Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"

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[[Category:Crime|*]]
 
[[Category:Crime|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Crime]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Crime==
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{{Frontpage
__NOTOC__
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|isbn=1035021803
{{newreview
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|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=Olen Steinhauer
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|author=C L Miller
|title=An American Spy
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=The Beijing Olympics approach and Xin Zhu has every reason to be proud: a high ranking position in China's espionage system, a beautiful new young wife and the satisfaction of having wiped out 33 American agents and so closing down their department.  But the spy business is not a place for resting on laurels, especially when American Alan Drummond wants to avenge the death of his entire department.  Meanwhile survivor of the massacre, Milo Weaver, just wants time to recover and space to be with his family.  The unlikelihood of that happening is pretty high; however, it becomes a lot more remote when Alan disappears.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848876025</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Elizabeth Wilson
 
|title=The Girl in Berlin
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Set in 1950s 'Austerity Britain', with detour or two to Berlin, Elizabeth Wilson's ''The Girl in Berlin'' is a stylish tale of espionage with a backdrop of the disappearance of Maclean and Burgess in a world where no one knows who to trust. Jack McGovern works at Special Branch but when Colin Harris, a known member of the Communist Party returns to the UK, MI5's Miles Kingdom draws Jack into investigate his intentions. Add in the fact that the wife of one of Harris's friends, Dinah Wentworth, works part time at the Courtauld Institute of Art where Dr Anthony Blunt is the main man, neither Jack, nor the reader, knows who is working for whom.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688264</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Nicholas Blake
 
|title=A Question of Proof
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Wemyss was that boy - and all schools have them, even now - who is universally hated.  Neither masters at Sudeley Hall, nor his fellow pupils could stand him and to make matters worse he was the nephew and ward of the headmaster, the Rev. Percival Vale.  When the boy was found strangled on the school sports day there wasn't exactly universal rejoicing but it was more because of the knowledge of the problems which this would cause for the school than because of any sorrow.  The prime suspects were Michael Evans, the English teacher and Hero Vale, the young wife of the middle-aged headmaster who had been kissing in the haystack where the boy's body was found.  Evans has one hope and that's his friend, Nigel Strangeways, nephew of the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and a renowned private investigator.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099565358</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Christobel Kent
 
