Newest Crime Reviews
Speaking in Bones by Kathy Reichs
Sometimes you really do need to start at the beginning of a series to get into it. And sometimes it doesn't matter a jot. Kathy Reichs' Tempe Brennan novels fall into the latter category. There's a bit of a back-story in there, but let's be honest, it's only there to make Temperance Brennan seem half-way human. Full review...
Frank Merlin: Princes Gate by Mark Ellis
In the early part of the Second World War there was a lull, when hostilities didn't really seem to get going – the so-called Phoney War. Some Londoners, who'd left the capital in the expectation of early bombing raids, began drifting back and there were still those who thought that peace could be negotiated – that we could stay out of the fight. Chief amongst those outside of the political classes who supported this view was the American Ambassador, Joseph Kennedy. Kennedy was, perhaps fortunately but not unusually, out of the country when one of the staff at the residence was murdered and her body fished out of the Thames. Full review...
Whispering Shadows by Jan-Philipp Sendker
Paul Leibovitz was a journalist. That was before. Before he had a small child, who did not survive as long as he should have. Before the end of the marriage that did not survive the loss of a child. Now Leibovitz himself, merely survives. He lives in a kind of self-imposed exile on Lamma, third largest of the Hong Kong islands, a place of greenery and solitude. Full review...
Angel and the Actress by Roger Silverwood
Joan Minter, award-winning actress, was murdered in front of a gathering of her closest friends, but no one saw who did it - or could possibly have been the one who did it. Inspector Angel and his team of detectives were called out to her home, at the foot of the Pennines, in Bromersley. Angel was going to be kept busy though. A young man was found murdered in his home. His wife hadn't expected him to be there - and nor could she explain the new vacuum cleaner which had appeared since she left for work that morning, or the fact that the fridge door was wide open. Then there's the theft of a handbag, which leads to a family's two cars being stolen. And just to top it off, Angel's wife is away visiting her sister. Full review...
Hibernia Unanimis: "Pro Deo, Rege et Patricia, Hibernia Unanimis" (For God, King and Country, Ireland is United) by John Piper
Benedict Plunkett calls a meeting of a small but select and distinguished group of Irish and US politicians, clergy and business men to whom he explains his plans for Hibernia Unanimis – a united Ireland. It will be raised up by and for the Irish in response to the new UKIP government in London. Before the great and the good leave Benedict's mansion they are asked to sign contracts if they want to be part of his future. Some sign, some don't but all think he's deluded and nothing will come of it. Then the accident happens and everyone takes Benedict a little more seriously as, in time, will the English government. Full review...
Ultimate Storm by Richard Castle
As if it wasn’t complicated enough trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t when reading Raging Heat (Castle) (Nikki Heat 6) by Richard Castle now I find myself reading another story written by this fictional television character that made him a bestselling author. I do wonder, reading these, who the real writer (or writers) behind Richard Castle must be! Anyway, this time we’re with Castle’s fictional character (a fictional character’s fictional character!) Derrick Storm, a PI turned CIA agent, though in this book he’s being called back into service after disappearing into early retirement and officially being ‘dead’. This book is actually a collection of 3 Storm stories, but they are all related and part of the same overall arc. Full review...
The Summer of Kim Novak by Hakan Nesser
Erik knew that the summer of 1962 was going to be a bad one. His mother was seriously ill and there was no hiding that she was likely to die. So, Erik and his friend Edmund planned to spend their holiday, accompanied by Erik's elder brother Henry, at the lake-side cottage. Both boys dreamed of their supply teacher, as fourteen-year-old boys are wont to do, particularly when she's the spitting image of the actress Kim Novak. But it wasn't just Erik's mother's health which was going to ruin the summer: The Terrible Thing was going to happen too. Full review...
Bunderlin by Robert Crompton
As a child Martin had been fascinated and entranced by his neighbour Mrs Bundy's household menagerie. Her son Peter was there too but on the periphery; Martin was just there to visit the animals. In adulthood their paths cross again but this time Peter Bunderlin (as he's now known) isn't so easy to avoid – and Martin's tried! Perhaps if Martin could understand what the heck Peter is up to? Full review...
Modesty Blaise - The Killing Distance by Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero
Oh, such things just HAPPEN to that pair, Sir. The pair referred to, of course, are Modesty Blaise, sexy femme fatale with a head full of morals and a pair of legs full of kicking power, and Willy Garvin, the only man to call her Princess and get away with it – intelligent, practical and yet equally resilient in a fight with a baddy. The things that happen to them are legion, over many novels and 95 daily newspaper comic strips, and this is one of the better examples of the current collections of the latter. Where else can you get movie stunts going wrong, pregnant women in danger on the high seas, and people escaping from bomb-laden planes, all in a Jolly Hockey Sticks mood that smacks of pastiche and vintage ribaldry, were it not from the heady days of the mid-'90s? Full review...
