Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008454493
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|isbn=1035021803
|title=All the Dangerous Things
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|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=Stacy Willingham
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|author=C L Miller
|rating=4.5
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Isabelle Drake hasn't really slept for a year - well, apart from the odd occasion when she lost track of time or drifted off for a momentIt's now a year since her son, Mason, was stolen from his bed in the middle of the night and Izzy is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing and particularly about her relief in the morning when she thought he was sleeping inIn that year she's done everything she could to raise awareness about the caseShe does interviews and when we meet her, she's just been to TrueCrimeCon where she gave a keynote  presentationOn the plane back, she's approached by a podcaster, Waylon Spencer, who points out that she could do a podcast and get to so many more people than she could by giving speeches to a few hundred people at conferences.
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|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew upShe'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 leastArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badlyEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she lovedAfter 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=057137493X
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|isbn=1398524085
|title=The Other Half
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|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?
|author=Charlotte Vassell
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|author=Nicci French
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=''The room was full of the sort of people ''Tatler'' thinks you should know.''
+
|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned upHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is notShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the riverIt was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guiltThe 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.
 
 
''The Other Half'' is the story of two men, both with what looks like the same surname.  Rupert Beauchamp is the heir to a baronetcy and his thirtieth birthday party is a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden TownThink Bollinger and cocaine. His surname is pronounced 'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector with the Metropolitan police and is bi-racial.  His surname is pronounced as you see itThe two encounter each other when Caius, out for a run, stumbles across the body of Clemmie O'Hara, Rupert's girlfriendRupert thought that she was being deliberately late for his partyShe was dead under a bush.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0857051741
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|isbn=1529900360
|title=The Sins of Our Fathers: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigation
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|title=The Ghost Orchid
|author= Asa Larsson and Frank Perry (Translator)
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|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live but he's determined that Rebecka Martinsson is going to investigate the case of a body found in a freezer at the home of a deceased alcoholic.  The problem is that the case has long passed the statute of limitations.  Raimo Koskela disappeared without a trace in 1962.  He was the father of Olympic boxing champion Borje Strom.  Rebecka wants nothing to do with a fifty-year-old case on which she can take no action: the problem is that this is a dying man's wishThe situation changes when a post-mortem establishes that  Henry Pekkari, the dead alcoholic, was also murdered.  Is there a connection between the two deaths?
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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 ItalianBut which of them was the primary target?
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529421241
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|isbn=178763681X
|title=Stay Buried
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|title=Knife Skills for Beginners
|author=Kate Webb
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|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|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 the jobLockyer's not unduly worried, though although he's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable of something better.  It was a bit of a shock when he got the phone call from Hedy Lambert: she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - and it was Lockyer who put her there, fourteen years agoShe's keen to see him and to tell him that the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but the body turned out to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decades.
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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 wantedPaul ''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 ownThe 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1399702289
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|isbn=1529421284
|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)
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|title=Laying Out the Bones
|author=Louise Penny
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|author=Kate Webb
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=After a harsh winter, the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springBut something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du QuébecGamache had offered help to a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brotherFor Jean-Guy, it had always been the other way aroundNow they're both in the village and neither can fathom what's happening.  Armand will soon find that they're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his life.
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|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwaveIn a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlierHe'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 convincedGeary 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 timeLockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Joe Thomas
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|isbn=1529425867
|title=White Riot
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|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)
 +
|author=Simon Mason
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always the danger of making it too reactionary; too raw. Knee-jerk observations and hot takes that don't age well or properly capture the spirit of the moment. It takes a truly talented writer to be able to capture the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political history. Austerity Britain, the student riots, Donald Trump, Brexit – so much of what is, and has been, written in the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven by time to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature), the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective view.
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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 trackiesThey're usually in lime green or acid yellowYou might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughsWell, you're notThe two men are just different sides of the same policing coinSometimes the combination works brilliantly wellSometimes it's problematic.
|isbn= 1529423376
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1838776184
 
|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most Royal
 
|author=S J Bennett
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=''The Queen, like the sunrise and the tides, was generally a reliable way of marking time.''
 
