Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Brody0571370977|title=Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)The Lock-Up|author=John Banville|rating=4.5

|summary=Much as it did It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in 1927Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a flight to be arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, where she was to view what happened and this has made the eclipsealready strained relationship between them more difficult. Surely she didnThey't need re brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised the flightyoung, Jewish scholar, which collected FelliniRosa Jacobs, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers' Field is found in Leeds and landed them at the school in good timea lock-up. It was obvious that the singer was worried about somethingAt first, but it looked as though she didn't seem able to explain what d gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it wasmurder rather than suicide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349414319</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= William Sutton1529337968|title= Lawless and the House In Place of ElectricityFear|author=Catriona McPherson|rating= 5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Campbell Lawless It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is back, this time tasked with solving due to start work as a series of terrorist attacks across qualified medical almoner the nation. Is it following morning - on the work of day that the French, as police NHS is born. She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and public are being led her job will be to believe, or someone closer help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. The hardest part of the job will be to home? Who can be trusted persuade people that the services she offers really are free and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, that they don't have to do with the bombs used anything to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services qualify for them. Some of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a campaign problem of subterfuge her own which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant inventionmight give her some insight. Her marriage has never been consummated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785650130</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= J Jefferson Farjeon057136358X|title= Seven DeadApril in Spain|author=John Banville|rating= 45|genre= Crime (Historical Fiction)|summary=Ted Lyte Terry Tice was petty criminala hitman, but not usually the housebreaking typealthough he didn't think of himself in those terms. He lacked saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the couragethought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. However He enjoyed his job, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck something which occurred to him when he decided to try his chances at an isolated house was in Burma with a shuttered window. the army ''...where he might find got the chance to kill a bit lot of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't what heunderstand why Terry didn'd hoped. In t know the purpose of a locked room swizzle stick - surely he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a woman. Fleeing wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the house in horror, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a journalist. Fascinated by Ted''morning''? It was after Percy's story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment death that he saw the benefits of odd clues, including taking up a portrait shot through the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the victimsjob in Spain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356886</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susanna GregoryB08Z8BMZ7H|title=The Habit Mystery of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew BartholomewHealing|author=A P McGrath

|summary=It was 1360 We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and Michaelhouse was in dire financial straits: they could last a little longer but not that longhe's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace. Then it seemed that a lifeline might have been thrown to them when they heard that The remuneration isn't high but the wealthy Elizabeth de Burgh of work gives the Suffolk town doctor a feeling of Clare was dead virtue and it was possible that The Lady, as she was known, had left them a legacyhones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to live. It seemed that 's quite a spectacle: the best thing to do was to go to Clare to claim magistri are the money (or to try charge hands and prove that it had been when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions'intended'' and should therefore be paid) with all hastemanes to make them look more impressive. The real mission could be concealed behind sagitarii are the bald statement that they were there archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to attend fight for their lives with the funeralwild animals. Matthew Bartholomew was one of Today, it's the contingent from Michaelhousecrocodiles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751562637</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess1529337925|title= The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody MysteryMirror Dance (Dandy Gilver)|author=Catriona McPherson|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Amelia Peabody is a no-nonsense lady who endures all manner of murder attemptsIt was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, kidnappings it was cold enough to have the fire lit and sundry other crimes while Bunty the Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on various archaeological digs the sofa. The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Egypt with equanimity and composureDundee. She is either revered or feared (or both) by villains, museum curators, family was the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and workmen alike for Judy show in the local park had used copies of two of her caustic tongue cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and the steelher sister Freckle -reinforced parasol to drum up some local interest in his show. Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she brandishes at wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the first sign man about infringement of danger. And yet, once the evilcopyright -doers have been locked up, precious objects returned to their owners and all injuries bandaged, she still insists on all the decorum of the English abroad: formal dress for dinner Dandy and only Alex would be cheaper than employing a solicitor to do the politest and least contentious topics for dinner-table conversationsame job. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472126823</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sara SheridanB08LKT7HSR|title= Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan Murder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery)|author=Helena Dixon|rating= 3.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= In this, December 1933 the fifth novel remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series, we have reached 1955cellar of the Glass Bottle Public House. There is less emphasis on rationing now: time has moved on from the post-war privations we saw Ezekiel Hamett was sought in our first encounter connection with Mirabelle the murder of Elowed and her warmhis half-brother, cheery companion Vesta in 1951Denzil Hammett, a time when tearing a stocking whose body was a disaster of the first orderalso discovered. Various types of prejudice are still rife Kitty Underhay's long search for her mother, however, and Sara Sheridan is a real expert at dropping who disappeared in June 1916 was over. Now she's determined that small, lightly sketched detail which tells us we are still in a Britain overshadowed by the aftermath of conflict. A woman who walks alone into a bar man responsible for her murder will not be served; the British Empire is still front-page news, and the colour of a person's skin is still an almost insurmountable barrier brought to equality of opportunityjustice. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472122364</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= M J TjiaStephen Clarke|title= She Be DamnedThe Spy Who Inspired Me|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical) General Fiction|summary= LondonThis is a spoof spy story, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removedthat isn't about James Bond. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim Or Ian Fleming. The police are at But it features a loss man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and so it falls to courtesan 'likes the ladies' and professional detectivewho works for the secret service, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With but in the assistance planning side of her trusty Chinese maidthings more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, Amah Li Leenand the pair end up stranded in Normandy, Heloise inches closer with Margaux on a desperate mission to the truth. But when Amah is implicated unearth traitors in the brutal plotresistance network, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again.and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178507931X</amazonuk>2952163855

