Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"
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==Crime== | ==Crime== | ||
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| + | |author=Michael Kardos | ||
| + | |title=The Three Day Affair | ||
| + | |rating=4.5 | ||
| + | |genre=Crime | ||
| + | |summary= How well do you know your best friends? Will thought he knew Jeffrey, Nolan and Evan particularly well. Heck, they'd known each other since college at Princeton, before the advent of wives and partners. However, Will's assurance becomes less certain during a golfing weekend. Just blokes together with the WaGs out the way; what could go wrong? Nothing till Jeffrey stops the car to pop into a convenience store and emerges with nothing except the till's contents and the shop assistant he's kidnapped. What do they do? A simple enough question but as the hours tick by it becomes more complicated. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185081X</amazonuk> | ||
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{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|author=Lee Child (Editor) | |author=Lee Child (Editor) | ||
Revision as of 13:32, 9 January 2013
Crime
The Three Day Affair by Michael Kardos
How well do you know your best friends? Will thought he knew Jeffrey, Nolan and Evan particularly well. Heck, they'd known each other since college at Princeton, before the advent of wives and partners. However, Will's assurance becomes less certain during a golfing weekend. Just blokes together with the WaGs out the way; what could go wrong? Nothing till Jeffrey stops the car to pop into a convenience store and emerges with nothing except the till's contents and the shop assistant he's kidnapped. What do they do? A simple enough question but as the hours tick by it becomes more complicated. Full review...
Vengeance by Lee Child (Editor)
I like short story collections. They're useful reading material when you're a mum of young children as you can usually manage to squeeze in a six page story at nap time, but you're guaranteed if you try to start that 500 page novel you've been meaning to read that just as it starts to get interesting your baby will wake up! This collection of crime stories is brought together under the title of Vengeance so, as you'd imagine, they are all to do with revenge and people getting or trying to get their own back. Full review...
A Fatal Thaw (A Kate Shugak Investigation) by Dana Stabenow
Roger McAniff bought a new Winchester rifle and went out to test it - and nine people were dead by the end of the day. But - only eight of them had been shot by McAniff and one - Lisa Getty was shot by someone else. McAniff wouldn't have it - he was almost insulted by the thought that he might have missed someone - but ballistic tests proved that in this instance he wasn't the killer. Kate Shugak was given the job of tracking down the unknown killer. It wasn't going to be easy, not least because she apprehended McAniff and every conversation began with a statement that she could have saved time and money if she'd killed him. That's not Kate's way though. Full review...
Up Close by Henriette Gyland
Dr Lia Thompson is an E.R. specialist. She patches people up for a living. Her fiancé is some hot-shot lawyer (specialism unspecified) with an all-American-apple-pie family and a mom pressing for a wedding date. When Lia's grandmother dies and her mother eschews any right to the inheritance or obligation for dealing with the estate, it falls to Lia to come up and tidy up. That's exactly what she intends to do. Sign the papers, clear the house, get it on the market and go home. Full review...
A Cold Day for Murder (A Kate Shugak Investigation) by Dana Stabenow
Mark Miller is a park ranger in one of the Alaskan National Parks, but it's six weeks since he's been seen - and there are twenty million acres for him to get lost in. Two weeks ago an investigator was sent in to look for him, but he's not been seen since either. There's little choice now but to hand the case to the expert who knows the park and the people: Kate Shugak is Aleut by birth and upbringing and she knows the people - is related to an extraordinary number of them - and she knows the Park. She's thirty years old, five feet tall and has a scar from ear to ear where her throat was cut. Full review...
I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty
Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy's next case begins with a case - specifically an old suitcase containing the torso of an unknown victim. The setting is Northern Ireland in 1982. 'The Troubles' are at their height, the British army are heading to the Falklands and John DeLorean is producing 'Back to the Future' sports cars. Duffy is something of an anomaly - a Catholic officer in the predominantly Protestant RUC - which places him in a precarious position. Full review...