|title=A Fine and Private Place (Sandro Cellini)
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sandro Cellini isn't too impressed with life as a private investigator and it's a big change from being in the police forceSomehow trailing a schoolgirl on the orders of her father who thinks she's mixing with bad company wasn't quite how he'd seen his life working out.  His wife, Luisa, is recovering from cancer, but it seems to have changed her attitude to life and when she announces that she's going to New York on a business trip with her boss Cellini worries that he's going to lose her.  Then another case comes up and it's one which stirs some memoriesDoctor Loni Meadows has been discovered dead after what seems like a tragic motor accident but her husband isn't convinced and he'd like Cellini to investigate.
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|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up.  She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, CaroleFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least.  Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badlyEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she lovedAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843549514</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1398524085
|author=Eva Joly and Judith Perrignon
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|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?
|title=The Eyes of Lira Kazan
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|author=Nicci French
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=The novel throws you straight into the action with three apparently unconnected eventsNigerian fraud squad investigator, Nwanko Ganbo, realises it's time to get his family out of the country when he finds a colleague and good friend in his car, very dead. The solution is simple: the British government offer him a new life as a lecturer in return for silence about the corrupt regime he has spent so long investigatingMeanwhile the wife of a rich Faroese banker accidentally drowns in full ball gown whilst in Nice but junior prosecutor Felix and his judicial colleague aren't as easily convinced about the accidental nature as their superiors seem to beThe third piece of the jigsaw originates in Russia as local journalist Lira Kazan shows an interest in the life and transactions of Russian millionaire Louchsky.  This isn't the healthiest thing she's ever done as people seem to have died for less.
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|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned upHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is notShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the riverIt was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt.  The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524006</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529900360
|author=Shamini Flint
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|title=The Ghost Orchid
|title=Inspector Singh Investigates: A Curious Indian Cadaver
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|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Inspector Singh was on sick leave and rather bored, which was why he agreed to his wife's suggestion (well, she was rather more insistent than that...) that they attend her niece's wedding in MumbaiThere's a little bit of history to this part of the family.  The bride-to-be is Ashu Singh, granddaughter of Tara Singh, the wealthy industrialist and his acknowledged favouriteTara's son ( Ashu's father) was murdered in the uprisings which followed the assassination of Indira Ghandi.  He supported the family but made a point that he would not do so beyond the level at which his son (a rather lowly civil servant) could have achieved.  Ashu and her two brothers have been secure but not wealthy - and as we join the story Ashu is going into an arranged marriage.  There are two unfortunate circumstances here.  Ashu is in love with another man - and she's disappeared.
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|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases.  His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while.  Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help againShe knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed.  The next case did look simple, thoughTwo lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air.  He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>074995342X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=178763681X
|author=Guillermo Orsi and Nick Caistor (translator)
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|title=Knife Skills for Beginners
|title=Holy City
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|author=Orlando Murrin
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Honest policemen are not that common in Buenos Aires, it seems, but Deputy Inspector Walter Carroza of the serious-crime squad does his best to keep his head above the murky waters of corruption. Sometimes there just seems to be too much going on - even for a loner like Carroza without too much else in his life to absorb his timeThe lack of dredging in the Rio del Plata caused the cruise ship to run aground and the passengers were evacuated to the city, where six - two French, two German and two Italians - of them were abductedThey're wealthy business leaders and the kidnappings send stock markets into freefall.
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|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in BelgraviaHe didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wantedPaul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his ownThe one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead.  Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050621</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529421284
|author=Erin Kelly
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|title=Laying Out the Bones
|title=The Sick Rose
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|author=Kate Webb
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Paul had the passion and academic grades to become a teacherHowever, his plans started the slow slide away from his grasp after his father died and he and his mother were forced to move to the rough, Grays Reach Estate and an even rougher schoolIt seemed that his days as bully's target had ended when Daniel, illiterate and street-wise, stepped in as protectorAll Paul had to do was cover for Daniel's disability in class... at least that was all he needed to do at first.
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|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwaveIn a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlierHe'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convincedGeary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone?  There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time.  Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444703854</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529425867
|author=Martin O'Brien
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|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)
|title=The Dying Minutes
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|author=Simon Mason
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot is recovering after being shot after his last case. His pregnant girlfriend is away when he receives news that he has been left a boat – Constance - by an old sailor. At about the same time, lawyer, Claude Dupont visits one of his unsuccessful defendants in prison. The man is dying and leaves his lawyer an unusual bequest on which he feels that he needs to act. What follows starts to unnerve many of the criminal fraternity in the South of France and stirs up old rivalries between two of the most feared criminal families on the Cote d'Azur. It also raises questions about what happened to gold bullion, stolen over twenty years previously, and leads to a deadly race as both families seek the gold and also seek revenge. Amidst all of this, Jacquot seems to find his new acquisition at the heart of it all and starts to unravel the mysterious life of the boat's former owner.
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|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins.  Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not.  He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies.  They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not.  The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin.  Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well.  Sometimes it's problematic.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090617</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529431735
