|summary=This is the fifth novel in Susan Hill's series about the detective Simon Serrailler. Although you could probably follow the story without knowing the previous books I think it does help to have some background on who all the characters are. I really love the way Hill weaves her story around some wonderful character studies. Simon is actually hardly in this novel, and the focus instead is on the 'extras', with a lot of details being put into characters who will only be around for this particular novel but who live and breathe through it wonderfully well.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099499282</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Enrique Spellman
|title=Far South
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary='Far South' is a highly unusual book. It's published as 'crime fiction' but this is really only part of the story. It's also a collection of creative endeavours that combines narrative with web-based content. We are told that 'David Enrique Spellman is the voice for the Far South Project. The Far South Collective is a loosely affiliated group of artists, writers, actors, filmmakers musicians and dancers. He works in close collaboration with Esko Tikanmäki Portogales, a Uruguayan web designer'. While I applaud its ambition in trying to add something more creative to the novel concept, I have slightly more mixed views about the success of this.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688108</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Asa Larsson and Laurie Thompson (Translator)
|title=Until Thy Wrath Be Past: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigation
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we talk about 'Scandinavian crime fiction' and the name 'Larsson' there's an awful temptation to [[The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson and Reg Keeland (translator)|jump to conclusions]] about who ''exactly'' the author might be. Slow down though, because there's another Swedish crime writer with that surname and this one is very much alive and writing. Asa Larsson is not down with the southern softies in Stockholm but up in the far north, not far from Norway or Finland, in Kiruna, where she's placed Rebecca Martinsson, who works as a prosecutor, and Inspector Anna-Maria Mella. Those in the know have met them [[The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson|before]] and this is the third book in the series.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050729</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Veronyca Bates
|title=Dead on Time
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=I reviewed Bates' earlier book [[Dead in the Water by Veronyca Bates|Dead in the Water]] and enjoyed it for what it was - a light but enjoyable crime read. This book has the same look and feel about it. Bates has decided to base her crime within the corridors of power, local power that is, the council chambers. And some of us, perhaps many of us, secretly would like to know the ins and outs, the deals made etc by our locally-elected councillors (even although we agree that much of their work can be a tad dull and a tad tedious). But we'll probably shout from the rafters if they happen to get their comeuppance, as happens in this book. Mayor Boot has received his final comeuppance. He's dead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709092504</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ira Levin
|title=A Kiss Before Dying
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=I haven't read any of Levin's books to date although I know various titles from television and films etc. And what struck me straight away was the terrific introduction by Chelsea Cain. Most intros can be rather dull and pedantic but this one is refreshingly different. It starts with the eye-catching line 'I could kill Ira Levin' and left me eager, very eager to get on and read the book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015910</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Simon Ings
|title=Dead Water
|rating=3
|genre=Crime
|summary=The standard advice to artists has always been "don't gild the lily". For those writers who appear not to understand how this relates to their art form, let me offer up a basic translation: don't complicate a brilliant plot!
Dead Water suffers from such gilding.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848878885</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Thierry Jonquet
|title=Tarantula: The Skin I Live In
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a large French country house, an expert in facial reconstruction surgery keeps a beautiful woman locked up in her bedroom. He placates her with opium, but barks orders through hugely powerful speakers and an intercom. She tantalises him with her sexuality, which he tries to ignore, except for when he seems to abuse it in a sort of S/M way when he does let her into society, as he forces her to prostitute herself. Elsewhere, a young, inept bank robber holes himself up in a sunny house, waiting for the heat to die. And finally, a young man is held chained up in a cellar at the hands of an unknown possessor.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687942</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stuart Neville
|title=Collusion
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When I read the back cover blurb carefully, I discovered that most of the story is located in Ireland and not New York as I'd previously thought so I was just a little disappointed before I'd even opened the book. I'm usually a sucker for anything American in the fiction stakes.