 
 
It seemed to begin as a cold.  Hardly surprising, really, as Prince Philip had been suffering for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betterHopefully, the Queen thought, her cold would go the same wayShe'd probably caught it from one of the great-grandchildrenUnfortunately, it didn't get better and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown fluShe and the Duke were due to go to Sandringham by train that day but the doctor put his foot downHe'd have preferred that the queen have a few days' bed rest before venturing out but had to be satisfied with the thought that they'd go by helicopter the following dayIt was annoying: people would be ready for her today and Her Majesty did not like to disappoint.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0861541995
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|isbn=1529431735
|title=Wolf Pack
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|title=The Winter Visitor
|author=Will Dean
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|author=James Henry
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of VisbergShe sees blood on the road and a creature on its side near the pine treesIt will turn out to be Bronco, a Swedish Elkhound, who has been attacked by a wolf.  Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vet.  Bronco didn't make it but on the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missingShe'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought to the fore.  Rose Farm is now home to a group of survivalists but back in 1987 the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, and his two eldest children and then killed himselfHis newborn child, just four weeks old survived.  Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?
+
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprisingHe'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decadeThe return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to liveIt'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 SierraIs it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1405951184
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|isbn=0861541774
|title=The Girls Who Disappeared
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|title=A Nye of Pheasants
|author=Claire Douglas
+
|author=Steve Burrows
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Back in November 1998, Olivia Rutherford was driving her three friends home after a night out.  As she passed through the darkly-wooded Devil's Corridor, a figure appeared in the roadOlivia swerved to avoid him and the car smashed into a tree, leaving her trappedWhen she regained consciousness her three friends had disappeared.  Ralph Middleton, who lived in the woods helped her before the police and ambulance arrivedBut what had happened to Sally Thorne, Tamsin Cole and Hetty Riding?  Their disappearance would be yet another mysterious happening in the Stafferbury area of WiltshireIt was thought of as Avebury's poor relation.
+
|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 TruemanMaik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a GhurkaInitially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the manNow he could be facing the death penaltyDomenic 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1542037239
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|isbn=1521129886
|title=Death in Heels
+
|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)
|author=Kitty Murphy
+
|author=Keith Redfern
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Set against the backdrop of Dublin's drag scene, ''Death in Heels'' tells the story of Fi McKinnery and her best friend, Robyn, who is about to debut as drag queen Mae B. What is meant to be a night of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queen, Eve, takes to the stage to mock Mae B. As if the night could not get any worse, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi is adamant that Eve was murdered, yet the drag community, 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.
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Lisa Gray
+
|isbn=B0CK3MYJ56
|title=The Dark Room
+
|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)
 +
|author=Ann Macarthur
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place and timeThis is what happens to Leonard in this storyHe is an ex-crime reporter for a newspaper, and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at homeOne of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years ago, and who he ''thought'' he had watched die in front of him one night in a hotelHe'd felt guilty ever since that night, and lost everything because of it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died the night she was with him, what on earth actually happened?
+
|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 professionOn the other hand, he has been asked to look into somethingJoyce 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 crossingJoyce - 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 trainGreg's been asked to investigate.
|isbn=154203535X
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09SGWCXQ8
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|isbn=1838954481
|title=The Night Watch (D S Max Craigie)
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|title=The Misper
|author=Neil Lancaster
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|author=Kate London
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Fergus Grigor went out for a run. The lawyer was on his honeymoon but his body was found dashed to pieces below the cliffs at Dunnett Head. Was it suicide, or did he - for some reason - climb over the stone wall and fall to his death? Or was he pushed? On balance, it looked like an accident but then his 'accident' was linked to the deaths of others associated with him. Scott Paterson was released after a 'not-proven' verdict meant that Scotland's most notorious criminal wasn't facing life imprisonment. Paterson was Grigor's last client.
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=000837936X
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|isbn=1448309743
|title=The Last Girl to Die
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|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)
|author=Helen Fields
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|author=Caro Ramsay
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Seventeen-year-old Adriana Clarke's family moved to Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull, in search of a new lifeIt was a bit of a change from Las Vegas, but the family seemed determined and Adriana had shown signs of developing a social life - until she disappeared.  The local police demonstrated little interest in the case (could it have been because Adriana's mother is obviously Latino?) and Rob and Isabella Clarke called in Sadie Levesque from Banff, who had successfully tracked down missing teenagersBrandon, Adriana's twin, was upset and surly.  Four-year-old Luna just knew that she missed her big sister. It took four days, but Sadie found Adriana in Mackinnon's Cave.  She'd been murdered and it looked like a ritual killing.
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|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murderedThe only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will followThe 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1509889612
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|isbn=1529077699
|title=The Rising Tide (D I Vera Stanhope)
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|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)
 
