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Review of

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Coming to Find You by Jane Corry

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Trial by Rob Rinder

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

Death in Fine Condition by Andrew Cartmel

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

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Review of

Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11) by David Mark

3.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Fall by Gilly Macmillan

4.5star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

To Die in June by Alan Parks

4star.jpg Crime

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

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Review of

The Monk by Tim Sullivan

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

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Review of

Death Under a Little Sky by Stig Abell

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The marriage had run its course. It might have been different if the pregnancies hadn't ended in miscarriages but no one else was involved - certainly not on Jake's side and he didn't think there was for Faye either. They were still polite to each other and wished each other well - but didn't wish to remain married. The perfect solution arrived in the form of a legacy from Jake's Uncle Arthur. He'd been left a secluded property in the hamlet of Caelum Parvum - Little Sky - and enough money to live there without the need to work. Full Review

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Review of

One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley

4star.jpg Crime

84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever? Full Review

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Review of

Blood Runs Cold (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

Affi Smith was snatched from the bottom of Fyrish, where she'd been doing her training. She'd been a bit of a wayward teenager until she discovered athletics - and it now looks as though she could be heading for the national squad. That's quite an achievement for someone with her background: you see, Affo came to Scotland from Albania as Afrodita Dushku at the age of twelve. She was rescued when she was carrying a kilo of drugs and three years later she's happy with her foster family. There's just one cloud on her horizon: her little sister, Melodi is in a children's home in Tirana - and anyone could get to her. Full Review

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Review of

Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen and Megan E Turney (translator)

3.5star.jpg Thrillers

Hannah presents as an unlikeable, bitter woman, an author of failing if well-regarded literary short novels. Sorry to leave her bottles of red wine behind her for an afternoon at a book fair, she flukes her way into a public argument with the latest hot shot in the world of crime fiction, saying he's populist trash and only writing what anyone could write. Cue the bet that she cannot live up to that accusation. Her publisher duly books her flights from Denmark to Iceland, where she is put up for a wintry month away from it all. Just on the point of despairing – about her writing, about the people and the lack of stimulus for her plot, more or less about everything – word comes that the landlady's nephew has been found dead… Full Review

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Review of

The Favour by Nicci French

4star.jpg Crime

It was 2 am, not long after A levels, when the car crash happened. It would cause problems for Liam Birch but then no one could really understand why he and Jude Winter were together. She was utterly driven by her determination to go to medical school. Liam was the reverse. He just acted as if life just rolled him over and carried him along. A bit of weed here, a few drinks there: the legal effects of the car crash really didn't worry him at all. The relationship broke up soon after that - or rather, Liam simply didn't see Jude any more. Full Review

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Review of

Her Deadly Game by Robert Dugoni

5star.jpg Crime

Patrick Duggan & Associates has been the life's work of Patsy Duggan – rather charmingly nicknamed 'The Irish Brawler' due to his reputation for no holds barred courtroom performances in defence of his clients. Along with an indisputable talent for the law, Patsy also has a gift for drinking himself to oblivion and inevitably the latter was beginning to overshadow the former. Enter Keera Duggan, former competitive chess prodigy and proven Seattle Prosecutor who finds herself in the hideous position of asking her father for a job at the family firm because a romantic entanglement with a senior colleague, Miller Ambrose, had gone, rather spectacularly, south. Full Review

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Review of

The Close (DS Maeve Kerrigan) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

It was because of Rula Jacques that DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent were living together in Jellicoe Close.

If you're a regular reader of the Maeve Kerrigan series you'll have read that sentence twice and wondered if it's a massive spoiler because there is a delicious sexual chemistry between the two which seems very, very real. But (there's always a 'but', isn't there?) Josh has a partner and he dotes on her son, even if the relationship with Melissa can be a little rocky. As for Maeve, she's just come out of an abusive relationship which has left her more than a little uncertain. Full Review

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Review of

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

4star.jpg Teens

When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspects. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder. But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names? Full Review

