Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime Reviews"
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| + | |author=Stephen Booth | ||
| + | |title=The Murder Road (Cooper and Fry) | ||
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| + | |summary=The locals will tell you that there's only one road into and out of Shawhead and over the years they've become accustomed to being cut off by snow or floods. The road passes under a railway line and one day in early February Mac Kelsey's curtain-sider jammed under the bridge. It was Amanda Hibbert who discovered the obstruction as she tried to return home to Shawhead, but there was no driver in the cab. There ''was'' a lot of blood though. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559970</amazonuk> | ||
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|author=Martin Walker | |author=Martin Walker | ||
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|summary=The wind brushed against the review like a thousand kisses and Sam knew that something out of the ordinary was happening. It wasn't since the long hot summer 1997 that he had the misfortune to read a book that had as much extraneous detail as this. He felt to himself that there was little point in actually getting to the meat of a review, when instead he could witter on about something that had little to do with anything – perhaps this would get a little annoying over 352 pages? Welcome to the world of Jack O'Connell's ''Box Nine''. | |summary=The wind brushed against the review like a thousand kisses and Sam knew that something out of the ordinary was happening. It wasn't since the long hot summer 1997 that he had the misfortune to read a book that had as much extraneous detail as this. He felt to himself that there was little point in actually getting to the meat of a review, when instead he could witter on about something that had little to do with anything – perhaps this would get a little annoying over 352 pages? Welcome to the world of Jack O'Connell's ''Box Nine''. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1453236775</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1453236775</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 12:55, 3 June 2016
The Murder Road (Cooper and Fry) by Stephen Booth
The locals will tell you that there's only one road into and out of Shawhead and over the years they've become accustomed to being cut off by snow or floods. The road passes under a railway line and one day in early February Mac Kelsey's curtain-sider jammed under the bridge. It was Amanda Hibbert who discovered the obstruction as she tried to return home to Shawhead, but there was no driver in the cab. There was a lot of blood though. Full review...
Fatal Pursuit: A Bruno Courreges Investigation by Martin Walker
Two young racing drivers come to the Perigord region to hunt for clues as to the whereabouts of the missing Bugatti Type 57c Atlantic. Only four were made and three are accounted for - but stories would have it that the missing car is somewhere in the Perigord. It's more than seventy years since the car was last seen and that was in war time - but it's worth finding: a Californian museum paid $37,000,000 for one of the cars. One of the young racing drivers has local connections and another is in a relationship with Annette, a magistrate. The race to find the car is not going to be kind. Full review...
Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? by Paul Cornell
The Great Detecitve's ghost has walked London's streets for an age, given shape by people's memories. Now someone's put a ceremonial dagger throug his chest. But what's the motive? And who - or what - could kill a ghost? When policing London's supernatural underworld, eliminating the impossible is not an option. DI James Quill and his detectives have learnt this the hard way. Gifted with the Sight, they'll pursue a criminial genius - who'll lure them into a Sherlockian maze of clues and evidence. The team also have thier own demons to fight. They've been to Hell and back (literally) but now the unit is falling apart... Full review...
Private Investigations (Bob Skinner) by Quintin Jardine
When Bob Skinner's wife has a yearning for a particular cake from Marks and Spencer he thinks nothing of taking a detour on his way to work, snatching the last one available and heading back to the car. It's then that the fates start being naughty. Reversing out of his parking space he's hit by a speeding BMW - only the driver doesn't get out to exchange insurance details and offer apologies. He gets out of the car and legs it. Checking his own car for damage Skinner notices that the boot of the beemer is slightly open - something which presumably happened on impact - and his attempts to close it mean that it opens instead and the body of a small child is revealed. Full review...
Little Sister (Detective Pieter Vos) by David Hewson
Late one night, after a talent content on the waterfront, Kim and Mia Timmers returned to their home to find a scene of utter carnage and their mother, father and sister dead. It would have hit any eleven-year-old child hard, but the dead girl, Little Jo, was their triplet and there was a special bond between the three of them. The girls then left the house and apparently murdered the lead singer of The Cupids, a world-famous band, in the belief that he had been responsible for the deaths of their family. Officially there didn't seem to be any doubt about what had happened to the musician, despite the fact that there were certain points about the murder scene which might have suggested that someone with more worldly experience was responsible. Full review...
