Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"

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[[Category:Crime|*]]
 
[[Category:Crime|*]]
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1786482126
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
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|author=Elly Griffiths
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway.  There was no skull.  Was this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson.  It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago.  Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008551324
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|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
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|author=Neil Lancaster
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police.  Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death.  This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants.  And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date.  Not much to ask, is it?  The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008405026
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|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
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|author=Jane Casey
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night.  She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt.  Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed.  Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious.  What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder.  Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0571379877
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|title=The Kellerby Code
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|author=Jonny Sweet
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza.  Robert's a theatre director.  He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him.  Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert.  Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Jo Callaghan
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|title=Leave No Trace
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock.  It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases.  But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project.  Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
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|isbn=139851120X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1035021803
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|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
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|author=C L Miller
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up.  She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole.  Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least.  Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly.  Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved.  After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1398524085
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|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?
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|author=Nicci French
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up.  Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not.  Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river.  It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt.  The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529900360
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|title=The Ghost Orchid
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|author=Jonathan Kellerman
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases.  His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while.  Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again.  She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed.  The next case did look simple, though.  Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air.  He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian.  But which of them was the primary target?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=178763681X
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|title=Knife Skills for Beginners
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|author=Orlando Murrin
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia.  He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted.  Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own.  The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead.  Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529421284
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|title=Laying Out the Bones
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|author=Kate Webb
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave.  In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier.  He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced.  Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone?  There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time.  Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529425867
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|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)
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|author=Simon Mason
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins.  Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed.  D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not.  He's not any of those things.  He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies.  They're usually in lime green or acid yellow.  You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs.  Well, you're not.  The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin.  Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well.  Sometimes it's problematic.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529431735
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|title=The Winter Visitor
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|author=James Henry
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising.  He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade.  The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live.  It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra.  Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0861541774
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|title=A Nye of Pheasants
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|author=Steve Burrows
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman.  Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka.  Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man.  Now he could be facing the death penalty.  Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1521129886
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|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)
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|author=Keith Redfern
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he charges.  It's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delighted.  Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness.  Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears to have killed himself.  Stuart's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thriving.  Lucy, he says, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted that the death was suicide,  but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil died.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0CK3MYJ56
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|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)
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|author=Ann Macarthur
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old.  He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession?  On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something.  Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing.  Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train.  Greg's been asked to investigate.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1838954481
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|title=The Misper
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|author=Kate London
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that.  He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw.  He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer.  And so lives must go on.  For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1448309743
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|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)
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|author=Caro Ramsay
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered.  The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will follow.  The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body.  The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529077699
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|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)
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|author=Ann Cleeves
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?''
  
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Well yes, it is.  Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon.  Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''.  I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book.  Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529427045
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[[image:147367302X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/147367302X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons
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|author=Karin Smirnoff
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=''Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example''.
  
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Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush.  The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward.  Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without trace.  It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's death.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1787636607
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|title=The Trap
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|author=Catherine Ryan Howard
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning.  Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get home.  Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis available.  Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages.  The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'.  For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her home.  She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his.  There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1405957174
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|title=A Death at the Party
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|author=Amy Stuart
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well.  The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needs.  What we don't know is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him die.  I'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008530025
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|title=Murder in the Family
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|author=Cara Hunter
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|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 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.
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}}
  
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{{Frontpage
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===[[All the Hidden Truths (Three Rivers) by Claire Askew]]===
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|isbn=0241996104
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|title=Coming to Find You
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|author=Jane Corry
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Thrillers
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|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 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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529413680
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|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
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|author=Martin Walker
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529196388
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|title=The Trial
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|author=Rob Rinder
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=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.
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}}
  
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
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Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]
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As a news item, school shootings always terrify me:  the deaths are bad enough, but even the young people who survive are always going to be scarred by the fact  that this was done to them by one of their number.  It doesn't end on the day, either.  School shootings cast a very long shadow.  May the 14th had the makings of being a normal day until Ryan Summers used three modified starting pistols to shoot thirteen fellow students - and one last bullet to kill himself.  We follow the story through the lives of three women: Moira Summers, the mother of the murderer, Helen Birch, the newly-promoted detective inspector who will investigate the killings and Ishbel Hodgekiss, the mother of one of the victims. [[All the Hidden Truths (Three Rivers) by Claire Askew|Full Review]]
 
