Difference between revisions of "Newest Thrillers Reviews"

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{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Will Carver
 
|author=Will Carver
|title=Hinton Hollow Death Trip
+
|title=Psychopaths Anonymous
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Hinton Hollow, population 5,120. It sounds like one of those signs you see on improbably wide highways in America's mid-west, but this particular Hinton Hollow is a small town in Berkshire, England. Detective Sergeant Pace grew up here, until something happened and he ran away to the city.  He's running away again…only this time evil is following him and is going to touch just about everyone in town.
+
|summary=Maeve is a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously and also, curiously, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing and critiquing the AA steps she is mainly using the groups to find targets...targets for sexual encounters, targets to feed her desire to hear of people's misery, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems to be searching for others who think as she does, and when she's unable to find like-minded people in any of the groups she decides to set up her own, hoping to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous is born.
|isbn=1913193306
+
|isbn=1913193756
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008378363
+
|isbn=1471196615
|title=One Perfect Morning
+
|title=Iced
|author=Pamela Crane
+
|author=Felix Francis
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=A husband is about to have his throat cut in his own bed.  To find out who - and why - we need to go back nine days and twenty years.
+
|summary=Miles Pussett used to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down the three-quarter-mile Cresta Run, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hour. He was in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - that's high-class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling of the horsesIt's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore that he'd never go back to itBut when he sees that something suspicious is going on, Miles can't help but look for answers, even when it puts him in danger.
 
 
Mackenzie, Robin and Lily met when they all went to the same college in Monroeville, Pennsylvania and twenty years later they're still the best of friends.  When they first met they called themselves the Spicier Girls as a nod to the famous girl band of the dayLily would be Adventure Spice, Robin the Homemaker and Mackenzie - well, Mackenzie would be the supporting actress in her own lifeShe married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughter, Aria, who's now fifteen-year-old.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0751567426
+
|isbn=147228612X
|title=The Wicked Sister
+
|title=The Late Train to Gipsy Hill
|author=Karen Dionne
+
|author=Alan Johnson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center in Michigan's Upper PeninsulaShe's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen years, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took the gun and killed himselfHer sister, Diana, just twenty-years-old, was left at the family home, a lodge in the Upper Peninsula wildernessRachel's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling that this is what she deservesPerhaps, though, the circumstances are not as she remembers.
+
|summary=We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably haven't taken much notice of themThey live quiet, uneventful lives and stay mostly under the radarIn a city like London, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himThe highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on the train each morning: he'd love to ask her for a date but he doesn't have the courage. Then, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks to him and asks for his helpBefore long he finds himself on the run from mobsters, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan police.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008314721
+
|isbn=0008433631
|title=Truth Be Told
+
|title=Next of Kin
 