The Diamond Rosary Murders: An Inspector Angel Mystery by Roger Silverwood
Detective Inspector Michael Angel found himself very busy in December 2011. First it was the report of a body seen behind a local hotel but it had disappeared before Angel arrived. There was a suggestion that the girl had been involved in the theft of a rosary belonging to Mary Tudor. Before long he also had to deal with the death of local brewing millionaire, Haydn King who was found face down in his swimming pool - but two days before he'd told Superintendent Harker that he'd been tormented by a persistent nightmare that he died face down in his swimming pool. All this happened before the body count started mounting. Full review...
Something You Are by Hanna Jameson
The title of Something You Are has been taken from a line of Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho that asks: ‘Evil. Is it something you are? Or something you do?’ At first, Hanna Jameson’s answer to Ellis’s question seems obvious. She’s created a hyper-violent, supercharged London underworld that’s filthy with sin and death and peopled with junkies, psychopaths and dealers, a place where waking up in the morning doesn’t guarantee you’ll go to sleep again at night, especially not with the same compliment of arms, legs and eyes. Full review...
Fatal Frost by James Henry
It was 1982 and Jimmy Savile and the sinking of the Belgrano dominated the airwaves. Thirty years on we might prefer to forget that either happened, but in Denton the first black policeman has arrived. DS Waters is on loan from the Met, in the name of encouraging racial diversity. Frost and his team have been dealing with a spate of local burglaries when the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Ellis is found in local woodland near a railway line, but it's not immediately evident whether this is suicide or something more sinister. For the teenagers of Denton it's going to get a lot worse, but DS Jack Frost finds the pressure of work a welcome distraction from home. His marriage is in difficulties, his wife is either unwell or as dissatisfied with the marriage as he is - and he's not immune to the charms of DC Sue Clarke either. Full review...
A Drop of Chinese Blood by James Church
Set on the Chinese border with North Korea and in Mongolia, James Church's A Drop of Chinese Blood offers a complex crime mystery of lies and deception, although for much of the book it's not entirely clear what the crime is. I was drawn to the book by the author's background. James Church is a pseudonym for an American former intelligence officer whose working life was spent in North Korea and the surrounding area, so he undoubtedly knows his subject. His previous books have featured the North Korean Inspector O, and while he gets another outing here, this time he has moved beyond Korea to China to have O residing with his chief of Chinese Ministry of State Security nephew, Major Bing. Full review...
The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri
It was after a bad storm that a dismembered body emerged from a field of clay and everything about it - the single bullet in the base of the skull and the body cut into thirty pieces - suggested that this was a Mafia killing. But who is the dead man and why was he buried in Potter's Field? And why is it so difficult to get the anti-Mafia police interested in the case? It would be a testing case for Montalbano even without the problems caused by his second in command. Mimi Augelo (as Montalbano hears via Augelo's wife and his own girlfriend) is spending a lot of time on stakeouts - about which Montalbano knows nothing - and seems more than usually distracted by Dolores Alfano whose husband has gone missing on a sea voyage. Full review...
Tequila Sunset by Sam Hawken
Sam Hawken's Tequila Sunset is a gang land crime novel set across the border between the US and Mexico. The story centres on three people: Flip Morales is a young Latino American who gets somewhat unwillingly caught up in the Barrio Azteca gang after a stint in prison; Cristina Salas is an El Paso police officer - a single mother with an autistic child; and Matías Segura is a Mexican federal agent based in Ciudad Juárez with marriage issues. When the FBI launch a sting to catch the Azteca gang, all three will become involved with each other in a struggle against violence. Full review...
The Winter of the Lions by Jan Costin Wagner and Anthea Bell (translator)
Detective Kimmo Joentaa braces himself for another Christmas as a widower. Whilst his colleagues celebrate, he seeks distraction but this year distraction isn't hiding that well. Larissa, a lady of the night (according to her) calls in to the police station to report a professional contra temps and becomes a little more than a crime report number. Then there's the murder. This may be a regular occurrence in Kimmo's line of work but this time it's different: the victim is the police medical examiner and, unfortunately, there will be others. Full review...
Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin
I've always had the suspicion that Ian Rankin thought too much of John Rebus to allow him to fade away and he'd certainly not kill him off, so it's an elegant solution to bring him back as a civilian attached to the police force and working on cold cases. It's purely by accident that he encounters Nina Hazlitt whose daughter Sally disappeared whilst on a trip to Aviemore many years before. Her body has never been found and her mother is still determined that she will find out what happened to her. She has some other information too - other girls have gone missing and there's a common thread. They all disappeared from close to the A9 over a period of years. Rebus is intrigued - and it won't hurt to have a look at the files, will it? Full review...
The Age of Doubt by Andrea Camilleri
The rain was dreadful and when he left for work Montalbano had only driven a matter of yards before he found that part of the road had been washed away, but it led to an encounter with a strange young woman, who - in turn - made Montalbano curious about a yacht in the harbour. He should have been concentrating on the corpse found floating in a dinghy at the harbour mouth but it was the Vanna which seemed to keep surfacing in his thoughts. Well, when he wasn't thinking about Lieutenant Belladonna - Laura - at the Harbour authority that is. She wasn't strange at all. Full review...
Crime and Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach and Carol Brown Janeway (translator)
A fictitious, unnamed German criminal defence lawyer opens his files and takes us through some of the cases with which he's been involved over the years. Each of the eleven chapters is a fully formed recollection introducing us to such people as tragic Theresa and Leonhard, a sister and brother bound by deep affection despite the 'tough love' tactics of their millionaire father, the tale of the two muggers who picked the wrong (and very mysterious) victim and the story of Dr Fahner's fatal promise made to his wife. Full review...
They Call Me... Montey Greene by A R Yoba
He didn't believe in coincidences but he did believe in conspiracies.
Little does Montey Greene know how well this motto will serve him. Aside from a brief hold-up at customs, Montey is thoroughly enjoying his holiday in Milan. Recently separated from his wife, he's enjoying eyeing up all the lovely Italian women, meeting up with friends, and just generally pleasing himself. Full review...
The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen
In the late nineteen sixties there was a child in a preschool class at Katrineholm in Sweden. He was the one most of the others turned on. It was more than teasing. In fact it was far more than bullying and in adults it would have been called torture, but everyone - including the teacher - looked the other way and that boy grew up to be the outsider, without friends or family. One day, nearly forty years later and in Stockholm he recognised one of his tormentors and followed him to his cheerful, prosperous family home. Hans Vannerberg was a partner in an estate agency which he'd helped to build himself. Not long afterwards he would be discovered - brutally murdered - on the kitchen floor of a woman with whom he seemed to have no connection and who found him when she returned home from hospital. It was the first in a series of brutal murders in and around Stockholm. Full review...
The Greater Thief by Alexandra Carey
Shots ring out on a London street. Among those listening are three people for whom the effects will echo for a lot longer than the sound itself. Policeman's daughter and student Alice is sitting in a nearby pub doing uni work. Paul the local trainee vicar is on parish business. His connection is fancying Alice. They're friends and almost became an item but Paul is a lot older than she is, his hopes finally being dashed when she met Josh. Yes, Josh, a gang member with both a conscience and a heart, is the third person. The page from a book of poetry given to him by Alice is found on the resulting body. Did Josh commit the murder? Can Alice help him? And, if Paul is going to assist, how far dare he go? Full review...
A Grain of Truth by Zygmunt Miloszewski and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)
State Prosecutor Teodor Szacki is attempting to recover from a broken marriage and has left Warsaw. He is prone to cheerless thoughts especially if deprived of his soothing iced tea. It is the very start of spring in the legendary and magical Polish town of Sandomierz on the banks of the Vistula. Szacki, who does not like to be bored, is soon preoccupied in solving a ghastly murder that has been staged in the style of a Jewish ritual and this particular city is notorious for ancient, tense and deep rooted relations between Catholics and Jews. To solve this crime Szacki will need to delve into the murky history of occupation; Nazis, Communists and patriots. He will also need to face his own self-doubts. He must search for 'A Grain of Truth' under the critical gaze of local citizens enflamed by press paranoia. Full review...