Die of Shame by Mark Billingham
A group of addicts - the addictions differ - meet regularly at the home of their therapist, Tony De Silva, himself a former addict. On the night we join them, Chris, Robin, Heather and Diana are surprised to see that there's an extra chair in the circle. It changes the dynamics of the group, but the newcomer is Caroline and she's a large lady - but although she likes her food it's painkillers that she's addicted to. There's no obvious reason why Caroline's arrival should make such a difference to the group - she's keen to fit in - but it does and before many weeks have passed one of the group is murdered. It's increasingly obvious that one of the group is responsible. Full review...
Bird in a Cage by Frederic Dard and David Bellos (translator)
A man returns to the flat he grew up in and where his mother died without his knowledge, and finds it too desolate for the time of year it is – Christmas Eve. Bursting for more life, despite being a solitary character, he goes to a restaurant, and finds a connection with a mother with her daughter. They dine, then go to the cinema, and sit together, and things happen from there – in a gentle, no-pressure, no-names-no-packdrill way. If this isn't a reasonable start to a novella, consider the tag it has as a noir classic. And consider the fact the strange woman is the spitting image of the man's dead wife… Full review...
The Hanging Club by Tony Parsons
When the three yobbos who kick to death a young husband and father are given a perfunctory sentence, DC Wolfe finds it hard to hold his true feelings in check. Confounded by the injustice of the British Courts and legal system, DC Wolfe spends a good while soul searching and wondering why he invests so much of his life in fighting crime, finding murderers and bringing them to justice when the integrity of the criminal justice system is so sorely lacking. Luckily for DC Wolfe he has his bright and funny daughter Scout to keep him from looking too hard into the darkness that DC Wolfe knows lives inside every dutiful cop; until the videos start being posted on the internet. Full review...
The Case of the Missing Bronte by Robert Barnard
Superintendent Perry Trethowan was returning to London from Northumberland with his family when their car broke down in the Yorkshire Dales and they were stranded in a small village for the night. When they had a drink in the local pub they were joined by a local resident, Miss Edith Wing, who had what might be an extraordinary document in her possession. Could this be a lost Bronte novel? The provenance of the manuscript suggested that it could well be genuine, but was it - and Miss wing - the real thing or was it a very clever forgery? Perry suggested visiting a local expert for an opinion and in doing so sends Miss wing into mortal danger. Full review...
Dodgers by Bill Beverly
Judging a book by its cover can mislead. It can especially mislead if you don't look closely at the cover and are just grabbed by the feel or style of the design of the thing. Being misled is not necessarily a bad thing. For reasons best left in the depths of my addled brain, the styling of Dodgers had me thinking 'noir'. I was expecting late fifties, early sixties. If I'd looked closer, I'd have seen that it is much more contemporary than that. Then again… Full review...
Death on the Riviera by John Bude
Counterfeit currency was circulating on the French Riviera and it was suspected that an Englishman was behind the crime, so DI Meredith was sent along with acting-Sergeant Strang to trace the whereabouts of Chalky Corbett. It wasn't entirely an unpleasant assignment - the warm of the south of France compared favourably with polluted London - and Meredith (whose French was far from fluent) got on well with the local policeman, Inspector Blampignon of Nice. It wasn't long before their interest settled on the Villa Poloma, home of an eccentric expatriate Englishwoman, Nesta Hedderwick and her band of bohemian house guests. Full review...
The Place That Didn't Exist by Mark Watson
Sometimes a book just leaves you wondering what it was trying to be. I'm afraid Watson's sixth novel is one of those. I can't compare it to his previous work because I've not been there. Or if I have I have forgotten all about it. I will quickly forget this one too. Full review...
Inspector Singh Investigates: A Frightfully English Execution by Shamini Flint
Inspector Singh wasn't completely insulted when he was told that he was to attend a Commonwealth conference on policing in London, despite the fact that he was of the opinion that this was a job for paper-pushers rather than real policemen. He would go. Then Mrs Singh decided that she too would go to London to visit the legions of unknown relatives who live in the metropolis and to collect yet more essential souvenirs. Things looked up slightly when Singh realised that he would be looking at a cold case - the five-year-old unsolved murder of Fatima Daud - along with an Inspector from the Met. Only - Singh wasn't there to solve or even investigate the case (that was forbidden) - he was there to consider how it could have been handled differently. Full review...