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=H B Lyle0349423083|title=The Irregular: A Different Class of SpyDeath and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody

|summary=London 1909: Revolution is spreading throughout Russia and Europe. Meanwhile BritainKate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, a land growing accustomed to peaceably assisted by Jim Sykes, is becoming a magnet for spies who lives in Woodhouse and disruptionher housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. Vernon Kell, Head of War Office Counter-Intelligence, knows that the countryShe's equilibrium depends on the discovery and disposal been approached by William Lofthouse of the growing number of foreign spy networksBarleycorn Brewery in Masham. Unfortunately Something is going wrong with his masters in government canbusiness and he't see what d like Kate to look into it discreetly: he can and Kell's own agents are being killed off too fast for him hoping that his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip to collect evidenceGermany before long. That's when he meets WigginsJames went to see what the continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need to make. This William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a man with a superlative background: trained by Sherlock Holmes and, years little bit ''too'' much or is going to bring back, a star of HolmesGerman bride but he' child Irregularsd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returns. Now Kell is getting somewhere… Let battle commence!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147365534X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jane Menczer0241433568|title= An Unlikely Agent|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in a dreary boarding house in St John's Wood. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaret's meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat.When a stranger on the tram hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to 'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!'. After a gruelling interview, she finds herself in a new position as a secretary in a dingy backstreet shop.But all is not as it seems; she is in fact working for a highly secret branch of the intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission is to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions.Margaret's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for the reality of true criminality, and her journey of self-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable novel, as she discovers in herself resourcefulness, courage, independence and the first stirrings of love.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973805</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewEight Detectives|author=Andrew Wilson|title= A Talent for MurderAlex Pavesi|rating=4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Agatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back in her day, and here Andrew Wilson makes her a victim to a plot not unlike one of her own. It's all about the mystery, and it really drives the story forward. Agatha is ambushed by a strange man at the train station; she is given a proposition that confuses her and secretly intrigues her. Indeed, for this man wants her to commit a murder. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471148211</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Martin Edwards (editor)|title= Continental Crimes|rating= 4

