Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
[[Category:Crime|*]] | [[Category:Crime|*]] | ||
[[Category:New Reviews|Crime]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> | [[Category:New Reviews|Crime]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> | ||
| + | {{newreview | ||
| + | |author=Lisa Cutts | ||
| + | |title=Remember, Remember | ||
| + | |rating=4 | ||
| + | |genre=Crime | ||
| + | |summary=Detective Constable Nina Foster has just returned to work after after a stabbing which nearly killed her. Everyone - even Nina - thinks that she's going to be taking it gently and easing herself back into the job. She's working on cold cases - this time it's a train crash which happened in 1964 - but what she's given is just a little ''tame'' compared to the cases which her colleagues are struggling to cope with. Drugs deaths and robberies are a lot more immediate, but then - with one of those peculiar quirks of fate - evidence emerges which links the crash which happened half a century ago to the current spate of drug deaths. The woman who is supposed to be taking it easy is back in the thick of it. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908434392</amazonuk> | ||
| + | }} | ||
| + | |||
{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|title=The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons | |title=The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons | ||
| Line 232: | Line 241: | ||
|summary=The summer of the great heat wave is also the summer of death. Stevie thought nothing of the three establishment pillars turned snipers; the news just didn't register. Then the illness came: plague-like symptoms sweeping across the world. When Stevie's boyfriend dies it's easy to put it down to the pandemic but Stevie has a hunch and she won't stop till she's followed it, no matter what happens or who tries to stop her. | |summary=The summer of the great heat wave is also the summer of death. Stevie thought nothing of the three establishment pillars turned snipers; the news just didn't register. Then the illness came: plague-like symptoms sweeping across the world. When Stevie's boyfriend dies it's easy to put it down to the pandemic but Stevie has a hunch and she won't stop till she's followed it, no matter what happens or who tries to stop her. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546513</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546513</amazonuk> | ||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
}} | }} | ||
Revision as of 08:53, 23 August 2014
Remember, Remember by Lisa Cutts
Detective Constable Nina Foster has just returned to work after after a stabbing which nearly killed her. Everyone - even Nina - thinks that she's going to be taking it gently and easing herself back into the job. She's working on cold cases - this time it's a train crash which happened in 1964 - but what she's given is just a little tame compared to the cases which her colleagues are struggling to cope with. Drugs deaths and robberies are a lot more immediate, but then - with one of those peculiar quirks of fate - evidence emerges which links the crash which happened half a century ago to the current spate of drug deaths. The woman who is supposed to be taking it easy is back in the thick of it. Full review...
The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons by Lawrence Block
The return of Lawrence Block's wonderful burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr, 9 years after the tenth novel in the series, was my most-anticipated book release for an awfully long time. It is an absolute pleasure to report that the character has lost none of his charm, Block's writing is as superb as ever, and the plot is as ingenious as in any of the previous 10. I say that having reread them all in the twelve months before reading this one. This is up there along with The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart as my favourite in the series. For newcomers to the series, I'd definitely recommend starting at the beginning, but if you do want to dive into this one, you definitely can without feeling too lost. Full review...
The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell
Before the Second World War a series of tunnels were dug under the green fields of Loughton in Essex. As children will they played in them, acted out small dramas and made them their own - until they were told not to go there again by the father of one of the children. He was known as Woody - a man with a sharp temper along with a disinclination to work, which he managed to achieve because of the money which his wife had inherited and which was supplemented by some inheritances of his own. There was a child in the family - Michael - but neither parent took any interest in him and his mother spent most of her time indulging herself. When Woody discovered that she was being unfaithful to him he murdered her and her lover, cut off one of their hands and buried both in a tin box far out in the fields. Full review...
The Axe Factor by Colin Cotterill
Jimm Juree's family is beyond dysfunctional. Her mother apparently hired her father, one brother is her sister as well as a computer genius and her other brother is dating a body builder old enough to be his mother. Jimm is relatively normal: a thirty-four-year-old crime reporter living in - and helping to run - a dilapidated beach resort on the Gulf of Thailand - but without a crime to report on. Until, that is, she was approached by Nurse Da about the fact that the Doctor from the health centre had gone missing. There doesn't actually seem to be a crime, but Jimm agrees to find out what has happened to Dr. Somluk. Full review...
The Dark Meadow by Andrea Maria Schenkel and Anthea Bell (translator)
It was at the end of the war that Afra Zauner returned to her parents' cottage in Finsterau. She'd lost her job as a waitress and it was some time before she realised that she was pregnant. When Albert was born her father turned against her and the boy and there was little sympathy for her in the village - but they didn't expect that Afra would be murdered. The obvious suspect was Johann Zauner. It was no secret that there had been constant arguments between him and his daughter and he had some injuries which he couldn't entirely explain. When a policeman 'obtained' a confession it seemed that this was an open-and-shut case. Full review...
Train That Carried The Girl: 2 (Riccarton Junction) by W Scott Beaven
A few years have passed since we last met Kikarin, the then teenager growing up in the wilds of the Scottish borders surrounded by some pretty wild people. Her parents have gone back to live in Japan while her brother has fled abroad as a result of the family's near fatal brush with the criminal underworld. This leaves Kiri to continue her life with her friends Ainslie and Melanie filling the void. Although disappointed to have missed out on her honours degree in archaeology, Kiri finds alternative employment selling double glazing for commercial premises. Some things change but Kiri is still scarred by the past. She wants to settle down but will this past let her? Full review...
The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson
Germany may be defeated as the embers of World War II grow cold but Kasper Meier is making the most of it. His trade in black market goods and casual private investigation work augment the meagre rations for him and his dying father. When a woman asks him to find a missing British airman he refuses – it's not really his line. She blackmails Kasper and still he refuses but then the note arrives: This is bigger than you. You don't have a choice. Queers still die in Berlin. Find the pilot. It seems that he's been seen with another man and now he has a decision to make that will either cost or save his life. Full review...
The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen
The professional criminal is the type of person who gets in, does the job and then gets out again. Sounds like the perfect way to stay undetected as a lifelong miscreant, but does not sound like the most exciting narrative for a story. Instead, take a bunch of young kidnappers who are drunk on their own success, whose racket goes wrong one day when they pick up the wrong mark. Watching their lives spiral out of control would be a much more thrilling read. A read just like The Professionals. Full review...
The Killing Room: A Sandro Cellini Mystery by Christobel Kent
Work had been a bit thin on the ground for private investigator Sandro Cellini and it was the only reason that he agreed to become head of security for a luxurious private residence which overlooked Florence. The previous occupant of the job had been 'let go'. It wasn't long before Sandro realised that his predecessor had also been murdered. It was this that worried his wife, Luisa - but Sandro was more concerned with establishing who was responsible for a series of dirty tricks which had occurred at the Palazzo San Giorgio. And on top of this he has to sort out the problems without antagonising the wealthy residents. Full review...
Before You Die by Samantha Hayes
A stolen bike, a crash, a death.
Anywhere else it would be a catastrophic accident. Here, it's suicide. Another one. Please don't let it be starting all over again.
D.I. Lorraine Fisher is one of those rare creatures in modern detective fiction. She's normal. Married, with two daughters who she only partly understands, and a husband who she loves to bits, and not enough time to spend with any of them. She has a good career, because it's clearly what she was born to do. No quirks, no hang-ups, she's just good at her job, because she thinks like a copper – which means she doesn't give up at the first hurdle. When things nag at her, she lets them, until she can hear what it is they are trying to tell her. Full review...
Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri
It's quite possible that Inspector Montalbano would not have been sent to investigate the perfectly-executed robberies had it not been that it was the rich, the elite of Vigata who had been targeted. Initially he was reluctant to take on the investigation but it soon became clear that it wasn't just the fact that they'd been burgled that linked the victims. And then there was Angelica... Full review...
The Murder of Harriet Krohn by Karin Fossum
It was early November and Charlo Torp, an obsessive gambler who was so deep in debt to the people he should not owe money to that he feared for his life, set out to solve his problems. An expensive bunch of flowers which needed a signature on delivery would get him into the house of Harriet Krohn - and a spot of burglary would net him enough to pay off his debts. All goes according to plan up to a point - but then it all goes wrong when Harriet Krohn fights back and Torp uses the butt of the revolver he brought to frighten her to bludgeon her about the head and she's found dead the following morning. The only clue for Inspector Konrad Sejer is the abandoned bunch of flowers. Full review...
Riccarton Junction: 1 by W Scott Beaven
Kikarin (Kiri to her friends), moves with her family from cosmopolitan London to the wilds of the Scottish borders where not all accept her Japanese/English mixed heritage. Her father works in forestry for the local laird and her mother lives for the day when Kiri's brother, Keith, is released from the Young Offenders' Institute. However, bringing Keith home again doesn't mean the end of their problems or indeed his. Full review...
Borderline by Lawrence Block
I can imagine the scene back in 1950s America. The Hays Code was at full force meaning that movies where forced to dull their more exuberant edges. Comic books had been vilified as perverting the minds of the youth; horror had turned to All American Superheroes. That left the hidden Dime Novel, a book you could pick up for only 10 cents to revel in its vicarious pleasures. Anyone could don an old Macintosh coat and pick up something like Lawrence Block’s ‘Borderline’, a book that purports to be crime noir, but is something very different indeed. Full review...
Complex 90 by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
If you ever decide to revisit the Film Noir genre of the 40s and 50s may I suggest ‘Kiss Me Deadly’, a pretty looney film about a shining briefcase and the maverick PI sent out to recover it. This Private Investigator was none other than Mike Hammer, star of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane. Unfortunately, Spillane is no longer with us, but before his death he gave some unfinished manuscripts to prolific crime writer Max Allan Collins. ‘Complex 90’ is the result of one of their collaborations and you may be glad to know that it is almost as insane as the movie. Full review...
Hour of Darkness: A Bob Skinner Mystery by Quintin Jardine
The naked body of a woman was washed up on an island in the Firth of Forth. The mutilation had obviously come from a ship's propeller but the result was that there was no means of identification. Several days later detectives were called to a flat in Edinburgh: a meter reader had found the kitchen covered in blood and it wasn't long before a connection was made between the missing occupant of the property and the unidentified body. The name - Isabella Spreckley - didn't ring immediate bells but she had been Bella Watson and that was a name which many people, not least Bob Skinner, would have preferred not to hear again - even if she was dead. Full review...