|author=Kia Abdullah
 
|author=Kia Abdullah
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=The Hadids are an ''effortful'' familyFlowers are sent for the slightest problem or achievement: letters are sent to thank and this prompts a phone call in returnThere are two sons of the family, seventeen-year-old Kamran and sixteen-year-old Adam. Their mother, Sofia, regrets that she didn't name them the other way round: 'Adam and Kamran' trips off the tongue so much more easily than 'Kamran and Adam'.  Sofia worries about that sort of thingBoth boys go to the prestigious Hampton school, where they board, despite the school being less than ten miles from their Belsize Park home.  Kamran has a place at Oxford next year and all seemed to be going well until the night when he was raped.
+
|summary=It was the sort of thing that happened every day, although not to Leila Syed.  She'd never driven her nephew, Max, to school before but his father, Andrew Hanson, had rung her in a panicHe was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called into work and the delay in getting there could lead to financial lossesAs the school was only five minutes out of Leila's way, could she drop him off? Of course, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her carOn the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at risk.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Agnes Ravatn and Rosie Hedger (translator)
+
|isbn=1784165263
|title=The Seven Doors
+
|title=Invite Me In
|rating=4
+
|author=Emma Curtis
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Come here for a thriller that interestingly doesn't even try to suggest a genre of any kind until we're a full fifth of the way through.  We start with our couple, she a literature lecturer, he big in medical provision and decisions at the council, being forced to move out of their home, a building that had existed throughout her life since childhood and which they'd occupied for over thirty yearsThe building he's inherited, meanwhile, and which they let out to a single mother, is needed by their adult daughter, who quite blatantly says to its occupant 'take a hike, I'm moving in and you're moving out'.  Now, at this stage you may well, if you know this is a genre read, think it's going to be a throwback to those 'home invasion' thrillers Hollywood gave us in the 1980s, but no.  We avoid genre completely, as I say – instead learning about Greek tragedy, in case that has any bearing on what happens here, and seeing how an older-middle aged couple live their lives.  Until at that twenty per cent stage we find something that raises an eyebrow as any crime book should – until the point where the evicted tenant is found to have completely vanished.
+
|summary=Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being let.  If she didn't get home, there would be troubleThere was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick to be understanding.  He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment''.  All this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being available.
|isbn=1913193381
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Robert Peston
 +
|title=The Whistleblower
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Thrillers
 +
|summary=I'm not the first to point out how fitting it is for Robert Peston to write a political thriller, so I'll move on quickly – but this won't be winning any awards for originality. It's an interesting plot with a good pace, but it does very little to differentiate itself and I suspect before much time has passed I'll have forgotten a lot of it.
 +
|isbn=1838775242
 +
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471179273
+
|author=Teresa Driscoll
|title=House of Correction
+
|title=Her Perfect Family
|author=Nicci French
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When we first meet Tabitha Hardy, she's in prison, on remand.  She's sharing a cell with Michaela, who's more caring than she first appears.  She delivers tough love and gets Tabitha eating and drinking - and encourages her to have a shower, unpleasant as the whole processes might be.  And how did Tabitha get here?  Well, on 21 December the body of Stuart Robert Rees was discovered in her garden shed by Andrew Kane, who was helping with the renovations to Tabitha's house. So far as the police are concerned, Tabitha is the only person who could have killed Rees - and when they arrived at her house she was covered in his blood.
+
|summary=The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrong. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is…'', paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows is a complex whodunit with a list of suspects that continues to grow the further you read.
 +
|isbn=1542028752
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07WWSCGVS
+
|isbn=0008370982
|title=The Lies You Told
+
|title=Rock Paper Scissors
|author=Harriet Tyce
+
|author=Alice Feeney
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new schoolShe's left the school she loved in New York and now she's going to Ashams in North LondonIt's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and as the pupils have all been there ''forever'', they have their established groupsRobin's going to be an outsider.  And why is this happening?  Well, over a matter of a few days her parents' marriage fell apart.  Andrew Spence is staying in New York - he works for a securities firm - and her mother, Sadie Roper, has come back to London to pick up her practice as a criminal barrister.  That's easier said than done when you've been out of the market place - and the country - for more than ten years.
+
|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland.  Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the ideaLike Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with herAmelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with the dogs, many of whom have been abused, is never easyStill - she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days later.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Mark Dawson
+
|isbn=0008421714
|title= The Cleaner
+
|title=Mrs March
|rating= 4
+
|author=Virginia Feito
|genre= Thrillers
+
|rating=4.5
|summary= Ruthless and coldly competent, John Milton is one of the British government's best assets – a contract killer with lethal instincts. Now, after ten years, he wants out. But his job isn't one you can just walk away from…
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|isbn=178739462X
+
|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date.  Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so.  Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?''  She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.''
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838951067
+
|isbn=0241989094
|title=The Nothing Man
+
|title=The Perfect Life
|author=Catherine Ryan Howard
+
|author=Nuala Ellwood
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When we first meet Jim Doyle, he's about to get a shockHe's security at a supermarket and he's watching a woman who is acting suspiciously.  She has a book tucked under her arm and he wonders if she's planning to pay for itSuddenly it drops to the floor with the spine splayed upwards. ''Nothing Man'' by Eve Black, is the title.  Why is Jim shocked?  Well, Jim was - ''is'' - the Nothing Man who, until eighteen years ago raped and killed.  The author of the book was twelve years old when Jim raped her mother, and then killed her, her father and her seven-year-old sister, Anna.
+
|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and BarclayThe boys are a bit of a handful which is why she's making this trip on her ownThe house would be perfect for them.
 +
 
 +
It's the same month but now we're in Wimbledon and we encounter the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting and living in her sister, Georgie's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connor.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178089922X
+
|isbn=1787634493
|title=Invisible Girl
+
|title=All Her Fault
|author=Lisa Jewell
+
|author=Andrea Mara
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=''When you wear a hood, you're invisible.''
+
|summary=It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenMarissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, Milo, to go on a play dateShe was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new school.  Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little laterWhat could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at the house, expecting to meet Jacob's mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or JacobThe phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognised.  Milo had disappeared.  And so had Jenny's nanny.
 
