a bad incident at the cartoons run eatery leads to a confession from 4 September 2021 gran, Eli knows his only hope is to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine dare to enter what there will be he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to come in the 2023 edition?possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Gray178763681X|title=The Dark RoomKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across Chef Paul Delamare took a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in teaching job at a different place and time? This is what happens to Leonard residential cookery school in this storyBelgravia. He is an ex-crime reporter for didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a newspaper, way of getting both men and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where women to do what he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at homewanted. One of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years ago, and who he Paul ''thoughtsomehow'' got the impression that he 'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had watched die in front of him one night in a hotel. Hebroken arm, but it didn'd felt guilty ever since t turn out that night, way. The teaching - and lost everything because of it the problems - are all his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she own. The one thing he hadn't really died the night she expected was with himfor someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, what on earth actually happened?|isbn=154203535Xhe was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
}}