The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach
'Later they would all remember it…the man was gigantic, and they all mentioned the smell of sweat'.
The man concerned is Fabrizio Collini, a quiet, respectable man, for thirty-four years a diligent worker at Mercedes Benz, an unexceptional person. Then, one day, he walked into a luxury Berlin hotel, up to the Brandenburg Suite and pulled a trigger. At least four times. Full review...
The Crime of Julian Wells by Thomas H Cook
American travel writer Julian Wells walks out of the house he shares with his sister, wanders down to the garden lake, rows himself out to the centre and slits his wrists. He dies alone as he silently watches his life drip into the water. Devastated, his friend and frequent travel companion Philip Anders, tries to come to terms with the loss the only way he can: by attempting to understand. Julian dedicated a book to Philip, mentioning a 'crime' that Philip had witnessed. Philip had always thought it to be a flip reference to his comment from years before that it would be a crime for Julian to waste time writing a certain piece, but, in the light of tragic events, is this actually the case? Is there a crime in the author's past? As Philip retraces the essence of Julian through his words, the places they visited and people they encountered he slowly uncovers secrets and a dangerous obsession. Full review...
Even Flow by Darragh McManus
Jonathon Bailey, Cathy Morrissey and Patrick Broder of Network 4 News sit in a viewing room unable to believe their eyes as the courier-delivered VT flickers in front of them. Wealthy banker's son and society playboy Cliff Hudson seems to be suspended from the top of a tall building by his ankles. He's tied to a friend identified as 'Steve', both terror stricken and whimpering an apology prompted by three men oddly dressed in tuxedos and balaclavas. As the city will soon come to realise, these men (pseudonyms Wilde, Whitman and Waters) are the 3W Gang, sworn to do society's dirty work for it as they isolate and punish bigots. Crusaders or criminals? Detective Danny Everard of the NYPD doesn't have the luxury of choosing, just the headache of trying to catch them. Full review...
Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam
David Lamb is anchored to his life by his career, his affair-ridden marriage and caring for his father. Over time, his wife divorces him, his father dies and his employers insist he takes a period of enforced leave. So what's left? There is just one constant remaining: his friendship with Tommie who, he feels, would be an ideal holiday companion. He suggests that they both take a short trip as it would do them both good and Tommie agrees eagerly. The adventure then begins in the form of a journey to a beautiful, remote cabin. David is 54 years old and Tommie? She's 11. Full review...
I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Too often, people – such as myself – refer to a book as being a rollercoaster read, mostly down to a simply topsy-turvy plot. But this is the true embodiment of a white-knuckle ride. It has the anxiety of the queue as we watch three people – a couple and another young woman – get ferried across the fjord to one of western Iceland's most remote outposts, with the aim being to renovate an old building as a guesthouse. There's the crunch of the roll-cage protection bars locking us in as we find that something very malevolent is hiding in the tiny settlement. And just as the car starts we might be seeking in vain the relieved thumbs-up from those leaving the ride, telling us all is well and all survived. Full review...
The Dark Winter by David Mark
Just a couple of weeks before Christmas Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy was with his young son in the centre of Hull when he was alerted by screaming. The noise was coming from the church and McAvoy so nearly caught the man responsible. He'd brutally murdered a young girl who had already escaped as the only survivor when her family was slaughtered during the conflict in Sierra Leone. It's a difficult time for the police with a relatively new team at the Serious and Organised Crime Squad and it's a little while before the links to two other deaths emerge. Fred Stein had been the sole survivor of the loss of one of the three trawlers from Hull which went down in early 1968. He'd been part of a documentary about the loss but had disappeared - off Iceland - in the course of the filming. He was later discovered - dead in a drifting lifeboat. Full review...
