==Crime==
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{{newreview
|author=Caspar Walsh
|title=Blood Road
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The book opens with an extremely uncomfortable and graphically depicted scene of violence, made all the more so by the cool, calm and collected manner of the perpetrators. The episode ends in a bloody death. We're in London so straight away there's a smattering of East End humour with lots more to follow. We're introduced to the main male character, Nick, who's really nothing better than low-life scum. That's pretty clear from the outset. Even although he's old enough to know better he's still scum. Add in the fact that he's a husband (separated) and a father and the whole sorry saga starts to unfold. His wife's sick of him and his criminal interests - and so are Jake and Zeb, his two sons.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755317505</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rebecca Frayn
|summary=A body is found in a butcher's shop one morning in Wandles Parva. It has been expertly chopped up and hung just like a piece of pork, but because it is missing a head, identification is impossible. There are soon suggestions that it must be Rupert Sethleigh, a land-owner who had supposedly gone to the US. His cousin, Jim Redsey is the obvious suspect. The two men didn't like each other - in fact, nobody actually liked Rupert Sethleigh. The local vicar's daughter, Felicity, and Aubrey, related to Jim and Rupert, decide to play detective. Before long, they are joined by Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, an elderly woman who fancies herself a detective. Can they sort out the red herrings and find the killer?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954685X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Cave
|title=For Everything a Reason
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Joseph Ruebins. He is one second away from a very satisfying climax to his boxing career, and winding up for his ultimate punch, when he freezes, and suffers a stroke, and ends up in hospital. Overnight someone kills the elderly man in the next bed. Meanwhile, a policeman hunts down the man who killed his son. Where are the connecting links - and how could the fact that Joseph was put in the wrong ward due to a mishap with the forms imperil the rest of his close-knit family?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956236898</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Toby Litt
|title=King Death
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Skelton, that's the musician, adores his girlfriend. She's certainly exotic with ' ... her hair ... like black oil flowing over a stone.' However, they are only a heartbeat away from breaking up when it happens. What looks like some internal part of the body, animal or even human is hurled from a London train. The pair just happen to be travelling on that very train and they also just happen to witness this unsavoury action.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039728</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gillian Galbraith
|title=No Sorrow to Die: An Alice Rice Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Straight away, DS Rice has a gruesome murder on her hands. The victim, a Mr Brodie (a suitably Scottish name) has had to give up a lucrative and interesting career due to ill-health. He's now merely existing. He's waiting to die, basically. He wants to die. So straight away, the plot starts to thicken nicely. We're introduced to a clutch of characters, or, more appropriately, suspects. Apart from the immediate family, the extended family, there's also various others, home helps etc. It seems several people have an axe to grind as far as the recently deceased Mr Brodie is concerned. You have to ask yourself the question at this point, who'd murder a frail, almost-dead man? It would take a particularly callous person. Mr Brodie would have been virtually unable to have put up any sort of struggle. It would have been similar to killing a tiny, helpless kitten. He's so far gone, why not just play the waiting game?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971640</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gladys Mitchell
|title=Death at the Opera
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Miss Ferris would not normally have been entertained for a major part in Hillmaston School's production of The Mikado. She was self-effacing, meek and not very talented. But – she had offered to finance the cost of the production and this swung matters in her favour. It did mean that she couldn't afford the holiday she had planned for the summer and had to spend it in her aunt's boarding house, but she'd been pleased to make the gesture as she'd been happy at the school.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546841</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Barrie Roberts
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man From Hell
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Noted West Country philanthropist Lord Backwater is
killed – by poachers, according to the police investigating. His son
disagrees, and calls in Sherlock Holmes, who quickly establishes that
the true solution to the mystery is much stranger – involving a feared
criminal brotherhood, crimes from many years past, and the Gates of
Hell themselves.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565089</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=H Paul Jeffers
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=After replying to an article written by the world's first consulting
detective, Sherlock Holmes, young Teddy Roosevelt, about to study law
at Columbia, strikes up a correspondence with him. They're pleased to
finally meet when Holmes is acting in America – and naturally,
Roosevelt introduces him to another friend, NYPD Detective Will
Hargreaves. Of course, foul play is in the air – and the three men are
led into an investigation which starts off as 'just' a dead body, but
leads them to discover a plot against the President himself,
Rutherford Hayes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565097</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Charles Lambert
|title=Any Human Face
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=1983: Alex enjoys the attention of his latest lover. Bruno is generous with his money and his time; he lends Alex the flash car, dines him extravagantly, treats him well, takes him seriously. "It was not that he was not fond of the older man… or that he didn't appreciate the longer term view of a leg-up into journalism…", it's just that he doesn't realise he is lying to himself. What he feels for Bruno is a bit more than affection, as he is about to discover.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512994</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=S J Rozan
|title=Trail of Blood
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Lydia Chin takes on a new case helping another private investigator, Joel Pilarsky, to find missing jewellery which belonged to an Austrian Jewish refugee in wartime Shanghai – she has been hired for her ability to operate in New York City's Chinese community. She is quickly drawn into Rosalie Gilder's story, told through letters written to her mother, and when Joel is shot dead the next day, being fired by the client doesn't stop her wanting to find out more. She is glad when her old associate Bill Smith, who has been out of touch for a while, returns to help her. This detective story linking past and present is compulsive reading.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936365</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Craig Robertson
|title=Random
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A man is planning his first murder and he's doing it with some care. We'll gradually realise that he's been making preparations for some time but the oddest thing is that this murder must be completely random. He mustn't be diverted from his chosen system even if the person who is selected is someone he would rather not kill. It's not a whodunit – for the killer tells us the story as it progresses – or even a 'why did he do it' as even that will become obvious, but the suspense is in whether or not he will get caught.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377297</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sophie Hannah
|title=A Room Swept White
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=There's a classic Agatha Christie style hook at the start of this story. TV producer Fliss Benson receives a card with no message other than sixteen numbers arranged in four rows of four. On the same day Fliss takes over work on a documentary about cot death mothers and miscarriages of justice. Simultaneously, one of the mothers is found dead at her house with an identical numbered card in her pocket. Work out what the numbers mean and you will find the killer. But as this is a typically densely plotted Sophie Hannah story you will have to note every detail in every part of the book to reach the right conclusion. The plot has more twists than a spiral staircase, though there are clues that could help you, including one rather cheeky feature - if you can spot it. Sadly, I didn't until I was writing this review…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980621</amazonuk>
}}