|summary=It's not clear whether the short story has gone out of fashion, relegated to the pages of certain types of women1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in Spain. It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's magazines, or whether the magazines in which the format still holds its own are themselves not as high-profile as once they might going to have beena rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Perhaps they Only it never were, perhaps we only know about them in retrospectgets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered. Whatever the truth of that it would seem How can that have happened? There's no one else in the golden age house, so one of them must be the short story, coincided delightfully with the golden age of crimekiller.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356797</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Philip Kerr1473682401|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12|rating= 3.5|genre= Crime (Historical) |summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his own. He is given exactly one week to apprehend the suspect, and he hopes that with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get lucky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784296481</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Alis Hawkins|title= None So Blind|rating= 5|genre= Crime The Turning Tide (HistoricalDandy Gilver)|summary=When a body is accidentally uncovered nearby in 1850, Harry Probert-Lloyd the London barrister has recently returned to his father's house in West Wales due to deteriorating sight. That means Harry is on hand to press for justice, since he knows whose remains they must be. Unfortunately he's up against a few formidable opponents from the past, not least the Rebecca rioters, members of an illegal group from a few years earlier, and officially it looks like justice might not be on the cards. With the assistance of a local clerk, John Davies, Harry takes up the investigation himself, but it seems like both of them know more than they are willing to admit. Will the outcome be worth stirring up all those secrets for?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911332112</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Gavin Scott|title=The Age of Olympus (Duncan Forrester Mystery 2)Catriona McPherson

|summary=Whilst part Those who were with us at the end of an SOE mission [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to kidnap a German commander in Greece during the war, Duncan Forrester came across an ancient Cretan stone, which he hoped could lead to the deciphering of Linear BMallory Dunnoch. The war They're now married and Mallory is now officially over (although a lot having twins. When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of people are still fighting it, mentally if not physically) Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and Forrester has returned to Athens with his loverher brother, Sophie Amfeldt-Laurvig, intent on getting the necessary permissions to go to Crete and retrieve the stoneEdward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. It was whilst There are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they were in Athens that Forrester was the unwitting witness to the poisoning of a Greek poet 're staying with Dandy and where he found himself pursued by a man wearing a maskHugh. Strange as all this might seemDandy and her detective partner, Forrester is convinced that Alec Osborne, had not taken up the poet was not chance to look into a problem at the intended victim: Cramond ferry when it should have been a general who has been approached was offered to lead ELASthem twice before, but suddenly the military arm possibility of being out of the Greek communistshouse at Gilverton seems irresistible. He's the sort of charismatic man who could sway a lot of people to follow him adn that would mean certain war.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783297824</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan KennedySeishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=A Time to Tell LiesThe Honjin Murders

|genre=Crime (Historical) |summary= Psychologist Alan KennedyTo many readers, the phrase 's fifth novel continues locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the story he began with [[Lucy book one to read; preferably quantified by Alan Kennedy]]the words 'clever' or 'good'. In the autumn of 1942 For those who need more, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among here is the men and women picked up and taken to a stately home extra background – we're in Scotland, where they are trained rural Japan in spy skillsthe 1930s. After this first encounter The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, Alex although the whole affair is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine againreally not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. The spy's life is dangerous and unpredictable She only has an uncle representing her family, after allfor one thing. Six weeks later Either way, thoughthe celebrations have gone ahead as planned, they meet up again only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in southwest France, where they have been sent to collect Simonethe neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first mission (Justine's fourth) and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody traditional musical instrument at the Gendarmerietime of the crime, facing a German who knows he this case has a false passportlot of the peculiar about it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993202322</amazonuk>1782275002