The Bursar's Wife by E G Rodford
Private investigator George Kocharyan struggles along on the seedy side of Cambridge, following the odd unfaithful spouse or checking up on benefit claimants for the Department of Work and Pensions. This just about pays for his invaluable part-time assistant Sandra who knows how to work the office computer, and her teenage son who George occasionally hires to do some of the leg work. Into this grubby world walks Sylvia Booker, wife of the bursar at Morley College, overprotective mother, glamorous middle-aged woman. Worried that her daughter has fallen in with a bad crowd she hires George to look into it. Then one of the unfaithful wives George had been following turns up dead, and life begins to get complicated. Full review...
Bryant and May: Strange Tide by Christopher Fowler
The thirteenth outing for Bryant and May is looking very much like it will be their last. Arthur Bryant is on compassionate leave whilst tests are continuing, which are likely to confirm that he is suffering from Alzheimer's. His condition is worsening almost by the day, memory lapses are morphing into full-scale hallucinations. Full review...
Jonathan Dark or The Evidence Of Ghosts by A K Benedict
Maria King sits by the Thames mudlarking - sifting through the washed up treasures - on a regular basis. Only today she finds a ring in a box with 'Marry me Maria' on the lid in braille. Blind from birth and now blind by choice, the words can be for no one else but Ms King. However a greater surprise awaits inside the box: the ring is still on a finger belonging to the last girl who received such a proposal. DI Jonathan Dark is assigned to the case, not realising what he's taken on or the sort of help he'll need to call on. The dead are all around him, his plan is not to let Maria join them. Full review...
Trust No One by Clare Donoghue
They're an ordinary family, by modern standards. Richard and wife Nicola have split up, but are on reasonably amicable terms. The kids stay over with their Dad often enough. He makes time for them and their friends. Ok, so fourteen year old Harvey is dyslexic and has been diagnosed as having ADHD. He's also got a quick temper. But he's very protective of his little sister, 12-year-old Olive. Full review...
Thin Ice (Officer Gunnhildur) by Quentin Bates
Gunnhildur's family life is a bit complicated. Her son Gisli is now the father of two children, only they're not the traditional year or two apart, but just a few weeks and there are - as you might have gathered - two mothers involved. He's now living not with the one that Gunna might have expected but doing his best to maintain contact with the other, and his other son, of course. At work, two small-time crooks have robbed Reykjavik's most infamous drug dealer of a couple of hundred thousand euros, but couldn't get away as their getaway driver failed to turn up. Two women - mother and daughter - have disappeared along with the mother's car and a thief has died in suspicious circumstances. Full review...
Promises of Blood by David Thorne
I love getting in on the ground floor. Thanks to this very website I was one of the first in this country to read the Twilight series and was smitten from the start. We'll ignore the films, the books are worth a look! In a completely different genre, but no less a lucky fluke it was through here that I stumbled across East of Innocence by David Thorne and put in an old-fashioned baggsy for whatever followed. On reading the second of the series Nothing Sacred by David Thorne I commented that I hoped that in the next outing Connell would see him up against, or siding with, some kick-ass-don't-take-it female. So far his women do tend to be 'birds or victims' . I'm pleased to say he's moving in the right direction… women are central to this story one way and another. For the first time he's given us female characters who (despite their plot-device roles, which is varied and not always predictable) are stronger than they look – strong in a number of different ways – he hasn't simply opted for my "kick-ass" option, he's more subtle than that. Full review...
The Murdered Banker by Augusto De Angelis and Jill Foulston (translator)
Inspector De Vincenzi is working against the clock. A body was found in his old school-friend Giannetto Aurigi's apartment in the early hours of this morning and the investigating magistrate wants to take over as quickly as possible. The trouble is, Aurigi owed the dead man money, has been acting strangely, and isn't trying to defend himself. Unless De Vincenzi finds strong evidence to the contrary today, the investigating magistrate will see it as an open and shut case, and that will be the end of Aurigi. But none of the evidence seems to add up. Full review...
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Nora Shaw hasn't seen her friend Clare since Nora left school ten years ago and didn't look back. Now working as a crime writer and living in London, she is naturally surprised when she receives an invitation to Clare's hen party – a weekend in a woodland cottage in the Northumberland country. Curious as to why Clare would invite her after all these years Nora reluctantly agrees to come, but as the weekend unfolds something goes very wrong and old secrets are slowly revealed. Full review...