|author=Fred Vargas
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|title=The Winter Visitor
|title=An Uncertain Place
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|author=James Henry
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Only Adamsberg could be involved in these crimesWhile innocently on a stroll through London he and his colleagues, there for a conference, get told of nearly two dozen disembodied feet, and their shoes, left outside Highgate CemeterySome of them are decades old.  Much fresher are the ridiculously demolished remains of a legal journalist, in his rural French home.  Only Adamsberg can approach either, and do it partly through the urban myth of a bear hunter, a wardrobe-eater and more, and only in his world could they ever be linked.  It's a good job too, that Adamsberg is the one to solve them, for they have a much greater bearing on him, his colleagues and his life than he would ever expect.
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|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprisingHe'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decadeThe return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live.  It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955223X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0861541774
|author=Noah Hawley
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|title=A Nye of Pheasants
|title=The Good Father
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|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Dr Paul Allen is more than happy with his life.  His second wife, Fran, is efficient, a good manager, a good mother to their young twins and not overly emotional as Ellen (Wife No. 1) was.  In fact you could say that his life runs like clockwork, which is just how he likes itPaul hates chaos and the unexpected, but he's about to be visited by bothAs the Allens sit in horror watching news footage of the charismatic presidential front-runner being gunned down, there's a knock at the door.  Their real horror is beginning; the FBI believes the son he had with Ellen is the guy who pulled the trigger.
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|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a GhurkaInitially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man.  Now he could be facing the death penaltyDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444730363</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1521129886
|author=Yrsa Sigurdardottir
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|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)
|title=The Day is Dark
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|author=Keith Redfern
|rating=3
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=All contact is lost with two Icelanders working in a remote north-eastern coast of GreenlandThere are some signs of what might have happened to them - and none of them good - but the local villagers have no intention of helping in any search and are hostile when they're approached.  Six months before a woman geologist had disappeared from the same site and although this was written off as a potential suicide or dreadful accident no definitive explanation had been forthcomingWas her disappearance related to the disappearance of the two men? Lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir was part of the team hired to investigate the disappearances.
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|summary=Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he chargesIt's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delighted.  Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness.  Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears to have killed himselfStuart's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thrivingLucy, he says, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted that the death was suicide, but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil died.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700103</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0CK3MYJ56
|author=Evonne Wareham
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|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)
|title=Never Coming Home
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|author=Ann Macarthur
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kaz Elmore has almost come to terms with her daughter's death. She died while on holiday in America with her father (Kaz's ex husband) and her ashes have been scattered on the river. As tragic as it is, Kaz has no alternative but to accept that her daughter is never coming back. However, one day she receives a visit from a man called Devlin, who witnessed the accident and was holding Jamie when she died. His sole intention is to provide some comfort for Kaz by telling her that her daughter was not alone but when he spots photographs of Jamie, he realises that she is not the child who died in his arms.
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|summary=It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old.  He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession?  On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something. Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing.  Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train. Greg's been asked to investigate.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931704</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1838954481
|author=Colin Cotterill
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|title=The Misper
|title=Grandad There's a Head on the Beach
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|author=Kate London
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Things have moved on since we [[Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill|first met]] ex-crime reporter, Jimm Juree, stranded at the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort and Restaurant with most of her dysfunctional familyI say 'most' because the sister who used to be a brother and who has criminal tendencies isn't with them and when I say 'moved on' I mean that the tide has been in and out quite a few times.  This time it's washed up something a little unusual: a head.  Uncertain of what, exactly, you do when you find a head on the beach, Jimm sets off to see the village head man.  It's the start of a journey which will uncover piracy and slavery, violence and murder in what should be a beautiful part of the world, but isn't.
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|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that.  He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran ShawHe pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer.  And so lives must go on.  For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857387081</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1448309743
|author=Quentin Bates
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|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)
|title=Cold Comfort
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|author=Caro Ramsay
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Since we [[Frozen Out by Quentin Bates|last met]] Sergeant Gunnhildur she's been promoted and is now working in the Serious Crimes Unit in ReykjavikIt's quite a contrast to her previous job in Hvalvick, but Gunna is determined to make a go of it and it's not long before she has responsibility for two very different cases. A convict has escaped and seems as though he's determined to settle old scores, but why did he need to escape when his ten-year sentence was almost up? The other case is rather more high profile: an ex-TV fitness presenter is murdered in her city apartment and some of the people who knew her are rather well known.
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|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered.  The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will followThe only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body.   The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013616</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529077699
 +
|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)
 +
|author=Ann Cleeves
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?''
  
