Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"
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| + | |author=Corban Addison | ||
| + | |title=The Garden of Burning Sand | ||
| + | |rating=4 | ||
| + | |genre=Crime | ||
| + | |summary=A little girl named Kuyeya is found in Lusaka, Zambia abused, deeply shocked and badly injured. American lawyer Zoe Fleming is over there when her friend and local police officer Joseph receives the call and so her involvement begins. She's determined to help Joseph track down Kuyeya's attacker but the trail takes some surprising turns through the underbelly of Zambia, alarming Zoe with the extent of the crusade she's taken on. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782063307</amazonuk> | ||
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|title=Omens | |title=Omens | ||
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|summary=Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Princess Diana was dead, right? On that August night fourteen-year-old (but she ''looks'' sixteen, as she would tell you herself) Rose Wilson snapped. She'd been pimped out by her boyfriend and let down by everyone - but that night she committed two dreadful crimes and it seemed that her life was over. Then a defence lawyer took pity on her and set out to save her from the worst consequences. Well over a decade later DI Alex Morrow is a witness in the case of Michael Brown. Brown is vicious and brutal, damaged beyond hope of salvation but Morrow knows that something is wrong when fingerprint evidence places him at the site of a murder committed the week before - when he was safely in prison. | |summary=Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Princess Diana was dead, right? On that August night fourteen-year-old (but she ''looks'' sixteen, as she would tell you herself) Rose Wilson snapped. She'd been pimped out by her boyfriend and let down by everyone - but that night she committed two dreadful crimes and it seemed that her life was over. Then a defence lawyer took pity on her and set out to save her from the worst consequences. Well over a decade later DI Alex Morrow is a witness in the case of Michael Brown. Brown is vicious and brutal, damaged beyond hope of salvation but Morrow knows that something is wrong when fingerprint evidence places him at the site of a murder committed the week before - when he was safely in prison. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409140717</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409140717</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 16:56, 28 September 2013
The Garden of Burning Sand by Corban Addison
A little girl named Kuyeya is found in Lusaka, Zambia abused, deeply shocked and badly injured. American lawyer Zoe Fleming is over there when her friend and local police officer Joseph receives the call and so her involvement begins. She's determined to help Joseph track down Kuyeya's attacker but the trail takes some surprising turns through the underbelly of Zambia, alarming Zoe with the extent of the crusade she's taken on. Full review...
Omens by Kelley Armstrong
Olivia Taylor-Jones has a charmed life. Her family is rich, her fiance perfect and though she has some questions about her career, she knows that things will work themselves out. Until she learns that she's adopted - her true parents America's most infamous serial killers. Suddenly on the run from the media, Olivia finds shelter in the small town of Cainsville. It's a strange sort of place - full of oddball characters and gargoyles that seem to only appear at certain times. Full review...
The Shadow Collector by Kate Ellis
A convicted murderess and alleged witch returns to Devil’s Tree Cottage, after eighteen years in jail for butchering two teenage girls. When bodies start falling in West Fretham just days after her release, dispatched by Wiccan ceremonial blades, she is the obvious suspect. But, for DI Wesley Peterson, something strange is going on in the village that casts doubt on the identity of the killer and on the validity of Lilith Benley’s original conviction. Full review...
The Doll's House by Tania Carver
There can be no confusion in the name of the latest Tania Carver novel. The Dolls House well and truly sums it up, which is made clear as the book opens in a very pink, very well laid out lounge with a living doll, also dressed in pink, arranging the room until it is spotless. Aside from the slightly ominous undertones and the repetition that everything must be perfect; the reader could almost be forgiven for initially thinking they haven’t picked up a crime novel at all. It soon becomes obvious that this isn’t the case though as we follow DI Phil Brennan back into that same room with the doll sat straight-backed at the precisely laid out dinner table. This time though, the doll is dead. Full review...
The Treasure Hunt by Andrea Camilleri
Life for Montalbano and his team was slow: it seemed that even the criminals were taking life easy and there was almost a sense of relief when an elderly man and his sister began firing into the street below their Vigata apartment. There wasn't a lot of news either - which was why Montalbano found himself the reluctant hero of the news programmes as he climbed up the outside of the building. What he didn't realise was that a life-sized rubber doll (you know exactly what I mean) found in the apartment would dominate his life, particularly when 'her' twin was found in a rubbish bin. I mean, where do you keep such things? In a cupboard? Under the bed? Montalbano could tell you the drawbacks of both those locations. Full review...
The Last Winter of Dani Lancing by P D Viner
There’s no good way to deal with the death of a child. When Dani Lancing is killed her parents react in different ways, but neither way is particularly helpful or healthy. And of course neither way will bring their daughter back. It’s now 20 years later and the mystery of whodunnit is still looming over Jim and Patty’s heads, though they’re no longer together. The murder of a child will do that to a marriage. Full review...