Do Me No Harm by Julie Corbin
Dr Olivia Somers is minding her own business, trying to raise two kids alone in the wake of her divorce, when everything goes wrong and her son, Robbie, ends up in hospital. It’s hard to work out what really happened, or even if Robbie is giving her the full story, but when there’s a further incident, this time involving a break in at their home, it becomes clear that these are no random attacks, and someone is out to get them. With the help of a friendly (and handsome) detective, Olivia tries to piece together the puzzle to work who is behind the trouble, and it’s a race against time to figure it out before the next unwelcome surprise from the culprit. Full review...
Herring on the Nile by L C Tyler
A motley crowd of oddball characters (few of whom end up being who they say they are), find themselves as travelling companions on a luxury paddle steamer, cruising up the Nile. And when a murder occurs, it soon becomes clear that only a member of the crew or one of the guests could have done the dastardly deed. A couple of amateur detectives have to work fast to discover who pulled the trigger. Sound familiar? Full review...
The Betrayal of Trust: A Simon Serrailler Novel by Susan Hill
After the wettest summer for a hundred years we'll all be familiar with what happened in Lafferton. Heavy rain caused a landslip on the moors, blocking the nearby road. Thankfully, what we're not familiar with was the presence of a shallow grave and the skeleton of a teenage girl. The sharp eyes of one of the forensic team spotted that something wasn't quite right in another area - and a second grave was revealed. It was easy to identify the first body - the young girl had gone missing from the town sixteen years before - but the second body proved more difficult. And, in a time of financial cuts and staff shortages it's down to Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler to tackle the cold case on his own with just a little help on the new murder case. Full review...
The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura
The Thief is content roaming the streets of Tokyo, living on the contents of its wealthier citizens' pockets until, his original partner in crime (literally) introduces him to Kizaki, a local shady big shot. Kizaki wants the Thief's help on a straightforward job. He will just be one of a team tasked with breaking into a rich speculator's home, scaring him a little, taking the contents of his safe and departing. No rough stuff and the financial settlement Kizaki offers will more than compensate the pickpocket for his time. Full review...
The Shadow of What we Were by Luis Sepulveda
Chile, the modern day. Four elderly men meet for one last time, planning something suspiciously underhand, having made arrangements - and discussed Internet dating - online. We're let into the fact that the grandfather of one was a bank robber in a classic tale of Robin Hood-style wealth distribution, but as to what the outcome of their plans might be we're forced to wait. Elsewhere a domestic incident leads to a bizarre death - by record player. And you can just tell I'm suggesting you wait to discover the link... Full review...
Split Second by Cath Staincliffe
On a late December evening, Emma Curtis is on a bus travelling home from work when she becomes aware of a young lad being picked on by three others. Too scared to intervene, she sits alone feeling guilty but taking everything in. To her shame, nineteen year old student, Jason Barnes, comes downstairs on the bus and immediately challenges the three youths. Luke, the young victim, leaps off the bus and a chase follows. Jason continues to try and defend Luke, and they end up in Jason's front garden where his parents witness the brutal attack. Eventually the trio run off leaving Luke unconscious on the snowy ground. Worse still, is the realisation that Jason has been stabbed and tragically it turns out to be fatal. Full review...
Ten Weeks in Africa by JM Shaw
Stephen and Martha Odinga live with their younger siblings and ailing mother in the Makera slums, near Kisuru in Batanga, Africa. Their father was killed by the Army of Celestial Peace so they try to make a living on the streets. Corruption flows through Batanga like sewage through Makera though, and the protection payments they need to pay the police to continue trading are becoming prohibitive so Stephen searches for better paid employment in questionable career areas. Full review...
Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves
Ben is the devoted proud father of two young children, the happily married husband of Carrie and a skilled car mechanic. He has all the makings of a wonderful life that would actually become one if he could just get a decent night's sleep. The problem is that he's haunted by vivid, violent nightmares. Meanwhile across town, 15 year old Toby also has nightmares and, on top of this, a body scarred with abuse, a fact his teacher, Anna, is determined to do something about. His parents have the appearance of people who love him but, where child abuse is concerned, that means nothing. Anna cares enough to get involved, not realising that it's an involvement that could cost her life. Indeed, as all three of them are about to find out, not all nightmares end on waking. Full review...