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[[image:B07BW4QXJV.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BW4QXJV/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
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===[[Running Amok (DCI Spearing and DI Devlin Series Book 2) by Paul Hughes]]===
 
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[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
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'''Caution: Mild spoilers for [[Beginning to End by Paul Hughes|Beginning to End]]'''
 
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DS Kevin Devlin has settled into his new job at Scotland Yard very quickly, although he didn't have much choice but to hit the ground running.  When we last saw him quite a few of the rogue element at MI5 and others who were causing Spearing and Devlin difficulties were conveniently dead and as Spearing has gone missing, Devlin can't help but wonder if Spearting was involved in some way in bringing this convenient solution about.  Whilst he might have wanted to search for Spearing, there's upheaval at the Yard: the new commissioner is offering deals to corrupt officers.  They can leave with a year's pay in lieu of notice or they can be prosecuted.  Unsurprisingly there are suddenly a lot of empty desks - and a promotion opportunity for Devlin.  [[Running Amok (DCI Spearing and DI Devlin Series Book 2) by Paul Hughes|Full Review]]
 
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[[image:1544085133.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1544085133/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
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===[[Beginning to End by Paul Hughes]]===
 
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
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Sir Mark Wright, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, based at New Scotland Yard was aware that the Met was riddled with corruption, but in 1967 times were changing and Wright was determined that he was going to upgrade the service by ridding it of corrupt officers and bringing in new technology.  Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of people against him: some were making very good money on the side and quite a few of the old-timers weren't too keen on all this technology nonsense.  They didn't think walkie-talkies would really work and computers would never really catch on.  One of Wright's first actions was to bring in some new blood: what came to be known as 'the trained brains' - people with qualifications in specific areas who could introduce new ideas, whilst being mentored by the older, more experienced officers. [[Beginning to End by Paul Hughes|Full Review]]
 
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===[[A Taste for Vengeance (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker]]===
 
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
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Bruno Courreges is now the police chief for the whole of the Vezere valley, but the promotion is not without its drawbacks, as the chain of command is not quite as clear as it was when he knew that he worked for the mayor.  Still, on a cool, damp Sunday afternoon in spring he had other things on his mind: he was watching the St Denis women's rugby team playing in the regional final.  One player stood out: Paulette was the daughter of the local florists and she was the best player that Bruno had ever trained, male or female.  He had hopes of her making the national squad, but there might be a cloud on the horizon - Paulette had been sick and had fainted in the showers. [[A Taste for Vengeance (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel) by Martin Walker|Full Review]]
 
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===[[When The Curtain Falls by Carrie Hope Fletcher]]===
 
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
 
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A thoroughly, magical and riveting story that hooks you in from the first page and takes you on a roller coaster ride towards the last. Fletcher weaves together a dash of ''Whodunit'' the thrill of romance, (the course of which never runs smoothly,) and an unpredictable ghost.  The ghost appears once a year, the principal star of her very own show, to meet with the love of her life and re-enact her death. A tragic accident with the roots buried deep within the whole array of human nature. Love, joy, care, friendship, jealousy, possessiveness, selfishness, cold ambition, all laid bare on centre stage.
 
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===[[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente]]===
 
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Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator. [[The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente|Full Review]]
 
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A well-dressed man bled to death just yards from a Cambridgeshire police headquarters. DI Manon Bradshaw would normally be involved but she's side-lined on cold cases - and then she finds that there's a solid reason why she can't be involved: Jon-Oliver Ross was the father of her sister's son and he was probably in town to see young Solly. And if that wasn't close enough, her adopted son, Fly, was caught on CCTV passing the man just as he was about to collapse. Detective Superintendent Stanton is certain that Fly's good for the murder and won't tolerate any other avenues of investigation. [[Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Lady Killer by Masako Togawa and Simon Grove (translator)]]===
 