Death Wears a Beauty Mask by Mary Higgins Clark
In 1972, Mary Higgins Clark began writing a novella entitled Death Wears a Beauty Mask. She struggled with the story and put it aside, where it lay forgotton for several decades. When the author rediscovered the manuscript amongst some old files, she decided that she liked it and was ready to complete the long-awaited ending. Death Wears a Beauty Mask joins some of her other works, both old and new, in an entertaining collection of short stories full of mystery and suspense. Full review...
City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong
Detective Casey Duncan has a dark past, and it's about to catch up with her. When her best friend Diana is attacked by an abusive ex, the two women realise they have to disappear, fast. And they need sanctuary. Diana's heard of a hidden town that's so remote it's almost impossible to reach. A town that desperately needs a new detective. Full review...
The House of Eyes (Wesley Peterson) by Kate Ellis
D I Wesley Peterson wasn't too worried when Darren Hatman reported his daughter missing. She'd been working at Eyecliffe Castle and it wasn't difficult to sense that she'd been annoying the other staff with the stories of what she'd be doing when she got her modelling contract. There was just one point which left Peterson uneasy: Hatman claimed that Leanne had been stalked by a photographer and the case was obviously worth an enquiry or two. Eyecliffe Castle had been home to the wealthy D'Arles family, but was now a luxury hotel and spa, with the last remaining member of the family living in the Dower House in the grounds. Then Darren was found brutally murdered in the grounds of the castle: was it possible that Leanne had met a similar fate, and if so, why? Full review...
Scales of Justice (DCI Roderick Alleyn) by Ngaio Marsh
Swevenings seems like one of those idyllic places to live. All that disrupts the tranquil lives of the inhabitants is the fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a large trout which lives under the bridge over the stream which meanders through the village. Then one day Nurse Kettle discovers the body of Colonel Carterette at edge of the stream and beside him is the Old Un. Carterette had been brutally murdered and he was not the fisherman who had landed the Old Un. He was, though, the man who was in charge of publishing the controversial memoirs of the local baronet. The investigation is beyond the capacity of the local constabulary, and Scotland Yard, in the person of Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn is called in. And his primary interest is the fish. Full review...
Behind Closed Doors by Elizabeth Haynes
In 2003 Scarlett Rainsford was on holiday in Rhodes with her parents and sister when she met a boy. Her father wasn't at all keen on the idea so Scarlett crept out at night to meet him and she might have given him the idea that she wanted to run away from home. On the last night of the holiday Scarlett was bundled into a van - and into a life of terror and prostitution. Ten years later she turned up in her hometown when a brothel was raided. Where had she been all these years, how had she got back to the UK and why did her parents not seem all that pleased to find that she was back? Full review...
Try Not To Breathe by Holly Seddon
In Try not to Breathe Holly Seddon offers an addition to the somewhat overflowing thriller shelves. Of course, the reason this particular segment is bursting at the seams is because thrillers, especially psychological ones, are just so compelling. And there have been some good - and hugely successful - books in this category out there of late (before-I-go-to-sleep-I'll-be-gone-with-a-girl-on-a-train). So how does Holly Seddon match up? Full review...
All Dressed in White by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke
Following the success of The Cinderella Murder case, people are lining up to be featured on Laurie Moran's successful TV show: Under Suspicion. Each episode revives a 'cold case' by returning to the scene of the crime, interviewing the friends and family of the victim and reviewing new evidence. The show has had 100% success record so far, which has resulted in an influx of potential new cases to feature. However, when a desperate mother begs Laurie to investigate the disappearance of her daughter on her wedding day, Laurie knows that her story will make great TV; especially as the scene of the 'crime' is a luxurious hotel in Florida... Full review...
Box Nine by Jack O'Connell
The wind brushed against the review like a thousand kisses and Sam knew that something out of the ordinary was happening. It wasn't since the long hot summer 1997 that he had the misfortune to read a book that had as much extraneous detail as this. He felt to himself that there was little point in actually getting to the meat of a review, when instead he could witter on about something that had little to do with anything – perhaps this would get a little annoying over 352 pages? Welcome to the world of Jack O'Connell's Box Nine. Full review...