|author=Ann Cleeves
 
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's fifty years since a group of teenagers went on a weekend retreat to Holy IslandSome of them found the Only Connect course transformative and they've been coming back for a reunion every five years since then.  There was a tragedy at the first reunion when Isobel Hall drove off the island too close to high tide and her car was swept away, but her younger sister, Louisa, has returned with the group each year as her husband, Ken, was one of the original teenagersKen now has Alzheimer's and he's a shadow of the man he used to be. Philip Robson now a priest, always gets there early as he likes to have some quiet time alone in the chapel. Annie Laidler lives locally and she provides much of the food: her deli is famous in the area.
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|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?''
 +
 
 +
Well yes, it isJem 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?
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241990165
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|isbn=1529427045
|title=Hope to Die (D I Fawley)
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|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons
|author=Cara Hunter
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|author=Karin Smirnoff
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=It began rather oddly.  There was a 999 call suggesting that a shot had been fired in an isolated house but the call hadn't come from the householder.  A couple of PCs went to make certain that everything was alright and it took quite a while for the elderly householder to answer the door. He somewhat reluctantly told them that they'd better come in. In the kitchen there was a body on the floor: the head had been blown off with a shotgun and the corpse was holding a knife in its right handRichard Swann told the police that he'd heard sounds of an intruder and had come downstairs to investigateThe ignorant young lout had called him ''Grandad'' and come at him with a knife.  Swann had shot him in self-defence.
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|summary=''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 forwardSalander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without traceIt 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.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763566X
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|isbn=1787636607
|title=Listen to Me
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|title=The Trap
|author=Tess Gerritsen
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|author=Catherine Ryan Howard
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=We're in Boston with Amy. When she set out for university this morning it was a spring day and she wore her new, buttery-leather pumps but as she comes out of the library she knows that they're going to be ruined - and unsafe - in the snow that's now falling. As she crosses the road, a car comes out of nowhere and hits her. It doesn't stop.
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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.
 
 
Two months later, we're with Angela Rizzoli, mother of Detective Jane Rizzoli, and a keen defender of the suburb of Revere, north of Boston, where she lives. Nothing gets past her and whilst her boyfriend, Vince Korsak, is in California, looking after his sister, she has the time to watch what's happening in the neighbourhood. The people who are moving in at no 2533 have aroused her suspicions.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1801109265
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|isbn=1405957174
|title=The Companion
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|title=A Death at the Party
|author=Lesley Thomson
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|author=Amy Stuart
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=James Ritchie thought of himself as ''a punctual man who was inexplicably never on time'' and he was - as usual - late to pick up his son, Wilbur, for their 'boys' day out'.  These were always days which appealed more to James than to Wilbur and, competing for the boy's attention, his mother, Anna, promised him a roast dinner when he returnedThe dinner would never be served, as James and Wilbur are the victims of a double stabbing on the beach.  The case falls to DI Toni Kemp of Sussex policeShe's feeling the pressure.  You can always tell - she shoplifts Snickers Bars when the going gets tough.
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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 needsWhat we don't know is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him dieI'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=David Lagercrantz
+
|isbn=0008530025
|title=Dark Music
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|title=Murder in the Family
|rating=3
+
|author=Cara Hunter
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=How far from the original can a book allegedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes get before the allusion breaks?  This does have a wonder-mind at the heart of what little investigating is going on, but there is not a lot that Conan Doyle fans could really pin down as on their exact wavelengthFor one, the main focus of the narrative, Micaela, is no John Watson MD.  She's a Chilean in the Stockholm police, put on a murder squad as she knows the prime suspect of old, in a case where a referee of a junior football match was found stoned to death shortly after the match, and just outside the stadiumBeppe, the suspect, was drunkenly antagonistic to the ref during the closing minutes, but refuses to admit anything, through days and weeks of interrogationWhen some disreputable coppers (the kind who dismiss anything their superior comes up with, the kind who think they can judge Micaela from her fringe and how she might dress – that kind) are told to go and see what brainbox Professor Rekke thinks of it all, she can only smirk when he says Beppe is innocent and the investigation is a shamblesBut taken off the case, she can no longer help solve the crime, and with Rekke the most erratic, irregular kind of guy, she can't get his full verdict on it allUntil, that may be, she manages to stop him in the middle of an apparent suicide attempt...
+
|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London homeHe had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberate.  Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'', a true-crime show.  A group of experts has been brought together to review the evidence and to take the investigation furtherMore to the point, they're going to do this live on camera, episode by episode.  There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangersIt's compelling viewing.
|isbn=1529413192
+
}}
 +
 