{{newreview
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Well yes, it is.  Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon.  Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open bookWhere did he get the money for his first boat?  How did he finance the trip?
|author=Terry Murphy
 
|title=Weekend in Weighton
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Eddie G (well, it's Eddie Greene, actually, but Eddie G sounds so much more street-wise, don't you think?) has a hundred percent record of solving the cases he takes on as a private investigatorThat sounds very impressive until you find out that he's only just taken on his first case, but it's a mark of his determination to succeedThe first blip on the radar which suggests that all might not be well is finding the clap-cold body of his client on her living-room floor when it's not fifteen minutes since he spoke to her on the phone.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0072Z5EHA</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529427045
|author=Corban Addison
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|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons
|title=A Walk Across The Sun
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|author=Karin Smirnoff
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Chennai, India, 17 year old Ahalya and her 15 year old sister, Sita, watch as their family and entire world is swept away by the now infamous Christmas tsunami.  In the aftermath, Ahalya knows that, if the sisters can get to their school in the city, they'll be safe.  However, not everyone is to be trusted and their trip to safety turns into a drive towards a darker danger as the girls are kidnapped and sold to a trafficking network.
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|summary=''Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857388193</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush.  The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without trace.  It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's death.
|author=Elanor Dymott
 
|title=Every Contact Leaves a Trace
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=We learn from the prologue that the narrator, Oxford educated lawyer, Alex's wife has been murdered. We also know that Alex knew little of his wife, Rachel's past, particularly of the time that they spent together at Worcester College. This is critical in understanding who may have killed her, and why. What follows is Alex learning about this hidden past. ''Every Contact Leaves a Trace'' is partly a thriller and partly a whodunnit although the structure adopted by Elanor Dymott is somewhat unusual.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224094033</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787636607
|author=Xavier-Marie Bonnot and Justin Phipps (translator)
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|title=The Trap
|title=The Voice of the Spirits: A Commandant de Palma Investigation
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|author=Catherine Ryan Howard
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 1936 explorer Robert Ballancourt and his guide Kaingara visit a tribe of head hunters in Papua New GuineaBallancourt, seeking artefacts to sell on to museums, is drawn to the highly decorated skulls venerated by the tribe as they hold the spirits of dead ancestors and conquered enemies.
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|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning.  Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get home.  Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis available.  Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages.  The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her home.  She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his.  There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085705077X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1405957174
|author=Chris Pavone
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|title=A Death at the Party
|title=The Expats
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|author=Amy Stuart
|sort= Expats
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kate and Dexter Moore move to Luxembourg, along with their two young sons; a world away from their native Washington DC.  The incentive is Dexter's great new job which will mean an expat lifestyle for a year or two, but good money and the chance to explore EuropeIn the process Kate will be turning her back on more than Dexter realises.  Up till their move to Luxembourg, Kate has led a secret double life as a CIA operativeAs Kate comes to terms with the boredom of being a full-time housewife in an alien culture, they meet Bill and Julie, also expat Americans.  They soon become friends, but Kate has her suspicions and discovers that the past is never far away.
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|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well.  The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needsWhat we don't know is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him dieI'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571279147</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008530025
|author=Elizabeth Haynes
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|title=Murder in the Family
|title=Revenge of the Tide
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|author=Cara Hunter
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Genevieve worked as a sales executive by day and a pole dancer by night but her dream was to buy and renovate a boat where she could liveThat was why she persisted in the pressured, chauvinistic world of software sales and the increasingly sleazy world of the private gentleman's club where she could earn a four figure sum each evening as well as getting a good workoutIt was nip-and-tuck as to whether or not she made it but after a few months on the boat at a marina on the Medway she was feeling good enough about her life to hold a boat-warming partyIt was planned as a mixture of the people she'd met at the marina and some of her sales colleagues from LondonBut on the night of the party a body washed up at the side of her boat and Genevieve knew the victim.
+
|summary=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 deliberateTwenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'', a true-crime showA 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 episodeThere's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangersIt's compelling viewing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956792642</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Harri Nykanen and Kristian London (translator)
+
|isbn=0241996104
|title=Nights of Awe (Ariel Kafka Mystery)
+
|title=Coming to Find You
 +
|author=Jane Corry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=
+
|summary=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 lifeOf 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.
Inspector Ari Kafka (no relation to the author or, indeed, the local pawn shop owner) is half of the Jewish police officers in Finland which he's sure is due to pay levels rather than religious conviction.  Ari graduated 4th in his class at police academy which surprised his mother at the timeIf his brother and sister could both graduate top of their university classes, what's wrong with him?  His brother is always trying to encourage his attendance at family dinners and the local rabbi has to remind him of the whereabouts of the local synagogueAll this pressure is normally water off a duck's back to Kafka, but this is about to change. When two Arab bodies are found on a railway line, he must choose between loyalties to those he loves and to those he's sworn to serve.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904738923</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529413680
