Newest Crime Reviews
Crime
Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn
I have to admit to both skepticism and curiosity when I realised that this novel is narrated by a dog. It's crime fiction, which isn't my usual genre of choice; I don't like anything gorier or more suspenseful than Agatha Christie's relatively tame works. But the pun in the book's title suggested that there might be an element of humour, so I succumbed to my instincts and requested this book. Full review...
The Art of Murder by Michael White
Detective Chief Inspector Jack Pendragon has had a lot of experience of murder but he's never experienced anything like the one he was called to on a wintery January morning in Whitechapel. The man is horribly mutilated but he's held up in a chair and the scene has been set as a nod to the surrealist painter, Magritte. This is art as murder.
Back in Whitechapel in the 1880s the man who was probably the most famous murderer of them all. He's planned the murder of four local prostitutes with the bodies being horribly mutilated. Four, he feels, is a satisfyingly balanced number. This is murder as art. Full review...
Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation by Nigel McCrery
When I read on the back cover that McCrery's writing credits include television's 'Silent Witness' I was impressed and expecting a terrific read. But did it deliver? This book opens with DCI Mark Lapslie attending a terrorism conference, yes, you heard correctly, a terrorism conference which is being held in Pakistan. Meanwhile, back in wet and cold Britain, one of his colleagues, DS Emma Bradbury is having to step into her boss's shoes, so to speak. A body has been discovered and the police need to get their investigation started. There's no doubt, by the state of the body, that it is murder. And soon the whole team is a hive of activity - from the CSIs to the pathologist. Full review...
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath by Jane Robins
During the early months of 1915, Britain was fighting for her life during the First World War, and newspaper headlines were preoccupied with the army's exploits and outrages by the enemy. For a time, only one event at home could compete with them on the front news pages – the unhappy fate of two or three brides who had been drowned, in separate incidents, in their baths, and the fact that one man was probably responsible. Full review...
Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason
Maria's body was found by her friend Karen. It was hanging from the rafters of her holiday home at Lake Thingvallavatn and when Detective Erlendur arrived it seemed like a straightforward case of suicide. Maria had been in a poor mental state since the death of her mother two years previously and there was a history of depression. It wasn't until Karen approached Erlendur with a recording of a séance which Maria had attended shortly before her death that his curiosity was aroused. There was no great pressure at work and he had the time to indulge himself, so he looked further into the case along with the unsolved disappearances thirty years earlier of two unconnected people. Full review...
To Die Alone by John Dean
The bodies of a man and his dog are found in an isolated part of the northern hills. The injuries, particularly to the dog are horrific and although it initially looks though the man might have died from accidental injuries it soon becomes obvious that he's been stabbed. The victim – Trevor Meredith – has been acting strangely lately as it looks as though he might have been aware that he was in danger. And where has his girl friend disappeared to? More to the point, who, exactly, is Trevor Meredith. Chief Inspector Jack Harris and his team have their work cut out. Full review...
Long Time Waiting by Rachel Sargeant
Pippa Adams is determined to do well on her first day as a CID detective, especially when she is plunged straight into a murder case. However, an unfortunate comment about Agatha Christie plunges that into disarray and she becomes known as 'Agatha'. There is little time to dwell on this though; there is a murder to solve. Two men broke into the Brocks' home late one night, took Carl Brock away and killed him, and chained his wife, Gaby, to a chair. Carl Brock was a teacher and presumably above reproach - but as Pippa and her colleagues investigate, all sorts of issues come to the surface and it seems that Carl was not as innocent as they first presumed. Can Pippa find out the truth and persuade her disdainful colleagues that she is a capable detective? Full review...
Death on the Marais by Adrian Magson
We meet the central character, Inspector Rocco and are informed that he's a city man, happiest pounding the elegant streets of Paris. But suddenly and against his will, he finds himself in the sticks. He's not too happy about it. His new colleagues are more than happy to rib him a little, tell him that nothing much in the way of crime happens here. One of these colleagues takes things a stage further - puffs up his cheeks before commenting 'we get the occasional punch-up over a game of bar billiards ...' Rocco thinks he'll be bored out of his skull in no time. Big surprise then when on day one, yes, on day one he's involved in the discovery of a young woman. And Magson wastes no time in giving his readers all the gory details of this woman's last few hours alive. We almost feel her slow, agonising death. And the question is why? Full review...
The Island of Sheep (John Hannay) by John Buchan
Richard Hannay is feeling old. He looks at himself and his contemporaries and sees a spread of complacency. Luckily - or perhaps very unluckily - an old pledge will come to haunt him. His earlier career in Africa saw Hannay and his friends swear to protect a man from others - and now a second generation of animosity is ripe for Hannay to step in and be a protective detective. Add in a supposed treasure hoard, and who knows where his last journey might end up? Full review...