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0241996104
 +
|title=Coming to Find You
 +
|author=Jane Corry
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
 +
|summary=Nancy's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted of their murder.  We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives a life sentence.  The barrister tells her that she's received a 'silent sentence' - she's not been found guilty of anything but will have to live with what happened for the rest of her lifeOf course, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and the papers are making the most of it.  ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spoken.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=152941363X
+
|isbn=1529413680
|title=To Kill a Troubadour (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
+
|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
 
|author=Martin Walker
 
|author=Martin Walker
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Nobody knows what the truth is any more.''
+
|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and Bruno's there to see the show with some friendsIt's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, the man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when he departs from the scriptLuckily, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away in a helicopter.  A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as he's a senior government employee, the man who runs Frenchelon - the military has stepped inOne daughter lives nearby and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holiday.
 
 
Bruno Courrèges is the police chief for St Denis and much of the Vézère valley and works closely with Commissaire Jean-Jaques Jalipeau (known as 'JJ'), the head of detectives for the départment of the Dordogne.  They're not just policemen - they're both deeply committed to the well-being and prosperity of this most beautiful part of FranceThe discovery of an old, stolen Peugeot, crashed and abandoned in a ditch wouldn't normally have worried them so much had it not been for the strange bullet, with Russian letters stamped on the base, which they found in the carOh, and there was a golf ball too, which didn't belong to the owner of the car.  A golf bag would be a good place to hide a sniper's weaponWas there going to be an attempt to kill someone, or were the detectives being pushed in a certain direction?
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0727850547
+
|isbn=1529196388
|title=Blind Justice (DS McAvoy 10)
+
|title=The Trial
|author=David Mark
+
|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Acting DI Aector McAvoy hadn't even had time for breakfast when the call came throughA body had been found in the roots of a fallen tree at Brantingham, near Hull. When he gets to the scene, he will find what greets him is even worse than he could have imagined.  A young man's corpse is entangled with the roots of a newly-fallen tree – the roots have grown through him – and two silver Roman coins have been nailed through his eyesIt would seem that this was done whilst the man was still alive.  McAvoy makes a promise to the victim: I will find answers. You will know justice.  But justice always comes at a cost and this time the cost might be to McAvoy's own family.
+
|summary=Grant Cliveden was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good and honest and looked up to by just about everyone, so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight at the Old BaileyThere's just one man in the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in court, charged with Cliveden's murder. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers and it's Taylor-Cameron and his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent himKnight's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contrary.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)
+
|author=Andrew Cartmel
|title=Little Drummer
+
|title=Death in Fine Condition
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Part of the Oslo Detectives series, this crime story is a mixture of police procedural and thriller. Beginning with the death of a young woman in a carpark, that looks very much like an overdose, it unravels into a far-reaching investigation of murder, fraud, and international pharmaceutical dealings. Our two detectives are Gunnarstranda and Frolich, who end up working separately on the case as Gunnarstranda remains in Norway whilst Frolich is led to Africa as they follow the twists and turns of the investigation. Gunnarstranda and Frolich are tenacious, chasing down the truth in increasingly difficult, frustrating circumstances, trying hard to uncover the truth as they are sure that something much bigger, and much more dangerous, is going on.
+
|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and in particular a series called Sleuth Hound.  She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profit, sometimes 'tweaking' them, to add value, in somewhat fraudulent ways.  One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in the background of a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wall, and so she sets about discovering where this collection is, and how she can steal it!  It's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner of the collection comes looking for their books?
|isbn=1914585127
+
|isbn=1789098947
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398507504
+
|isbn=1448309379
|title=Cold Reckoning
+
|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)
|author=Russ Thomas
+
|author=David Mark