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lois Austen-LeighB07XLM3SM6|title= The Incredible CrimeMurder at the Dolphin Hotel|author=Helena Dixon|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Prudence Pinsent flings Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her novel across and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the roomDolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why. She''Unutterable bilge'' is her description s always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the typical country house murder mystery edge of romantic novelstown before - and she's done every job in the hotel. The deliberate irony of this is that And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''The Incredible Crimeand'' is precisely one such novelwhy Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356029</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Dunmore0349423067|title=Birdcage WalkThe Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical Fiction)|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is From Christmas to Easter a property developer who has reached the zenith of his lifetrain ran from Leeds City Station to King's work: building a terrace of prestigious houses overlooking Cross, arriving before dawn so that the Avon Gorgeforced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In a time early March 1929, one of turbulence as France reaches the dawn porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of revolutiona man, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spreadstripped naked and with no means of identification. This puts Lizzie in Scotland Yard hit a difficult position since her mother dead end and step-father both believe called on the services of Kate Shackleton in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including women. In other words, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort hope that fanned her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the French flameslead they needed. However, that's Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not Lizzie's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unaware.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Lindsey Davis|title= The Third Nero|rating= 5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Lindsey Davis is one clever lady. Having enthralled readers for years come to terms with the adventures of Marcus Didius Falco, the Ancient Roman informer (or, to put it in more modern terms, private eye) fact that she sustains our interest by allowing Falco to take was now a well-deserved and politically strategic retirement while his adopted daughter Albia takes over the family businesswoman experienced in dealing with murder. Her wit is dry as dust, she has a highly desirable (well, he's called Manlius: what else could he be?) love-interest and as a Briton, her take on Roman bureaucracy and pettifogging officialdom is just as sharp and funny as her cynical dad's ever He was. A new main character, a new way of doing things, which somehow manages reluctant to retain give her all the best elements of information which the original Falcopolice held. Genius.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613426</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)1472127110|title=Retribution RoadIndian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery|author=Sara Sheridan

|genre=Crime (Historical Fiction )|summary=''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just a hard manLife has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, he was something else: a dangerous man.'' Ifour favourite fifties sleuth, indeedsince the war, there was someone who was ideal and not always for a suicide mission, it was himthe better. Working as a soldier for the East India Company When she first settled in the ruralBrighton she was alone, remoterudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, outlaw hotbeds of Asia in the 1850s, lover who died before he's tasked with taking a boat of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy to try and combat local warlord Pagan Mincould leave his wife. It doesn't go well – As time went by she found in herself an ability to start withsolve crimes, he's supposed made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to run the rule over ruffians saved from the gallowslet a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, but can't command them until he's forced his way to having and even found consolation in the knowledge arms of the mission he needs first, only for all hell to break loosea rather charming policeman. But get back he does, only to find that while his nightmares about what really happened are met with equally dark goings-on, the official record suggests the mission never actually existed…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857053744</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rory Clements1912374439|title=CorpusThe Courier|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|rating=3.5

|summary=A suicidal overdose and Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder , I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of upper class Cecil Langley war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and his wife are two events that may be unconnectedtheir store condemned as Jewish and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. However In this timeline, a maverick agent is England back in 1936town, a magnet one who might have been fingered for opposing forces murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their first moves in preparation for the coming conflictbaby as a young family, assisted or prevented except he was thought by a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on). Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into all to have died in the middle of this accidentally to begin with but his curiosity has been piqued enough to ensure he's not walking away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762613</amazonuk>War…

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Ross1786075431|title=The Mask of Command Mrs Mohr Goes Missing|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Twilight of Empiretranslator)|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical Fiction)|summary= Warning: spoilers ahead for previous books in the seriesMeet Zofia. 305AD: Castus Aurelius A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, following the death of and keen on her husband progressing yet through his predecessoresteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, has been promoted to commander (or vir perfecctissiums) of the Roman forces at the Rhinelife is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better. HeMeanwhile, other people's also been ordered life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to take Crispuslack of hygiene, Constantineand many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads. One such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home. I say ''was''s son and heir, for the character-building experienceshe has vanished. That complicates matters as when Castus isn't trying Only due to keep Crispus alive, heZofia's finding it difficult to increase his own chance of survivalhelp does she get found, especially considering how dead and in a place the last Rhine commander met his near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784975257</amazonuk>? And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham Hurley1786893762|title=Finisterre|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=The Second World War is almost lost but Things in a last, desperate roll of the dice the German High command launch Operation Finisterre. In America the apparent suicide of a scientist working on the atom bomb and off the coast of Spain the shipwreck of a German submarine, become catalysts as the plans spiral out of control, leading to a shattering climax. 'Finisterre' is a crime thriller packed with grit, suspense and style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784977810</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewJars|author=Shirley McKay|title=1588: A Calendar of Crime (A Hew Cullan Mystery)Jess Kidd