|author=Walter Jon Williams
+
|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)
|title=The Fourth Wall
+
|author=Martin Walker
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sean Makin was a cute, much demanded child actor.  Then he grew up and the cute became creepy as the baby face that had made him famous remained (due to a physical condition) but was unsuited to an adult's bodySo the demand dried up and Sean tries to come to terms with his change of fortunes by writing a 'how to act' blog, intoxicating substances and appearances on a reality celebrity martial arts fight showOne day, whilst being beaten up for the cameras in a wrestling ring full of cottage cheese, he realises the depths to which he's sunkSomething has to change!  Luckily change soon arrives in the form of 'Alternate Reality' magnate, Dagmar Shaw.
+
|summary=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 friendsIt'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 scriptLuckily, 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 inOne daughter lives nearby and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holiday.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498254</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529196388
|author=Brian Freeman
+
|title=The Trial
|title=Spilled Blood
+
|author=Rob Rinder
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=One night seventeen-year old Ashlynn is driving home.  She gets a flat tyre and of all the places in the world finds herself stranded in the ghost town: an abandoned farm community that no longer exists on the map and that no-one with any sense would be driving through at the dead of nightBut there is more than one kind of sense. These days, another kind says that if you are from the town of Barron (home to Mondamin Research) you don't drive through St Croix – a neighbouring community that is the focus of a recent cancer cluster.  The people of St Croix blame Mondamin and by extrapolation everyone in BarronFor the young people this has spilled over into an outright old-fashioned feud.
+
|summary=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 BaileyThere'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 himKnight's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contrary.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857383035</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Andrew Cartmel
|author=Henning Mankell
+
|title=Death in Fine Condition
|title=The Troubled Man
+
|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Hakan von Enke was a retired naval officer and a man of routineEach morning he went for a long walk in the forest near his Stockholm home, but one day he failed to returnIt's a long way from Ystad, Kurt Wallander's home town and the only reason he became involved in the case was the fact that von Enke's son Hans was the partner of Wallander's daughter Linda.  Wallander became concerned about von Enke some months before when they had a long discussion at his seventy-fifth birthday party. He'd seemed worried and wary of a stranger in the street.  Von Enke's disappearance hit the family hard - and then his wife disappeared as well.
+
|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and in particular a series called Sleuth HoundShe spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profit, sometimes 'tweaking' them, to add value, in somewhat fraudulent waysOne 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548402</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098947
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1448309379
|author=James Craig
+
|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)
|title=Never Apologise, Never Explain - An Inspector Carlyle Novel
+
|author=David Mark
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Agatha Mills and her husband lived in a flat near the British Museum and her body was found in the kitchen one morningThere were no signs of a forced entry or of doors being left unlocked as an intruder left so her husband Henry was arrested and charged with her murderHis only defence is that Agatha had enemies: she had been pursuing the disappearance of her brother in Chile in 1973 and was hoping that there would be a trial which would provide an answer as to what happened to William. The defence is outlandish and impossible to investigate, but could it, just possibly, be true?
+
|summary=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 notThor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindlyIt had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aector.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015848</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1529135389
|author=Nick Harkaway
+
|title=The Fall
|title=Angelmaker
+
|author=Gilly Macmillan
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Joshua Joseph Spork (Joe to his mates) is a clock maker and clockwork mender in London’s East EndHe’s spent his life emulating his craftsman grandfather, Daniel, and avoiding the shadow of his late father and crook, MathewHowever, one day all that changes with a visit from heavies, Messrs Cummerbund and Titwhistle and the even more sinister black-veiled Ruskinite monkThey want something that Joe only has a fragment of: The Hakote Book (''Angelmaker'' of the title)He discovers that the mysterious metal punch cards in his granddad’s box are just the beginningCan he find the rest and literally put the world to rights before all his friends are murdered?  Assisted by a 91 year old special agent, an aged, ugly pug and Polly the insatiable (but rather useful) lawyer, he’ll have a jolly good try.
+
|summary=Nicole Booth had spent the morning at the county fair before she returned homeThere was no sign of her husband but opera was playing on the state-of-the-art music system installed in The Glass BarnThey'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 uponSome of them fought with each other and didn't work as reliably as they shouldIt had all come about through a ten-million-pound lottery win and they were still getting used to having that sort of money, tooEventually, Nicole found Tom dead in the swimming pool with a wound to his head.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>043402094X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alan Parks
|author=Jennifer Hillier
+
|title=To Die in June
|title=Creep
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Dr. Sheila Tao is a psychology professor at Puget Sound State University in SeattleShe lives a double existence, having an affair with one of her students, but then getting engaged to a banker and former American footballer, MorrisKnowing that this double life cannot last, she dumps the student, Ethan Wolfe, but can't bring herself to confide in her fiancé that part of the reason she was seeing him is that she's also a sex addict.
+
|summary=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 yearsAt 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 foundSomething 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751549010</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1805300784
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1804545600
|author=Peter O'Donnell
+
|title=The Monk
|title=Modesty Blaise: Live Bait
+
|author=Tim Sullivan
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=We're back in the gritty yet glamorous world of Modesty Blaise - at least, as gritty and glamorous as you could get in the Evening Standard daily comic strip in the late 1980s.  Titan have had a mammoth undertaking to reproduce all the original strips in handy large-format graphic novel compendia, and this latest covers three stories, all of which I consider greater in depth than those in the other volume I've reviewed - [[Modesty Blaise: Sweet Caroline by Neville Colvin and Peter O'Donnell|Sweet Caroline]].
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686682</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cara Hoffman
 