The Body in the Fjord by Katherine Hall Page
Page gives us another The Body In The... book within a tried and tested format. The book jacket covers are always bright and jazzy and this one is no exception. We're deep in Norway, its picturesque countryside and world-famous fjords. We are in the company of two different but interesting women. Mother and daughter. Pix, the daughter (I think the name sounds as if it belongs to someone young) is a mother in middle-age with teenage children. She has responsibilities, but at times she behaves like a sixteen year old and I suppose that is part of her appeal. She cannot seem to say no to anyone and now finds herself enlisted to solve an unexplained death and a missing person. The latter is the more important as the missing person, Kari, is related to Ursula's best friend. Yes, perhaps a few too many names at the beginning of the book to grapple with but it soon settles down. Full review...
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall
We concentrate in and around bustling Delhi and straight away Hall gives a great description of his main character. Once seen, never forgotten apparently. And as if that were not enough to be going on with, we're also given the low-down on his 'team.' Their nicknames are very funny and all of this delightful information gives the reader a taster of what's to come later in the book. I can't resist giving one explanation. Puri has several undercover operatives (I'm smiling to myself just recalling it) one of whom is called Flush. Why? Simple. ... he had a flush toilet in his home, a first for anyone in his remote village in ... You just cannot help but smile, you really can't. And this gentle humour runs throughout the book. Full review...
Outsourced by Dave Zeltserman
I loved Dave Zeltserman's man out of jail series, with both Pariah and Killer being among the best crime thrillers I've read in a long time. All good things must come to an end, however, and with Outsourced he has branched out slightly. Full review...
Paint It Black by P J Parrish
The central character, PI Louis Kincaid has decamped to Florida. He doesn't really want to be there but he has no job prospects elsewhere, he's still young and he needs to do something, fill his days. Even when a well-paid job as a PI falls in his lap, he still hesitates. Then he thinks, what the hell's he got to lose, a man's got to eat etc. Full review...
River of Shadows: A Commissario Soneri Mystery by Valerio Varesi
Rain was falling heavily in the River Po catchment area in northern Italy and the old hands knew that it would burst its banks and there would be flooding. But even they are surprised when they see Tonna's barge setting out downstream. He knows the river well, but his course out of the mooring was erratic and when the barge was eventually found Tonna was nowhere to be seen; the barge was deserted. Was it coincidence or something more sinister when Tonna's brother appeared to commit suicide on the day of his brother's disappearance: Commisario Soneri is convinced that there is more to this than meets the eye. Full review...
A Kind of Vanishing by Lesley Thomson
The novel interweaves between the past (the 1960s) and the present (the 1990s). Thomson gives us the run-down on the two playmates, the two young girls, Eleanor Ramsay and Alice. They have been instructed by their respective parents to play together nicely. The Ramsay family is middle-class, they live in a big, rambling house and are always busy doing things. Alice is an only child of working-class parents. They are over-protective and monitor her every waking moment. Will a noisy tom-boy and an angelic Alice who wears impossibly shiny shoes get on, have things in common? Full review...
Wake Up Dead by Roger Smith
Straight away Smith plunges us into the underworld of Cape Town and the street chat of the locals. Boozed up and drugged up most of the time, violence is a nightly occurrence. And when local 'businessman' Joe is gunned down, it sparks off a whole chain of events for his American trophy wife, Roxy. Strong language, strong violence and strong feelings from the local criminals and low-life are the order of the day in this uncompromising novel. Full review...
Blood Road by Caspar Walsh
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. Full review...
Deceptions by Rebecca Frayn
Life has not been easy for Annie Wray. Her husband died of leukaemia and she was left to bring up her two young children Dan and Rachel. She appears to have a second chance at happiness after meeting Julian who eventually proposes to her. Before they can set a date for the wedding though, twelve year old Dan fails to return from school one day and appears to have vanished without trace. This is the situation that is met by the reader at the start of 'Deceptions' and no one has a clue where he might be or what might have happened to him. Full review...
Deadly Communion by Frank Tallis
Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt arrives at the Temple of Theseus in Vienna to investigate the murder of a young woman at the hands of a deviant sexual predator. Discovering the woman died by the unusual means of a hatpin inserted into her brain, Rheinhardt soon turns to his friend the young psychoanalyst Max Liebermann for assistance and the type of psychological insight that only Liebermann, a disciple of Freud, can provide. Meanwhile, Liebermann is already caught up in his own investigations with a patient named Erstweiler, who believes he has seen his doppelganger and that this is a precursor of death. Full review...
The Phantoms of Breslau: An Eberhard Mock Investigation by Marek Krajewski and Danusia Stok
Eberhard Mock (a name you would not easily forget) is a police Criminal Assistant. He's a single man still living at home with his father and leading a rather ordinary, uneventful life. Until, one day, four young men who are apparently sailors, are found dead. And Mock is asked by his superior to be part of the new murder commission. He accepts and from there on his life is one roller-coaster of events and emotions. Full review...