Bad Little Falls by Paul Doiron
Bad Little Falls, set in the wilds of rural Maine in midwinter, shows the unravelling mystery of a man stumbling out of a blizzard to the front door of an unsuspecting elderly couple. The man is frozen half to death and soon begins raving about a friend lost in the storm, which quickly causes a frenzied rescue mission. Soon Mike Bowditch, a game warden and Doiron’s protagonist, uncovers the missing man under a snow drift, turning the hunt into a murder investigation. Whilst this initially powerful mystery becomes gradually overshadowed by Doiron’s portrayal of Bowditch’s love interest, and at least one too many descriptions of her anatomy, it is still an interesting and baffling mystery to be unravelled. Full review...
Desert Heart: 2 (Ellen Martin Disasters) by Mark Lingane
Ten years have passed since Chasing Heart and that moment that Ellen Martin met and fell in love with Alex Heart while he was attempting to extricate her from South American impending doom. We now catch up with them to discover that Ellen has ditched Alex, has become a partner in her law firm and is about to fly out to the Middle East for important business negotiations on behalf of a client. Ellen isn't known for staying out of trouble and the Middle East isn't known for its tolerance of the mischievously danger-prone. Therefore it's not long before Ellen needs a rescuer again and, yes, it's reunion time. Full review...
Broken Angels by Graham Masterton
Despite the odd reservation, the first book in his Katie Maguire series, was good enough to have me eagerly reaching for the second, Broken Angels. Whilst Masterton may have dipped into some of the female detective clichés with his debut crime thriller, he also dipped into his past as a great horror writer and the combination worked well. Full review...
A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava
You probably know that when you start a review of a book by quoting someone else that you are not really going to have anything original to say about it. Sometimes that's because it's already been lauded to the skies and you agree with every published word.
Sometimes it isn't.
Casi's voice is astonishing is one of the blurb quotes. I agree. It's just that you can still get tired of hearing it.
And I did. Full review...
Never Go Back by Lee Child
Jack Reacher is calling on a lady friend. He's never actually met her, they've just spoken on the phone, and he likes her voice. For a drifter like Reacher with nothing better to do, that's a good enough reason to head to Virginia and maybe buy her a coffee. Except when he arrives at his old unit's headquarters, the lady he wants to meet - new commanding officer Major Susan Turner - isn't there. Instead, he finds himself accused of homicide, and brought back into the army. Someone is going to be very sorry about this.
And does anyone really think it'll be Jack? Full review...
The Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris
Well, I suppose I know what all the fuss is about now. Except it isn’t fuss, not any more. It’s so famous that it’s become part of our language. People who’ve never read the book or seen the film can name at least one of the characters. At twenty five, I am the same age as Silence of the Lambs (the novel) and only three years older than the film, which is incidentally the same age as my brother. I cannot remember a time when Hannibal Lecter was not the bogey man. For some years I was under the impression that Buffalo Bill was a real serial killer. There is even a rather catchy and charming song entitled It Rubs The Lotion On It’s Skin. Full review...
Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris
It's 1947, the worst winter in memory is only just getting started, and Duncan Brodie is a crime reporter working the streets of Glasgow for the Gazette. The reason he's good at reporting is probably just natural talent and a decent education. The reason he's good at crime is that he's a trained investigator. Full review...
Dead Rich by Katia Lief
Mac Macleary and his wife Karin are retired homicide detectives. He's set up in the private investigation business, while she is trying hard to be a full-time mother, while still having to actively resist having her name on the office name-plate, and not-quite-but-almost resenting not being able to join him on stake-outs. Full review...
Then We Die: An Inspector Carlyle Novel by James Craig
If you were wondering where you might find Inspector John Carlyle, then having afternoon tea in the Palm Court at the Ritz might not be the first place which comes to mind. But don't worry - he's not gone upmarket - he's treating his mother and it comes as a bit of a shock when she announces that she's divorcing his father after fifty years of marriage. Carlyle thinks that what looks like a bit of trouble kicking off might be a welcome diversion - he's not big on family relationships - but he could never have imagined the ramifications of slipping away from table whilst his mother went to the ladies. Full review...
Sandrine by Thomas H Cook
Sam and Sandrine Madison live the American dream. Both have jobs that they love, lecturing at the same college, an adult daughter and many memories that include a beautiful holiday in the Med. However the dream goes tragically sour. Sandrine is found dead and Sam is charged with murder despite his protestations that it was suicide. The court case begins and Sam starts a fight for his own life as the past catches up with him in unusual and unexpected ways. Full review...
A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik
Jacqueline roams the beaches of the Greek islands offering massages for money to ward off starvation. It helps but hunger is always with her, lurking alongside the memory of a former life in Liberia and the mind's ear voice of her mother. Jacqueline is at least alive and existing, but at what cost? Full review...