|title=So Much Pretty
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Haeden, New York is a small town of the type where nothing really happens. When 19 year old Wendy White goes missing, the local reporter, Stacy Flynn, thinks she’s found her big break, but her investigations lead her to a wall of silence which proves highly distressing to break through. Hoffman’s observations of small town life and small town personalities are compelling. No aspect is left unexamined, from the painful tedium to the quite contentment experienced as part of a whole spectrum of emotions experienced by visitors and residents alike.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059704</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Belinda Bauer
 
|title=Finders Keepers
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Set in Exmoor, plucky little Jess Took is kidnapped from her father's vehicle while he is off managing the local hunt. Before you can say 'who took Took?' another little boy is plucked from his parents' car. In both scenes the only evidence is a post-it note saying 'you don't love her' or him. On the case is DI Reynolds who is initially more concerned with how his new hair transplant is taking until the crimes escalate to a full scale serial abduction case.
+
|summary=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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593066901</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews]]
|author=John Harvey
 
|title=Good Bait
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=DCI Karen Shields runs the over-stretched Homicide and Serious Crimes Unit and it's an early-morning call which takes her to Hampstead Heath and a seventeen-year-old Moldovan boy who's dead under the ice in the pond.  Even working out who he was is difficult  and she's got no idea that she's at the edge of a web of organised crime and gang warfare which will take up much of her time.  Hundreds of miles away DI Trevor Cordon lives in a sail loft in Newlyn and his day-to-day duties are, well, undemanding but he's shaken out of his rut when an old acquaintance dies in London and he heads off to the capital to find the friend's daughter.  It's going to be a lot more complicated than he realises - and it touches on Karen Shield's problems in a way that neither of them could ever have imagined.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021628</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 10:37, 26 March 2024

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Review of

The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C L Miller

3.5star.jpg Crime

It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. Full Review

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Review of

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French

5star.jpg Crime

Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. Full Review

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Review of

The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman

4star.jpg Crime

It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target? Full Review

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Review of

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin

4star.jpg Crime

Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul somehow got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect. Full Review

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Review of

Laying Out the Bones by Kate Webb

4.5star.jpg Crime

It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate. Full Review

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Review of

Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery) by Simon Mason

4.5star.jpg Crime

In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not really his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic. Full Review

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Review of

The Winter Visitor by James Henry

4star.jpg Crime

It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home? Full Review

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Review of

A Nye of Pheasants by Steve Burrows

4star.jpg Crime

DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. Full Review

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Review of

They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries) by Keith Redfern

4star.jpg Crime

Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he charges. It's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delighted. Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness. Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears to have killed himself. Stuart's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thriving. Lucy, he says, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted that the death was suicide, but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil died. Full Review

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Review of

Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries) by Ann Macarthur

4star.jpg Crime

It's the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession? On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something. Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train. Greg's been asked to investigate. Full Review

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Review of

The Misper by Kate London

4star.jpg Crime

Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of the officer. And so lives must go on. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan) by Caro Ramsay

4star.jpg Crime

In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will follow. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him. Full Review

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Review of

The Raging Storm (Two Rivers) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?

Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round celebrity. I nearly said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip? Full Review

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Review of

The Girl in the Eagle's Talons by Karin Smirnoff

5star.jpg Crime

Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example.

Lisbeth Salander has headed north to the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area to have vanished without trace. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of the part Salander played in her father's death. Full Review

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Review of

The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get home. Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her home. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes. Full Review

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Review of

A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart

4star.jpg Crime

From the first page, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well. The victim - a man - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needs. What we don't know is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him die. I'd better give you a little more background so that you can understand what's happening. Full Review

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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

0241996104.jpg

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

1529196388.jpg

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

1789098947.jpg

Review of

Death in Fine Condition by Andrew Cartmel

3star.jpg Crime

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

5star.jpg Crime

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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