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Review of

Unnatural History by Jonathan Kellerman

4star.jpg Crime

Donny Klement was a photographer. Well, it was Adonis, actually, but Donny had stuck unless he got Danny but whichever - it's past tense as his PA found him dead in his bed. Three shots were placed neatly through his heart. The PA, Mel Gornick, is distraught and it falls to psychologist Alex Delaware to calm her down whilst Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets more agitated as he tries to establish what's happened. Donny had just finished a series of photographs called The Wishers. He'd taken eight homeless people off the streets and asked them what they'd really like to be. They were then dressed up as their fantasy, photographed and sent on their way with a generous gift in dollars. Full Review

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Review of

Expectant (Detective Sam Shephard) by Vanda Symon

4.5star.jpg Crime

Detective Sam Shepherd is approaching the start of her maternity leave when there is a brutal, shocking murder of an expectant woman in Dunedin. Suddenly she finds herself embroiled in the hunt for a killer targeting pregnant women, with all the extra pressure that entails being pregnant herself. Finding herself put on desk duties, which she rails against, she just can't let the case go and she starts to follow every thread to uncover what's actually happening, and the increasingly disturbing worry of just what might happen next. Full Review

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Review of

All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

4.5star.jpg Crime

Isabelle Drake hasn't really slept for a year - well, apart from the odd occasion when she lost track of time or drifted off for a moment. It's now a year since her son, Mason, was stolen from his bed in the middle of the night and Izzy is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing and particularly about her relief in the morning when she thought he was sleeping in. In that year she's done everything she could to raise awareness about the case. She does interviews and when we meet her, she's just been to TrueCrimeCon where she gave a keynote presentation. On the plane back, she's approached by a podcaster, Waylon Spencer, who points out that she could do a podcast and get to so many more people than she could by giving speeches to a few hundred people at conferences. Full Review

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Review of

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

5star.jpg Crime

The room was full of the sort of people Tatler thinks you should know.

The Other Half is the story of two men, both with what looks like the same surname. Rupert Beauchamp is the heir to a baronetcy and his thirtieth birthday party is a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Town. Think Bollinger and cocaine. His surname is pronounced 'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector with the Metropolitan police and is bi-racial. His surname is pronounced as you see it. The two encounter each other when Caius, out for a run, stumbles across the body of Clemmie O'Hara, Rupert's girlfriend. Rupert thought that she was being deliberately late for his party. She was dead under a bush. Full Review

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Review of

The Sins of Our Fathers: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigation by Asa Larsson and Frank Perry (Translator)

5star.jpg Crime

Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live but he's determined that Rebecka Martinsson is going to investigate the case of a body found in a freezer at the home of a deceased alcoholic. The problem is that the case has long passed the statute of limitations. Raimo Koskela disappeared without a trace in 1962. He was the father of Olympic boxing champion Borje Strom. Rebecka wants nothing to do with a fifty-year-old case on which she can take no action: the problem is that this is a dying man's wish. The situation changes when a post-mortem establishes that Henry Pekkari, the dead alcoholic, was also murdered. Is there a connection between the two deaths? Full Review

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Review of

Stay Buried by Kate Webb

5star.jpg Crime

DI Matt Lockyer is on Major Crime Review which sounds quite grand until you realise that it's actually a cold case unit and there are just two of them doing the job. Lockyer's not unduly worried, though although he's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable of something better. It was a bit of a shock when he got the phone call from Hedy Lambert: she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - and it was Lockyer who put her there, fourteen years ago. She's keen to see him and to tell him that the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but the body turned out to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decades. Full Review

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Review of

A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache) by Louise Penny

5star.jpg Crime

After a harsh winter, the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of spring. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. Gamache had offered help to a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brother. For Jean-Guy, it had always been the other way around. Now they're both in the village and neither can fathom what's happening. Armand will soon find that they're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his life. Full Review

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Review of

White Riot by Joe Thomas

4.5star.jpg Crime

Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always the danger of making it too reactionary; too raw. Knee-jerk observations and hot takes that don't age well or properly capture the spirit of the moment. It takes a truly talented writer to be able to capture the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political history. Austerity Britain, the student riots, Donald Trump, Brexit – so much of what is, and has been, written in the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven by time to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature), the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective view. Full Review

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