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=DS Adam Tyler never believed that his father committed suicide and for the last sixteen years he's been searching for evidence to prove that he's right. When a frozen body was found in Damflask Reservoir, there was a link back to a cold case from 2002. There didn't immediately seem to be any connection with DI Richard Tyler's death but Adam Tyler senses a link to the case his father was investigating before he died. Above all there's a growing sense that the criminality of Det Supt Stevens is going to be brought out into the open. Perhaps Tyler is going to get the answers he needs?
+
|summary=It's something of a surprise to find that you're dead, particularly when you're thinking that you're actually on a break with your wife and children, but that's what happened to DS Aector McAvoy.  Whilst he was relieved to find that he was still, officially, alive, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat in the early hours of the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her car, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aector.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787634906
+
|isbn=1529135389
|title=No Less the Devil
+
|title=The Fall
|author=Stuart MacBride
+
|author=Gilly Macmillan
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=We're in Oldcastle and Malcolm is in troubleHe's in an abandoned house and he's being threatened by two young peopleOne is Allegra (we'll soon learn that she's Allegra Dean-Edwards) and Hugo.  It seems that Allegra bought Malcolm a new coat to keep him warm (she often does this for homeless people, apparently) but she'd put a tracking device in it so that she and Hugo could find out where he was sleepingIt won't be long before the police realise that Malcolm was one of their own: not many other people are going to have the Oldcastle police crest tattooed on their backs.
+
|summary=Nicole Booth had spent the morning at the county fair before she returned home.  There was no sign of her husband but opera was playing on the state-of-the-art music system installed in The Glass BarnThey'd not been in the architect-designed house on Lancaut Peninsula for long and were still getting used to all the high-tech systems Tom had insisted uponSome of them fought with each other and didn't work as reliably as they should.  It had all come about through a ten-million-pound lottery win and they were still getting used to having that sort of money, tooEventually, Nicole found Tom dead in the swimming pool with a wound to his head.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09V1NQ5SX
+
|author=Alan Parks
|title=Death at Friar's Inn
+
|title=To Die in June
|author=Rob Keeley
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Nat Webber and Tom Barton were in the finals of the Moots to take place at The Honourable Society of Friar's InnFor aspiring barristers, moots test the participants' knowledge of several areas of law as well as their advocacy skills: it's a great way of getting invaluable practice and of getting yourself noticedTom and Nat are from 'a provincial university' and they're ''almost'' looked down on because of thisThe other contestants - Becca Decker-Hamilton and Lucia 'Mouse' Dawes have no such disadvantage and Becca has an abundance of confidence.  Tom's £30 supermarket suit doesn't make him feel any better.
+
|summary=What first seems like the unfortunate, accidental death of a homeless man on the streets, suddenly starts to feel like something more sinister as another body is discovered, and then anotherThis is worrying enough for detective Harry McCoy, but all the more so because his own father is a down and out alcoholic, with no fixed abode, and he has been for yearsAt the same time as facing these possible murders, Harry is also dealing with a move to a different police station, and the arrival there of a woman who claims her little boy has gone missing, only no record of the boy having existed can be foundSomething feels wrong - not just with the woman’s story but also with the other officers where he has been stationed, but can Harry uncover just what is going on?
 +
|isbn=1805300784
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529125944
+
|isbn=1804545600
|title=City of the Dead
+
|title=The Monk
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
+
|author=Tim Sullivan
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=When you drive large vehicles for a living, you're careful and it's not just about the way that you drive. You restrict your alcohol intake and if it's a trip that needs overnight stays you make certain you get your sleepWhen you're taking a removals truck through a residential neighbourhood you head off at 5 a.m. when the roads are quieter, even if you have to wait up when you get to where you're going.  And it was going well until the men hit something in Westwood Village, an upmarket neighbourhood of Los AngelesThe man was stark naked and couldn't be identified.
+
|summary=The body in the woods near Bristol was a nasty shock - a monk strapped to a chair and dumped in a ditch.  He'd been savagely beaten. It's a while before D S George Cross and the Major Crime Unit establish that this is Father DominicHe'd been missing for a few days and certainly hadn't asked permission to leave his abbey. As the team gradually unpick the monk's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment banker, brother, neighbour and friendHe'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up for his faith. Why would someone savagely murder him?
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]