 
Saffyre Maddox is seventeen-years-old and beautifulBy her own admission, she's a bit of a boffin, doing and enjoying maths, physics and biology at A levelLife hasn't been easy for her: most people who have been close to her have died and she's now living with her Uncle Aaron in an eighth-floor flat.  Something ''really, really bad happened'' to her when she was ten and she self-harmed for a long timeAaron organised psychological help and for three years Roan Fours was her therapist. He gently unpeeled the layers of her psyche, but somehow managed to miss that 'something really, really bad'.  When the therapy ended Saffyre felt cast adrift, but she retained an interest in Roan.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Sharon Doering
+
|author=Claire McGowan
|title=She Lies Close
+
|title=I Know You
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Ava Boone was five years old when she went missing, around 6 months ago. There has been no sign of her since, and no arrests have been made. And yet, this book is not about Ava. Not really. This book is about Grace, who has just discovered her neighbour in her new house is a suspect in Ava's disappearance. As a single mother to two young children, she's really wishing this sort of information had come to light before they moved in.
+
|summary=''Then:'' Casey returns from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole family taken down.
|isbn=1789094194
+
 
 +
''Now:'' Rachel is out for a walk with her dog, Brandy, when she comes across a body in the woods.
 +
 
 +
|isbn=1542019974
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1409187438
+
|author=Peter Papathanasiou
|title=The First Lie
+
|title=The Stoning
|author=A J Park
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=On the second of October 37-year-old barrister, Paul Reeve, returned home at 9 pm to find his house in darkness and the front door open.  His wife was in the bedroom in a state of shock and in the bathroom there was a dead man who had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck with Paul's paper-knife. In that moment Paul takes a decision that will be irrevocable: he decides that he and Alice are not going to ring the police and tell the truth. They're going to bury the body in woodland and go on as though nothing has happened.
+
|summary=In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law...
 +
|isbn=1529416973
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787301435
+
|isbn=1787631869
|title=Dark Waters
+
|title=The Rising Tide
|author=G R Halliday
+
|author=Sam Lloyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Twenty-two-year-old Annabelle Whittaker made her second mistake when she opted to drive down the private road in Glen TurritIt was a long road through some breath-taking scenery and she could push the car to its limits without fear of being caught speeding.  When the blond child stepped out in front of her she instinctively jerked the steering wheel and hit a treeWhen she came round after the accident she couldn't work out where she was, but it obviously wasn't a conventional hospitalShe'd made her first mistake some time ago, although the realisation wouldn't be obvious to her for a long time.  She'd made it when she chose to have her father buy her a pale blue BMW M4.
+
|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in the aftermathShe's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beach, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with DanielThey have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friendNick and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1780899858
+
|isbn=1786332388
|title=To Tell You the Truth
+
|title=The First Day of Spring
|author=Gilly Macmillan
+
|author=Nancy Tucker
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of the house on the night of the summer solstice to watch the pagan celebrations in Stoke WoodsHer four-year-old brother, Teddy, would have woken the house if she hadn't taken him with her.  But in the early hours of the morning, Lucy returned home without Teddy, hoping that he would have got home before her.  He hadn't and no one has seen him since.  Lucy's story was crucial to the police investigation, but it keeps subtly changing. Lucy is being advised by her imaginary friend, Eliza Grey and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell the police.
+
|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and ''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasion.  The writing is superb and completely compelling.  The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let go.  So, what's the problem?  Well, the problem is Chrissie, the main characterWhen we first meet her she's just eight years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy.  She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized upThere's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787477681
+
|isbn=B088YWF5BC
|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
+
|title=The Lies We Tell
|author=Martin Walker
+
|author=Jane Corry
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=It was a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his son.  Gaston's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near Sarlat, owned by a Russian oligarch.  Before he even got to go there he died, apparently of a heart attack, and the retirement home collected the proceeds of the policy and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just the contents of the farmhouse.  The family hadn't exactly fallen out, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out of favour when she announced that she was gay, but they weren't expecting to be almost completely disinherited.
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=0241984653
 
|title=I Made a Mistake
 
|author=Jane Corry
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=We know from the very beginning that there's a tragedy about to happenOn a January evening on a very crowded platform 3 of Waterloo Underground station a man falls under an oncoming trainThat man is Matthew GordonMuch later we see Poppy Page in the witness box of a crown court, getting a very rough ride from the prosecuting barrister.
+
|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters.  It seemed to have been a loving, stable familyWhen we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in byHer husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning but he's still going to be going to work and he needs his sleepHe wakes, though, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someone.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008386137
+
|author=Louise Candlish
|title=Just My Luck
+
|title=The Heights
|author=Adele Parks
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Elaine Winterdale took the fall for the landlord. Aged 37, she got a suspended sentence because a faulty gas boiler had caused the deaths of 29-year-old Reveka Albu and her 2-year-old son Benke. Toma Albu, husband and father, had found them when he returned home.
+
|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on site, visiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the way. There are lots of things, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murder.
 +
|isbn=1471183483
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 
Move on to [[Newest Travel Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Travel Reviews]]