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
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Japan, the early 1960s. The prologue of this book sets us up in a lovely way with a world of both innocence and seedy nightclubs. When a young girl enters one alone for a drink she ends up singing along with the musical duet doing the rounds of the venues for tips – as does a man with a distinctive bass voice. They leave together. Six months later, she clings to a balcony at work, thinks about it – and drops to her death in suicide. She was pregnant. But the man involved, a rampant womaniser with an intricate diary of all his comings and goings, is not having a perfect time, either. He returns to an old flame, to find her murdered – and then the lady who would be his alibi for that death also gets killed, and so on. From our point of view, he cannot be a killer of ladies, as the title might imply – but what else could it mean? [[The Lady Killer by Masako Togawa and Simon Grove (translator)|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Turn a Blind Eye by Vicky Newham]]===
 
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DI Maya Rahman is just back from Bangladesh and she should be on compassionate leave as she went there to bury her brother after he committed suicide.  Instead of grieving at home and getting over her jet lag she's pitched straight into a murder investigation as a new member of staff discovers the body of popular headteacher Linda Gibson in her study at Mile End High School.  Her hands are bound and beside her strangled body is a card with a Buddhist precept: ''I shall abstain from taking the ungiven.''  It's the second of five precepts and Maya is worried that there's been a murder that hasn't been spotted - and that there will be more deaths. [[Turn a Blind Eye by Vicky Newham|Full Review]]
 
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===[[A Shimmer of Hummingbirds by Steve Burrows]]===
 
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
 
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Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune is on a birding trip to Colombia: well it's ostensibly a birding trip, but the reality is that he's trying to establish what really happened in the manslaughter case which has left his brother a fugitive. It's a difficult situation as the police force don't want him to do this and the Colombian authorities are understandably reluctant, but Jejeune has always been a law unto himself. Meanwhile in Saltmarsh on the North Norfolk coast there's been a brutal murder of a woman, and DI Marvin Laraby, Jejeune's nemesis, has been drafted in to replace Jejeune during his absence. How's that going to work out? [[A Shimmer of Hummingbirds by Steve Burrows|Full Review]]
 
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===[[A Brush With Death: A Susie Mahl Mystery by Ali Carter]]===
 
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I'm not normally a fan of books featuring amateur detectives, but something drew me inexorably to ''A Brush With Death'': there's a dog on the cover, a big dog and I couldn't resist.  Time to put away my prejudices and see what debut novelist Ali Carter had come up with. [[A Brush With Death: A Susie Mahl Mystery by Ali Carter|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Reckless Obsession by Dai Henley]]===
 
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It was several years since DCI Andy Flood's wife had been murdered, but he'd not come to terms with it.  His daughters were coping reasonably well, not least because his mother had moved in after Georgina's death and she ran the home and looked after the girls.  Flood's real problem was that the Met had moved the murder to cold case status.  He couldn't believe that they'd do this when the murder of the wife of one of their own was unsolved, but ''he's'' determined not to give up on the case.  Each evening when he's finished work he goes into his study and works on the statements from the case, looking for any inconsistencies. [[Reckless Obsession by Dai Henley|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Silver-Tongued by David Barrie]]===
 
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Bruno Kahn is a bit like Marmite: people either love him or hate him.  He's a psychiatrist, who has managed to insert himself into one of the richest families in France.  There are those who suspect that he's exerting undue influence over the head of the family, Guy Larroque, who is either 'not as sharp as he used to be' or 'suffering from vascular dementia', depending on where you stand within the family.  At the vascular dementia end of the continuum is Guy's daughter, Sabine Larroque, who's paid Samuel Bencherif, a freelance photographer, to dog the footsteps of Kahn and Guy Larroque's (very) young wife in the hope of finding something which she can use to free her father from their clutches.  So far, so very much as the very rich live, until Bencherif is found bludgeoned to death in a passageway by the Theatre de l'Odeon in the centre of Paris. [[Silver-Tongued by David Barrie|Full Review]]
 