The Wrong Girl by Laura Wilson
Phoebe Piper went missing on a family holiday in 2006 when she was just three years old and no trace of her has ever been found. There was a lot of publicity at the time and there still is some - particularly those computer-generated pictures which show what Phoebe would probably look now. The 'now' is seven years on and ten-year-old Molly Jackson is convinced that she is Phoebe Piper: she seems to have the proof. Life isn't going well for her at the moment: she's recently been uprooted from the life - and friends - she knew in London and is living in a Norfolk village, in the home of her great uncle Dan. Only, she's just found Dan dead in bed. Full review...
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon by Laurie R King and Leslie Klinger (editors)
Well, that's one way to get a heck of a lot of attention to your series of short story collections, for sure – get the estate of the author you're respecting to take you to court with the idea that the works cannot be published – the characters are so firmly established and entrenched, but established and entrenched as their property and therefore cannot be artistically reinterpreted, revived or otherwise returned to at all until full and final copyright statutes have expired. Never mind that the characters – one S Holmes and Dr JH Watson – hardly have parallels in how often they already have been mimicked. Never mind the fact that the estate of Conan Doyle was paid off in order for the first book to released. Still, the case was won and this sequel is in our hands. Is it worth all the legal documents? What is the important verdict, at the end of the reading day? Full review...
Raging Heat (Castle) (Nikki Heat 6) by Richard Castle
Fans of the television series Castle will come to this book ready-prepared for what’s going on, but for those unaware, in the series there is a character called Richard Castle who is an author. He observes a homicide detective, Kate Beckett, in her work and then writes a novel, Heat Wave, based on her character, changing Kate’s name to Nikki Heat and his own to Jameson Rook. After the book was written (in the television series) it was actually published in real life. Being a fan of Castle I immediately bought it and read it. To be honest, I found that the concept messed with my head too much! I kept thinking about who was who, within the book, translating Nikki’s name to Kate’s, and Rook’s to Castle, and it all became very confusing because even though Kate and Castle are 'real' they are, of course, fictional characters too! I didn’t read any more Nikki Heat books after that first one, until this one. It’s been a little while since I watched the TV series, and somehow coming at it fresh made a big difference and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Full review...
Half the World Away by Cath Staincliffe
Newly graduated Lori Maddox spends the year after University travelling, and visits China – working as a private English tutor. Back in Manchester, her estranged parents follow her adventures on her blog, “Lori in the Orient”. When all communication stops and silence persists, the parents report her missing, and learning that there is little they can do from Manchester, set out to China in order to search for their daughter. Flying to Chengdu, they have no knowledge of the country, customs or language, and are forced to turn detective in order to save their daughter… Full review...
The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons
This is the second novel by Tony Parsons, which features DC Max Wolfe, single parent to daughter Scout, who first appeared in, The Murder Bag. This book is, without a doubt, a huge step up from the first in the series – an extremely fast paced, exciting crime novel, with a gripping plot and twisted characters. There is no guessing which turn the story will take as every page throws in another plot twist; it’s impossible to figure out who the killer is. On New Year’s Eve, a rich, well established family living in Highgate, London are brutally murdered and the four-year-old son has been abducted. Now it is up to Max to track down the child and figure out who was behind the murders. Full review...
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
A hit and run. A young boy killed. A family devastated. How can a mother ever recover from seeing her child killed right in front of her? When there are no leads, how can the police know where to look to bring someone to justice? Full review...
The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
Black Dudley was unprepossessing from the outside, but imposing, if rather uncared for on the inside. It was isolated in dreary landscape and the location for a house party which George Abbershaw was attending. He hadn't particularly wanted to go and was convinced of the necessity only by the fact that the woman he loved would be a part of the party. The host was an invalid but apparently determined that his guests should enjoy themselves and was happy to have them re-enact the ritual of the Black Dudley Dagger. All the candles were extinguished and the dagger was passed amongst the guests: the atmosphere was sinister but the game seemed harmless enough, except that they would shortly discover that their host was dead. Full review...
No Place to Die by Clare Donoghue
It starts with a nightmare. Maggie Hungerford wakes out of one. Into another. She is awake, but this isn't her bed. This is the kind of place no-one should ever wake up. Full review...
As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust by Alan Bradley
Flavia de Luce has left Buckshaw, the family home where she has lived all her life and has gone to school in Canada (actually, 'was sent' is more accurate - the decision was none of Flavia's making and she felt that she'd been banished). On the trip over she was accompanied by Dr Rainsmith and his wife, who were associated with Miss Bodycote's Female Academy, the school which Flavia would be attending. In fact, they delivered her there with scant ceremony late on the night they arrived. Flavia would have settled down to sleep, but first she was attacked by another pupil and then a dead body fell down the chimney. She already felt quite at home... Full review...