Policeman Jack Lennon (his proper name is John and there's a good piece later on illustrating the fact that he's officially called John Lennon). Jack's on surveillance duty watching a couple of no-users as they sit and talk in a local cafe. Jack's in the comfort of his vehicle but still, he's not impressed with his latest task and says in his own words 'Yep, ... shit work.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535351</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adrian Magson
|title=Death on the Rive Nord: An Inspector Lucas Rocco Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Illegal immigrants are not a recent phenomenon. Back in 1963, in Picardy, a truck dropped a group of illegal workers close to a deserted stretch of canal, at the dead of night. Seven people left the truck, and it was only when the driver investigated that he found an eighth inside the truck, stabbed to death. It was a few days before the body surfaced in the canal and Inspector Lucas Rocco was given the job of investigating the death. The problems in Algeria were in the past but not forgotten and Rocco would find himself involved with notorious gang leaders from the former colony – and occasionally wondering if he has bitten off more than he can chew.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749008393</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ira Levin
|title=The Boys From Brazil
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=A small group of powerful Nazis gather for a convivial post-prandial meeting, and collect identities and orders from their leader, who is sending them to different corners of the world in order that many innocent people may be killed. But this isn't when you might expect - it's the mid-1970s. It isn't where you might expect, for these Nazis are remnants of Hitler's regime that fled to south America for safety. And the deaths are being ordered for reasons you will never foretell. In that regard, then, you are as well-informed as chief Nazi hunter Yakov Lieberman, who hears tantalising hints of the plot, but cannot fathom it - nor indeed find proof it has indeed started.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015902</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gordon Ferris
|title=The Hanging Shed
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=This book is already ''The No 1 eBook bestseller'' so I was expecting a good read. Part of The Douglas Brodie Series, where Brodie, the central character, is a no-holds-barred journalist, although his past reveals that he's been a soldier and a policeman. Ferris elaborates further and gives his readers some background on Brodie. Brodie comes across, right from the start, as a resourceful, likeable and forthright man who has not been afraid to break away from his small-town roots in the west of Scotland. His present job is based in London but it's obvious that Brodie's heart's just not in it. He wants to return to Scotland, Glasgow in particular and try his journalistic luck there. An opportunity soon comes along - but it's one he was never in a million years expecting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857893645</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Ellis
|title=Frank Merlin: Princes Gate
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the early part of the Second World War there was a lull, when hostilities didn't really seem to get going – the so-called Phoney War. Some Londoners, who'd left the capital in the expectation of early bombing raids, began drifting back and there were still those who thought that peace could be negotiated – that we could stay out of the fight. Chief amongst those outside of the political classes who supported this view was the American Ambassador, Joseph Kennedy. Kennedy was, perhaps fortunately but not unusually, out of the country when one of the staff at the residence was murdered and her body fished out of the Thames.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848766572</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karin Fossum
|title=Bad Intentions
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jon, Reilly and Axel had been friends for the best part of a couple of decades. Axel was the dominant one of the trio and Reilly was easily led. Jon - well Jon was vulnerable. Something had happened to them all at the end of the previous year and Jon had recently been in a mental hospital, but now, at the beginning of autumn, Axel and Reilly were taking him for a weekend at Dead Water Lake.
The three young men went out in a boat and Jon went over the side. Neither Axel nor Reilly made any attempt to help him and they didn't report his disappearnace until the following moring - and even then they said that he'd gone for a walk in the forest and had not returned.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009953584X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alison Bruce
|title=The Siren
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=I recently read and reviewed Bruce's [[The Calling by Alison Bruce|The Calling]] and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was hoping that this book would be equally good. The location is once again Cambridge. Two young women hastily meet up after hearing a local news item. A male body has been discovered in a gruesome and sorry state and has sent the two women into a right old flap. Although both are now in steady relationships and Kimberly is a mum, they obviously share a shady past together. 'It was a joke between them: Kimberly gets them both into trouble, Rachel gets them out.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849016070</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Claudia Pineiro
|title=All Yours
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Inés leads an ordinary life with her husband and daughter. So ordinary in fact, the term 'desperate housewife' could have been invented exclusively for her. She is under no illusions about marriage as an institution - but is convinced she knows all about her husband, and all about men and how to handle them – with a little help from her mother, whose observations on losing a man are always at the front of Inés' mind. When Inés follows her husband on an errand one night, she witnesses him having a violent argument with another woman; the woman then suffers a freak accident and dies. Inés takes charge of the ensuing trouble in her usual capable way, with the full confidence of someone who is always in control. But in trying to protect her husband, she comes up against much more than she bargained for.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190473880X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ruth Rendell
|title=The Vault
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=The unthinkable has happened. Chief Inspector Wexford has retired. He's had a long career as he was already an Inspector when he first appeared in 1964 – perhaps not a good plan if you're looking for longevity in your character – but I doubt that Ruth Rendell could have anticipated quite how popular Reg Wexford would prove to be. And that's what he is now – plain Reg Wexford – with no authority to interview people and no warrant card in his pocket. He and Dora are splitting their time between Kingsmarkham and their daughter's coach house in London, but the novelty of trips here and there soon wears a little thin and Wexford finds himself at something of a loose end.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937108</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karin Slaughter
|title=Fallen
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Faith Mitchell is not having a good day. A three-hour training seminar had stretched into four-and-a-half-hours, which meant that not only was she late picking up her baby daughter from her mothers' she was also starving hungry. This mattered more than it would for most of us, because Faith is diabetic. She needs to eat.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057949</amazonuk>
}}