Revision as of 16:24, 21 October 2021

1913193756.jpg

Review of

Psychopaths Anonymous by Will Carver

3.5star.jpg Thrillers

Maeve is a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously and also, curiously, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing and critiquing the AA steps she is mainly using the groups to find targets...targets for sexual encounters, targets to feed her desire to hear of people's misery, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems to be searching for others who think as she does, and when she's unable to find like-minded people in any of the groups she decides to set up her own, hoping to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Full Review

1471196615.jpg

Review of

Iced by Felix Francis

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Miles Pussett used to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down the three-quarter-mile Cresta Run, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hour. He was in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - that's high-class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling of the horses. It's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore that he'd never go back to it. But when he sees that something suspicious is going on, Miles can't help but look for answers, even when it puts him in danger. Full Review

147228612X.jpg

Review of

The Late Train to Gipsy Hill by Alan Johnson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably haven't taken much notice of them. They live quiet, uneventful lives and stay mostly under the radar. In a city like London, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore him. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on the train each morning: he'd love to ask her for a date but he doesn't have the courage. Then, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks to him and asks for his help. Before long he finds himself on the run from mobsters, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan police. Full Review

0008433631.jpg

Review of

Next of Kin by Kia Abdullah

5star.jpg Thrillers

It was the sort of thing that happened every day, although not to Leila Syed. She'd never driven her nephew, Max, to school before but his father, Andrew Hanson, had rung her in a panic. He was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called into work and the delay in getting there could lead to financial losses. As the school was only five minutes out of Leila's way, could she drop him off? Of course, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her car. On the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at risk. Full Review

1784165263.jpg

Review of

Invite Me In by Emma Curtis

4.5star.jpg Crime

Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being let. If she didn't get home, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick to be understanding. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza you're good at being a disappointment. All this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being available. Full Review

1838775242.jpg

Review of

The Whistleblower by Robert Peston

3star.jpg Thrillers

I'm not the first to point out how fitting it is for Robert Peston to write a political thriller, so I'll move on quickly – but this won't be winning any awards for originality. It's an interesting plot with a good pace, but it does very little to differentiate itself and I suspect before much time has passed I'll have forgotten a lot of it. Full Review

1542028752.jpg

Review of

Her Perfect Family by Teresa Driscoll

5star.jpg Thrillers

The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrong. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating He is not who he says he is…, paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows is a complex whodunit with a list of suspects that continues to grow the further you read. Full Review

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Review of

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

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Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the idea. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with the dogs, many of whom have been abused, is never easy. Still - she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days later. Full Review

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Review of

Mrs March by Virginia Feito

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The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you? She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch. Full Review

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Review of

The Perfect Life by Nuala Ellwood

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In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclay. The boys are a bit of a handful which is why she's making this trip on her own. The house would be perfect for them.

It's the same month but now we're in Wimbledon and we encounter the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting and living in her sister, Georgie's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connor. Full Review

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Review of

All Her Fault by Andrea Mara

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It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happen. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, Milo, to go on a play date. She was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new school. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. What could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at the house, expecting to meet Jacob's mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or Jacob. The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had Jenny's nanny. Full Review

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Review of

I Know You by Claire McGowan

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Then: Casey returns from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole family taken down.

Now: Rachel is out for a walk with her dog, Brandy, when she comes across a body in the woods. Full Review

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Review of

The Stoning by Peter Papathanasiou

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In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law... Full Review

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Review of

The Rising Tide by Sam Lloyd

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Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in the aftermath. She's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beach, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with Daniel. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friend. Nick and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned. Full Review

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Review of

The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker

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Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and The First Day of Spring was one such occasion. The writing is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let go. So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is Chrissie, the main character. When we first meet her she's just eight years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized up. There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough? Full Review

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Review of

The Lies We Tell by Jane Corry

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Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have been a loving, stable family. When we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in by. Her husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning but he's still going to be going to work and he needs his sleep. He wakes, though, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someone. Full Review

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Review of

The Heights by Louise Candlish

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Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on site, visiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the way. There are lots of things, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murder. Full Review

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