The Stolen Ones by Owen Laukkanen
By book four in any series things start to go one of two ways; stagnation or consolidation. Are these going to be a collection of books that slowly become the same story over and over again, or will the author distil what made the first books so good and build upon them for a stronger, richer and varied series? Looking at the score for ‘‘Stolen Ones’’, it would appear that the future is bright, the future is Owen Laukkanen. Full review...
Bryant and May – The Burning Man by Christopher Fowler
The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has a new set of overlords. For reasons that were explored in the previous couple of outings they have been transferred to the City Of London Police. The Met are still the big players in the area. City of London Police only police the old city, the square mile, the financial district in other words, that has very little in the way of street crime, because no-one lives there anymore and the people who work there are, by and large, either too rich to need to steal, or too smart to have to do so on the streets. Full review...
Mr Mercedes by Stephen King
Bill Hodges is a retired cop, spiralling down into a seemingly inescapable depression. Stuck at home each day watching dreadful American daytime TV, toying with the idea of shooting himself, it is only with the sudden arrival of a letter claiming to be from someone who committed an unsolved multiple murder, one of Hodges’ old cases, that he finds a new interest in staying alive. Is this actually the murderer? Why is he crawling out of the woodwork now? And can Hodges stop him from killing again? Full review...
The Detective's Secret by Lesley Thomson
Two 'hurricanes' link this story. There was the one in October 1987 which wasn't going to happen, but did and as it happened a man lay dying, locked inside an old water tower in west London. He had no identification, no one of his description was registered as missing and the body was never claimed. When the body was discovered there was a single, black glove on his back. In October 2103 there was the St Jude's storm. Late one night on the Piccadilly line a man seemed to jump beneath an oncoming train. Jack Harmon saw what happened and was sure that it was suicide, but the man's brother was convinced that it was murder. Full review...
Orkney Twilight by Clare Carson
18-year-old Sam Coyle's dad Jim is an undercover policeman. When he suggests that they take a trip to Orkney, somewhere they've enjoyed holidays in the past, Sam doesn't have to think about it, especially as she can take a friend. However for Jim it seems to be a working holiday, leaving Sam and her journalist student companion Tom to their own devices. Eventually they realise the same person is cropping up again and again, as if stalking them. Who is the watcher and what does he want? Until now her father's doom and gloom speeches have seemed a million miles from Sam's experience but now...? Full review...
Falling in Love by Donna Leon
Flavia Petrelli, who will be remembered by regular readers of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series as one of the suspects in the first case, Death at La Fenice, has returned to Venice to sing the lead in Tosca. But this time it's Petrelli who feels that she is a victim and for the strangest of reasons: she's being inundated with gifts. It began in other cities - the yellow roses thrown, in abundance, on to the stage, but this time there are even more roses. Her dressing room is filled with them and there's even a massive bouquet inside the locked apartment building where she's staying. It was Brunetti who proved her innocence the last time and it's to him that she turns with this latest problem. Full review...
A Possibility of Violence: An Inspector Avraham Avraham Novel (Inspector Avraham 2) by D A Mishani and Todd Hasak-Lowy (Translator)
Someone leaves a bomb outside a children's nursery in Tel Aviv. This time it's a fake. Next time? Police Inspector Avraham Avraham wants to find the bomber before next time as then it may not be pretence. Meanwhile Chaim Sara has a special interest in the bomb as one of his two sons attends the nursery. But is that the only reason he's interested? Full review...
Humber Boy B by Ruth Dugdall
We've all read the stories in the papers: children who kill, particularly children who kill children. We've always wondered what went through their minds as they did it. We've also wondered about what happens to them once they're no longer children, when they've grown up in prison and are then deemed fit to be freed back into real life. Full review...
Meet Me In Malmo by Torquil MacLeod
British journalist Ewan Strachan was invited to Malmo in Sweden to interview film director Mick Roslyn. They'd been friends at University but had drifted apart. Strachan was holding on to his job in journalism by the skin of his teeth, but Roslyn had made it big time in Sweden and was married to Malin Lovgren, the glamorous star of his latest film. It hadn't been easy to persuade his editor to fund the trip, but when Strachan found himself at the door of Roslyn's home at the appointed time there seemed to be no one there. When he tried the door he walked in only to find Lovgren dead on the floor. Full review...
Acts of the Assassins by Richard Beard
The rebellious cult leader is executed so that's that. Then someone steals the body. The police appoint Cassius Gallio to investigate but it all goes terribly wrong. He not only fails to find the body, the police informant from the initial conviction is killed in a way that mimics suicide. Gallio's career and life both stall until the case is secretly re-opened and he's deemed the man for the investigation as he's already comparatively invisible. It seems straightforward in that Gallio must uncover the truth but the people he needs to speak to are being culled one by one by the most innovative and bloodthirsty means. Full review...