|summary=A lot of crime happens child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in St Andrews during 1588 time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and therefore in the life setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of law lecturer that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and local investigator Hew Cullen toothe downright hideous. As we travel through the year with himAnd before you're more than a couple of pages in, his recently wedded English wife Francesyou realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, doctor brother in law Giles with a widow's cap and his sister Megstout, shiny boots, but the wise womantobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, we also encounter some what an utterly ''fast'' thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of his most interesting casessomething, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. In The fact therethat it's one actually meant to match each cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of the yearcourse, there's big festivals: Candlemasthe ghost. Ruby Doyle, Whitsunworld-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, Lammasand it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, Martinmas and Yulethat is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973635</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Erle Stanley Gardner0349414327|title= The Knife Slipped|rating= 5|genre= Crime |summary= Before we begin, I must confess. Confess that I am a hardboiled noir addict. Therefore, I approach each grisly tale A Snapshot of murder, private detectives and femme fatales with a sense of wonder but also scepticism. ''Surely'', I think ''this one can't be as good as the last, it must have flaws, poor characters and lack the necessary grit to be a true hardboiled noir masterpiece?'' so you can imagine my trepidation when opening the Knife Slipped. I was wrong, wonderfully wrong. This book for me is the essence of the hardboiled noir genre and E.S. Gardner is a marvel. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783299274</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewMurder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Wray Delaney|title=An Almond for a ParrotFrances Brody

|summary=When Even detectives need a dead monk is discovered walled into a disused monastery the local gossip is awash with remarks on the miracle of his well-preserved body all these years after the monastery was abandoned. Investigator break and Captain of Cromwell's guard Damian Seeker has other ideas. This is a recent non-clergy death. This is Carter Blythfor Kate Shackleton, a man on such a secret mission that even Cromwell didn't know about itphotography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. This will add complications to When the already convoluted and dangerous path that Seeker will take to solve the crime, one of the complications being very close to home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782068449</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= M J Carter|title=The Devil's Feast|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, the early 1840s: the newly-opened Reform Club is the focal point for the Liberal elitelocal Photographic Society proposed an outing, where Whigs and Radicals can co-exist in harmony. Or such Kate was the intention. With a celebrity chef in its up keen to take the minute kitchen, however, the club seems opportunity to have more of a reputation for its dinners than its politics, visit Haworth and when a man dies horribly after eating one the Reform could have a problem on its hands. Particularly when it begins to look like murder. Luckily William Avery agrees to look into the matter with some urgencyStanbury, but – as everyone keeps asking him – where on earth is his professional investigator friend Jeremiah Blake?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146364</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= George Mann (Editor)|title= Associates of Sherlock Holmes|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=The world-famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes needs no introduction; a redoubtable protagonist with an appeal that shows no sign of waning. ''Associates of Sherlock Holmes,'' however, moves the spotlight away from our hero and focuses on not least because the exploits of some deeds of the minor players who have featured in his adventures Brontë Parsonage are being handed over the years. Here we get so that it can become a chance to reacquaint ourselves with friends museum and foes alike, all keen to give their own, unique perspective of her parents will be there for the indomitable investigatorevent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783299304</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Lindsey Davis|title= The Graveyard of the Hesperides|rating= 5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Our heroine Albia's grey-eyed and broad-shouldered love interest in this, the fourth of the Falco New Generation crime novels (Falco himself has got on the wrong side of Emperor Domitian, and has very sensibly retired to the coast) is called Manlius – that alone should What could be enough to tell you reams about the wickedly sly sense of humour Ms Davis displays in better than seeing her novels. The setting is once again Ancient Romefamily, witnessing a momentous event and Ms Davis provides enough local colour having the opportunity to create a world so convincing you could almost be there. In fact, the descriptions are so vivid that, as you pull in your skirts or bewail the fate take photographs of your brand-new sandals to follow our gutsy heroine into picturesque slums like the Brown Toad bar or Mucky Mule Mews, you could be forgiven setting for suspecting you've wandered into somewhere far more familiar, like, say, the back streets of Brum'Wuthering Heights''? Nothing could go wrong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613396</amazonuk> Or could it?