Revision as of 10:37, 26 March 2024

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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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Review of

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

4.5star.jpg Crime

It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London home. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberate. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of Infamous, a true-crime show. A group of experts has been brought together to review the evidence and to take the investigation further. More to the point, they're going to do this live on camera, episode by episode. There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewing. Full Review

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Review of

Coming to Find You by Jane Corry

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Nancy's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives a life sentence. The barrister tells her that she's received a 'silent sentence' - she's not been found guilty of anything but will have to live with what happened for the rest of her life. Of course, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and the papers are making the most of it. Farmhouse slaughter daughter is one favourite epithet and rich bitch might not be printed but is undoubtedly spoken. Full Review

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Review of

A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker

4star.jpg Crime

One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and Bruno's there to see the show with some friends. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, the man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when he departs from the script. Luckily, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away in a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as he's a senior government employee, the man who runs Frenchelon - the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holiday. Full Review

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Review of

The Trial by Rob Rinder

4.5star.jpg Crime

Grant Cliveden was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good and honest and looked up to by just about everyone, so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight at the Old Bailey. There's just one man in the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in court, charged with Cliveden's murder. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers and it's Taylor-Cameron and his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent him. Knight's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contrary. Full Review

1789098947.jpg

Review of

Death in Fine Condition by Andrew Cartmel

3star.jpg Crime

Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and in particular a series called Sleuth Hound. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profit, sometimes 'tweaking' them, to add value, in somewhat fraudulent ways. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in the background of a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wall, and so she sets about discovering where this collection is, and how she can steal it! It's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner of the collection comes looking for their books? Full Review

1448309379.jpg

Review of

Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11) by David Mark

3.5star.jpg Crime

It's something of a surprise to find that you're dead, particularly when you're thinking that you're actually on a break with your wife and children, but that's what happened to DS Aector McAvoy. Whilst he was relieved to find that he was still, officially, alive, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat in the early hours of the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her car, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aector. Full Review

1529135389.jpg

Review of

The Fall by Gilly Macmillan

4.5star.jpg Crime

Nicole Booth had spent the morning at the county fair before she returned home. There was no sign of her husband but opera was playing on the state-of-the-art music system installed in The Glass Barn. They'd not been in the architect-designed house on Lancaut Peninsula for long and were still getting used to all the high-tech systems Tom had insisted upon. Some of them fought with each other and didn't work as reliably as they should. It had all come about through a ten-million-pound lottery win and they were still getting used to having that sort of money, too. Eventually, Nicole found Tom dead in the swimming pool with a wound to his head. Full Review

1805300784.jpg

Review of

To Die in June by Alan Parks

4star.jpg Crime

What first seems like the unfortunate, accidental death of a homeless man on the streets, suddenly starts to feel like something more sinister as another body is discovered, and then another. This is worrying enough for detective Harry McCoy, but all the more so because his own father is a down and out alcoholic, with no fixed abode, and he has been for years. At the same time as facing these possible murders, Harry is also dealing with a move to a different police station, and the arrival there of a woman who claims her little boy has gone missing, only no record of the boy having existed can be found. Something feels wrong - not just with the woman’s story but also with the other officers where he has been stationed, but can Harry uncover just what is going on? Full Review

1804545600.jpg

Review of

The Monk by Tim Sullivan

5star.jpg Crime

The body in the woods near Bristol was a nasty shock - a monk strapped to a chair and dumped in a ditch. He'd been savagely beaten. It's a while before D S George Cross and the Major Crime Unit establish that this is Father Dominic. He'd been missing for a few days and certainly hadn't asked permission to leave his abbey. As the team gradually unpick the monk's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment banker, brother, neighbour and friend. He'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up for his faith. Why would someone savagely murder him? Full Review

Move on to Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews