==Crime==
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{{newreview
|author=Kjell Eriksson
|title=The Princess of Burundi
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Berit and Justus (mother and son) are waiting for John before they eat supper. He's late. Perhaps he's popped in to see an ex-colleague or nipped into the pub for a quick drink. But neither of these options ring true for Berit. John is currently unemployed which is a shame as he was very good at his last job. He's also not the most social or chatty of men. Some would even describe him as surly and a bit gruff.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749040092</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gladys Mitchell
|summary=The current government had been looking a little sickly in the polls for a while and it seemed that Edgar Carlton – charismatic and ruthless – had only to get to the finish line to be the next Prime Minister. His twin brother, Xavier, would be the next Foreign Secretary. Then a murderer targets former members of the Merrion Club – an exclusive, hedonistic group of undergraduates at Cambridge University – and this includes Edgar, Xavier and the current mayor of London, Christian Holyrod. Inspector John Carlyle of the Metropolitan Police doesn't take that long to work out why this is happening and who is at risk – but ''who'' is doing it is an entirely different matter.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849019665</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gene Kerrigan
|title=The Rage
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=DS Bob Tidey has been round the block a few times. He's middle-aged, has a less-than-perfect home life, but on the upside, he loves his job - especially court work and court appearances. ''Bob Tidey felt at home here.'' He's going to have his hands full shortly. Enter Vincent, the other main character. Fresh out of an Irish prison, he's strutting all over the place. You could say he's looking for trouble. Fed up with small-beer crimes, he wants to land a big one. A big one with big rewards and then he can put his feet up.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552567</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marika Cobbold
|title=Drowning Rose
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Eliza, the main character, many years after the terrible 'event'. Eliza is a grown woman now and has a fulfilling job at the V & A Museum in London. It's a far cry from her childhood in the peaceful countryside of her native Sweden but she seems happy enough. And in amidst the cheerful, jostling, Christmas crowds of the capital and its infectious atmosphere, she receives a rather worrying phone call, totally out of the blue. It stuns her, she has to catch her breath a little and it takes her back around twenty five years to that fateful day. And now Eliza is a bag of nerves. She'd tried so hard to cope, to keep the past firmly in the past but she hasn't been entirely successful.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880817X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Maxim Jakubowski
|title=The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The latest in the annual series of short story collections edited by Maxim Jakubowski gives readers a wide range of stories from authors as diverse as the much-acclaimed [[:Category:Ian Rankin|Ian Rankin]] and [[:Category:Kate Atkinson|Kate Atkinson]], newwcomers such as Nigel Bird and Jay Stringer, and father and son combination Peter and Phil Lovesey.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015678</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Ewan
|title=The Good Thief's Guide to Venice
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary='I'd never met a female burglar before, let alone one with the credentials to model lingerie, and I confess that I was more than a little intrigued.' So says Charlie Howard before he realises that the lady in question has stolen his most prized possession. A talisman that he thinks is essential to his writing is the framed first edition of ''The Maltese Falcon'' that hangs above his desk. All his mysterious visitor leaves in this spot is empty space. The explosive and chaotic events that follow are fuelled by Charlie's determination to get his book back.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847399592</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Roger Smith
|title=Mixed Blood
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=I reviewed Smith's [[Wake Up Dead by Roger Smith|Wake Up Dead]] and after reading the blurb on the back cover, this book would appear to be in a similar style. We meet Jack, his heavily-pregnant wife Susan and their young son as they relax in their smart suburban home. Smith paints a lovely picture: the setting sun, drinks on the balcony and views to die for (no pun intended here) over Table Mountain. What's not to like? But this idyll is about to take a nasty and unexpected turn for the worse as a couple of no-users, high on drugs, take their chance and break in to the Burns' home. And all this action is seen by a security guard nearby.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687586</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jussi Adler-Olsen
|title=Mercy
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The Prologue intends to grab the reader's attention right from the first word. I liked that. A girl, or perhaps a woman (we don't know yet) is imprisoned somewhere, barely kept alive in some sort of dark, airless and smelly makeshift prison - but why? And by whom exactly? The story opens in 2007 and we learn that Copenhagen detective Carl is recovering from a near-death experience in the line of police duty. His colleagues were not so lucky. So we see a broken and rather vulnerable man trying to claw his way back to a normal life. Guilt, revenge, anger are perhaps some of the emotions coursing through his veins. His senior colleagues are at a loss as to what to do with him - he's a good copper, after all. The solution is that a fancy new title is invented along with a fancy new department, all for Carl. But will he cope?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141399961</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Graeme Kent
|title=Devil-Devil
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the Solomon Islands in 1960, Sergeant Ben Kella stands out as an oddity in many ways. Trained since childhood as an ''aofia'', the traditional peacemaker of the islands, he was mission educated and sent away and appears to belong completely to neither the modern age nor the old customs. Finding his place in the world, though, will have to wait – because there's a missing anthropologist to find, a rebellious nun to protect, and a murder to solve. Oh, and a magic man has just cursed him. All in a day's work…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013403</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Peter James
|title=Dead Man's Grip
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=What starts as a normal day for Tony Revere soon ends in his death after he is knocked from his cycle and is thrown under a truck. Carly Chase does not hit him but as she swerves to avoid him, her Audi smashes into a café window. A subsequent breathalyser test shows that she is still over the limit from the night before. Stuart Ferguson, the truck driver, is also not responsible for the accident but he was tired having driven for more hours than are legally permitted. The van driver who actually hits Tony first just doesn't stop. It seems like a tragic accident, especially as the weather was terrible and Tony was cycling on the wrong side of the road. Tony's mother, who has links with the Mafia, does not think so though and is set on revenge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230747256</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Esmahan Aykol and Ruth Whitehouse (translator)
|title=Kati Hirschel Murder Mystery: Hotel Bosphorus
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kati has a lot to impart to her readers. She burbles on right throughout the book about all sorts of things which are on her mind. So we learn about her colleagues, friends and neighbours which all gives a nice hint of the Turkish way of life. As a German national, Kati can stand back and take a cool look at all things Turkish. But does she like what she sees all of the time? She soon tells us. She's not slow to highlight stereotypical German traits - the lack of humour, the discipline etc which can be at odds with Kati now living amongst the more laid-back Turks. We also find out that the locals are passionate about the telephone and mobile phones in particular. Forever glued to an ear apparently. So much so that she thinks 'Alexander Graham Bell must have had Turkish genes.' She also likes to go on and on about the terrible parking in Istanbul informing us that 'It takes thirty minutes to get from home to the shop, on foot or by car. I go by car.' I particularly liked that line.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904738680</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Barrie
|title=Loose-Limbed
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Captain Franck Guerin of the Brigade Criminelle was about to learn a lot more about ballet than he ever expected or wanted to know. Sophie Duval was a leading dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet – an etoile – and she was murdered in her home. A chord had been wrapped three times around her neck and then she had been strangled, but why? It seemed simple to rule out professional jealousy and she seemed to have little life outside of the ballet. The Opera Ballet is a tight-knit and dedicated world, but it's not long before it's a world of terror, because Sophie Duval is only the first person to die.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251846</amazonuk>
}}