A Dark And Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton
Lacey Flint. Lacey is soft and pretty; Flint is sharp and hard. Lacey Flint is all of those things.
She is also, now, a Constable in the Met's Marine Unit. Lacey had fought hard against whatever traumas lie in her past to get into the police force, and harder still to get into plain clothes. A couple of years as a DC were enough to make both her and her bosses think it was all way too much for her. Full review...
Judges by Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli and Giancarlo De Cataldo
I'll confess that it was the name of Andrea Camilleri which brought me to this book. I'm a long-time fan of his Inspector Montalbano series and a recent reading of a spin-off novella had proved to me that the concise nature of his full-length novels was no fluke. In Judges we had another novella - worth buying for its own sake - and the bonus of two more stories from better-than-decent Italian authors. All that was needed was a glass of wine and a comfortable chair. Did the book live up to expectation? Full review...
Bryant and May: The Bleeding Heart by Christopher Fowler
The Bleeding Heart is the eleventh outing for Fowler's distinctive detectives from the Peculiar Case Unit. If you've been along for the ride so far you'll either have fallen in love with them, or really not be able to see the joy of them. Either way, this review isn't going to tell you anything you don't already know, other than, yes, Fowler's still on form. Forgive me then, if I address the rest of my thoughts to those who've yet to stumble into the is backwater of the Metropolitan Police. Full review...
The Lying-Down Room (Commandant Serge Morel) by Anna Jaquiery
There is a reason why everyone who can leave Paris in August does so: it's swelteringly hot and deeply unpleasant. Commandant Serge Morel and his assistant, Lila Markov don't have the choice and to add to their problems they're short-staffed. The murder of the old woman seemed strange from the beginning: she was frail, inoffensive but she'd apparently been drowned and then laid out with care, garishly made up and adorned with a red wig. The bed sheet was tucked in tightly around her. Why would anyone want to murder her? And why was Fauré's Requiem playing whilst the murderer worked? Full review...
Ghost Girl by Lesley Thomson
We first met Stella Darnell in The Detective's Daughter - a book which seemed to take everyone by surprise. I didn't expect to meet her again but a year after her father's death Stella hasn't moved on. She's still visiting his house regularly and cleaning it as though he could return any day. Cleaning is what she does best - and she runs her own cleaning company. Her father was Terry Darnell, Detective Chief Superintendent at Hammersmith police station and there's a folder of photographs in his darkroom. They're all unlabeled and they're of deserted streets. Is a crime involved - and why are the photographs at Terry's home? Full review...
The Book of You by Claire Kendal
Clarissa is 38, secretary to a university department head and just emerging from a broken relationship. Rafe also works for the university, wants Clarissa and Clarissa wants him. He's absolutely certain she does, no matter how vehemently she denies it, no matter how fast she runs. Full review...
Dog Will Have His Day by Fred Vargas
Despite losing his official post, Louis Kehlweiler still has the contacts, the drive, and seemingly nothing else to do, to keep him solving crimes. While using a certain park bench to trail a potentially suspect connection between someone nefarious and a politician's relative, he finds something else to spark his interest. Where, hours before, there had just been dog mess, now there is also a human toe bone. Clearly there is a crime, although nobody is reporting anything like having a half a toe missing. But not even he could predict what the simple legwork of trailing passing dog-owners would lead to… Full review...
Promises to Keep: A Short Story by Elizabeth Haynes
Jo is haunted by the death of a teenage asylum seeker whilst in police custody and she only hangs on to her fragile sanity by running. Whilst she's out in the woods (where she'd been warned that she really shouldn't go) she discovered a young boy living rough and she knew that she had to do everything in her power to keep him safe. There were complications. Her partner was DS Sam Hollands who had a direct involvement with asylum seekers - and the boy living rough in the woods was the younger brother of the dead teenager. Sam wanted to get her relationship with Jo back onto an even keel, but one night she returned from work to find a stranger in her house. Full review...
Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
Many eleven year olds would be excited at the thought of a five-hundred-year-old tomb being opened to (hopefully) reveal the bones of the local saint, but Flavia de Luce had what might almost be called a professional interest. Before the opening of the tomb she'd been associated with four dead bodies (to say that she was instrumental in solving the murders sounds just a little too much like bragging doesn't it?) but this time she really wasn't expecting to find Mr Collicut, the church organist who had been missing for six weeks. Still, there he was, dead - and wearing a gas mask. Full review...
A Lovely Way to Burn (Plague Times Trilogy 1) by Louise Welsh
The summer of the great heat wave is also the summer of death. Stevie thought nothing of the three establishment pillars turned snipers; the news just didn't register. Then the illness came: plague-like symptoms sweeping across the world. When Stevie's boyfriend dies it's easy to put it down to the pandemic but Stevie has a hunch and she won't stop till she's followed it, no matter what happens or who tries to stop her. Full review...