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Schaffhausen has been garnering a lot of attention for her first crime novel having already been crowned a ''First Crime Novel Award Winner'' by the Mystery Writers of America. My interest therefore was definitely piqued and I was excited to read this book. So, does it live up to all the hype? In a word: yes. I was gripped from the outset (forgive the terrible pun, we are after all dealing with a serial killer who chops off the hands of his victims to keep as trophies!) [[The Vanishing Season by Johanna Schaffhausen|Full Review]]
 
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A drone collides with an air ambulance, the mess falls on a busy shopping centre and we are barely out of the first chapter. DC Max Wolfe's latest adventure looks at religion, radicalisation, hate and paranoia. Without drawing breath we immediately jump to catching those responsible. The rest of the book gradually builds a web of intrigue and a virtual soap opera of family issues. [[Girl on Fire by Tony Parsons|Full Review]]
 
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What happens when Utopia is achieved? When everyone is linked neurologically to everyone else and people vote on each minor decision so every aspect of life is truly democratic? Everyone knows everything and everyone decides everything so what can possibly go wrong? Except people are dying, melting to be precise, and no one knows how, or why, or who could be next. In such a circumstance who can be trusted to solve this crime and do so without spreading panic? What if the only people who can be trusted have already let you down once before? [[Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds|Full Review]]
 
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===[[A Pitying of Doves by Steve Burrows]]===
 
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The body of a senior attaché from the Mexican consulate was found in a local bird sanctuary, along with the body of the director. It was a strange tableau: the girl impaled on a branch and the man lying at her feet, both in a cage. The fact that the man is a diplomat isn't immediately evident - he was in the area under an assumed name. DCI (and birder enthusiast) Domenic Jejeune is conflicted. The immediate problem is obviously to establish who murdered the man and the woman - and even that's complicated by the political necessity of not to involving the Mexican consulate, thus tying his hands rather tightly. The thoughts which are running in the back of his mind though are about the full-time research position studying birds which the director's death has opened up. Could this be his escape route from the police force? [[A Pitying of Doves by Steve Burrows|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Dark Angel (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths]]===
 
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Dr Ruth Galloway has got used to being a published author, to being on television, but she's still flattered when Italian archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli asks for her help with some bones which he's discovered in a tiny hilltop village outside Rome, but doesn't know what to make of them. Ruth succumbs to temptation: she and Angelo have some history (it was just the one night...) and it's years since she's had a holiday. Even a working holiday has to be an improvement. Castello degli Angeli isn't quite what she was expecting, but it will make a reasonable break for her, her daughter Kate, friend Shona and Shona's son Louis. [[The Dark Angel (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths|Full Review]]
 
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===[[A Siege of Bitterns by Steve Burrows]]===
 
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Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune is new to Saltmarsh, but his reputation has come before him.  Success in a high profile case has made him the poster boy for the police.  There's a snag though: Jejeune isn't ''actually'' that keen on the job.  He'd much rather be out birdwatching, but that doesn't bring in an income and there's a simple fact.  Jejeune is ''very'' a very good detective, with insights which few other people possess.  There's one advantage to the job too: Saltmarsh is situated in North Norfolk, the UK's premier birding country but sometimes Jejeune's mind is more on the birds than the job. [[A Siege of Bitterns by Steve Burrows|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)]]===
 
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It's 1957, and we're somewhere in Switzerland, and there's just one case on everyone's lips – the simple fact that a politician has gone into the crowded room of one of those 'the place to go' restaurants, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have known, and ferried a British companion to the airport in his chauffeur-driven Rolls before handing himself in to face the murder rap. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. He's certainly of much interest, not only to our narrator, a young lawyer called Spaet – even if he rarely gets to frequent such establishments with such people, he is eager to know more, especially once he is actually tasked by the man in hand to look into things a second time. But what's this, where he opens his testimony about the affair with the conclusion, that he himself will need to turn killer to redress the balance? [[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)|Full Review]]
 
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Revision as of 09:31, 6 April 2024

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

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

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

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

5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet

3.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

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

3.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French

5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Laying Out the Bones by Kate Webb

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

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

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Winter Visitor by James Henry

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

A Nye of Pheasants by Steve Burrows

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries) by Ann Macarthur

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Misper by Kate London

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan) by Caro Ramsay

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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