The Never List by Koethi Zan
Friends since childhood, Sarah and Jennifer had always admitted that they were so cautious it was daft. They'd even composed their own 'Never List'. As long as they stuck to it they'd be safe, and safe they were until that one night. The night after the college party they forgot 'Never get into the car'. They did. The next thing they're aware of is waking up in a dark cellar with two other girls; four of them altogether but only three of them will emerge. A decade later, Sarah is safe once again, living under a new name with all connections to the past wiped. But then the letter arrives; he's coming for her. It's not over after all. Full review...
Beyond Rue Morgue: Further Tales of Edgar Allan Poe's 1st Detective by Paul Kane and Charles Prepolec (Editors)
C. Auguste Dupin is often regarded as the first fictional detective and at the very least Edgar Allan Poe’s character was the blueprint for many sleuths to come, most notably Sherlock Holmes. Dupin is an eccentric genius from Paris whose use of logic and deduction aid the police on their most baffling cases. The characters literary debut was in the short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841 and between 1842 and 1844 Poe wrote two more short stories about Dupin and his exploits. Beyond Rue Morgue contains nine stories (in addition to the original Poe tale) by various authors and gives many different takes on the same character or influenced by him. From samurai assassins and the apocalypse to an agoraphobic distant relative of Dupin attempting to solve a murder without even leaving her home; the different writers all take the intriguing character to places we wouldn’t expect and the creativity of all keeps the character fresh from story to story. Full review...
Last To Die by Tess Gerritsen
Somewhere in Italy one summer, a group of people are gathered to take down Icarus. They have no qualms about their mission of taking out this immensely wealthy man. His wife and his children are merely by-standers, not to be involved. His habits have been studied. He is a monster, to be dealt with. Full review...
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (Vish Puri Mysteries) by Tarquin Hall
For those of us have not met Vish Puri before he's a private investigator, based in Delhi. He's also a gourmet and more than a little bit overweight. It's not for nothing that his wife calls him Chubby. His current case is a little unusual: he's called in to investigate the theft of a moustache. Vish is no slouch in the facial furniture stakes, but his client is the champion and the loss is more than just an embarrassment. Then, to complicate matters Vish is present at a post-match cricket dinner when the father of a top Pakistani player dies - from poison in his butter chicken. When Vish is called in to investigate he has to become involved with the continent's mafias. And he has to travel to Pakistan. Yes - it's that serious. Full review...
Cold Hearts by Gunnar Staalesen
After refusing a prospective client, who afterwards viciously assaulted another prostitute, Margrethe goes missing. Her worried friend from the street visits Varg Veum, a local private investigator, in the hope that he will take the case and get to the bottom of it without the need for police involvement. Varg then investigates every lead and attempts to discover all he can about the missing woman’s unusual upbringing, racking up more trouble and past cases as well as creating dangerous enemies. Full review...
The Interpretations by David Shaw Mackanzie
The Interpretations is the second novel written by David Shaw Mackanzie. It's set in the Scottish Highlands, in the remote town of Dalmore, after the strange disappearance of one of its residents. The book is split into two parts. Part one takes place in the late 1980s while part two takes place in the early 2000s. In the first part we meet Tom Kingsmill, born and bred in Dalmore. Tom participates in a race with his local running club. Part of the race route Tom is expected to run leads over the newly-built bridge connecting Dalmore with the outside world. This bridge is the one Reverend McFarren has an obsessive hatred for. He believes the bridge is a bad omen after two teenagers jumped to their deaths just the month before. No one could have predicted the way in which the reverend's hunch is proved correct. Tom fails to finish the race - in fact, he has vanished entirely. Full review...
The Gift of Darkness by VM Giambanco
Thirteen days. These are the words etched into the door jamb of James and Annie Sinclair's bedroom while James, Annie and their two young sons lay on the bed, murdered. Newbie in the Seattle PD homicide division, Detective Alison Madison, gradually realises a truth as horrific as the scene with which she and her colleagues are faced. It all started with a historic kidnapping from 25 years earlier and now time is running out. Thirteen days… They aren't just carved words, they're a ticking clock. Thirteen days to solve the case. Thirteen days before darkness descends. Full review...
The Red Road by Denise Mina
Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Princess Diana was dead, right? On that August night fourteen-year-old (but she looks sixteen, as she would tell you herself) Rose Wilson snapped. She'd been pimped out by her boyfriend and let down by everyone - but that night she committed two dreadful crimes and it seemed that her life was over. Then a defence lawyer took pity on her and set out to save her from the worst consequences. Well over a decade later DI Alex Morrow is a witness in the case of Michael Brown. Brown is vicious and brutal, damaged beyond hope of salvation but Morrow knows that something is wrong when fingerprint evidence places him at the site of a murder committed the week before - when he was safely in prison. Full review...