Bank Of The Black Sheep (Robin Llywelyn Trilogy) by Robert Lewis
The alcoholic and self-destructive detective is common to the point of cliché in crime fiction, but most carry on to take another case, and make a living. Robert Lewis' character's lifestyle has effectively ended his professional career – he was destitute and he is now terminally ill. He has woken up in a hospice, and learns from a couple of visiting police detectives that he is a washed up Private Investigator, who is avoiding prosecution only because he perhaps has a couple of months left, as he is dying of lung cancer. Full review...
Black Diamond: A Bruno Courreges Investigation by Martin Walker
Perigord is rightly famed for its food and at the heart of the region's success lies the black truffle. They're exported all over the world because nothing else quite lives up to the subtlety and nuances of flavour and aroma. There are the first rumblings of trouble though – a few complaints that packs of truffles have been adulterated by cheaper ones from China - and there are ominous signs that Chinese organised crime might be behind the fraud. Intriguingly there's another, possibly related problem for Bruno Courreges, the local chief of police. In St Denis market a Vietnamese family's stall is wrecked – and the attackers looked to be Chinese. Full review...
Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn
In early June 1953 most of the world was waiting for the coronation of Princess Elizabeth, but in South Africa the rigid and rigorously-applied race laws have split the country. Those to whom the land once belonged are now part of an underclass with many living in gruelling poverty. Even some white people struggled to make a living and when ex-Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper came across the body of a white child in the Durban docks he has no idea where the tragedy will end. It's not long before he's the chief suspect for Jolly Marks' murder and two others as well. Full review...
Gunshot Road (Emily Tempest) by Adrian Hyland
Straight away the humour is apparent in this book, mainly coming from the mouth of Emily Tempest. And we're also hurled into Aboriginal country with lots of unforgettable characters with equally unforgettable names. Hyland has a lovely, flowing style with a strong Australian flavour. Tempest has the unenviable job of trying to keep law and order. She's travelled the world and has now returned to her roots. She seems to have a bit of an advantage in that she's of mixed race, so can understand both white folks and black folks. She certainly has her work cut out. Most of the locals see her job as a joke, not to be taken too seriously, until someone dies in suspicious circumstances. Full review...
Dead in the Water by Veronyca Bates
The novel opens with a couple of fishermen enjoying their hobby ... until they fish out of the water a dead body. The body of a middle-aged woman. Enter a couple of rather endearing, local policemen intent on getting to the bottom of it all. The plot develops nicely. We discover that the dead woman had two names, two identities. Why? It seems to make the job of the police twice as difficult. And Bates' conversational and over-the-garden-fence style is engaging and very easy to read. I romped through the chapters, no problem. The dead woman is becoming more of a mystery as time goes on. Her past is delved into and looked over with a fine tooth comb and the bobby-dazzler question 'What makes a girl of nineteen marry a man of sixty?' is soon asked. A good section of the book is spent trying to answer that question. The obvious answer would appear to be - money. But is it in this case? And all sorts of puzzling questions are thrown up left, right and centre. Full review...
The Herring In The Library by L C Tyler
Tall, elegant Ethelred is a gentleman, and a third-rate author. Elsie, his literary agent, is short and dumpy, and not afraid to speak her mind. It is Elsie, in fact, who constantly assures her client he only occasionally aspires to the giddy heights of being second-rate. This could be the business partnership from hell, but not only do these two seem to get along, they even manage to solve crimes together. In this, the third outing for L C Tyler's eccentric sleuths, we are provided with a locked room mystery, a cast of possible villains of the most stereotypical type, and a fresh, funny tale which will make you laugh so much you'll get a stitch. Full review...
A Darker Night by P J Brooke
The location is the beautiful and historic city of Granada. The husband-and-wife writing duo, aka P J Brooke, impart their knowledge of this area to the reader almost straight away. The hot and dusty terrain is described in detail, along with some tempting snippets of local history; for example, some of the locals still choose to live in old cave houses. Very primitive living indeed, as you can imagine. And one inhabitant, a gypsy, is found dead. As his cave is so bare and sparse there's not too much evidence for Sub-Inspector Romero to go on. But, he does find something of interest... Full review...
Scent of a Killer by Kevin Lewis
D I Stacey Collins is beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea to introduce her teenage daughter to the father she's longed for all her life. Professional Standards at the Met are wondering about her links with the underworld and telling them that Jack Stanley, a major figure in the criminal world, is Sophie's father might well end her police career for good. She gets away with what she says on this occasion, but finds herself side-lined in the next major case – and dong jobs which could well have been handled by a rookie constable. And what a case it is. Three headless corpses have been found in a parked car in a London street and as their hands have been removed too the first major problem is identification. Full review...
Dark Water by Caro Ramsay
This is a big, meaty and satisfying read from the pen of Caro Ramsay. I haven't read any of her previous books to date but I will certainly look them out now. The location is in and around the city of Glasgow so lots of Scottish humour and a nice line in the local dialect from several characters. This all helps to get the reader involved early on. And I was. Full review...
A New Omnibus of Crime by Tony Hillerman (Editor) and Rosemary Herbert (Editor)
Clive Wilkes is a delivery boy for a grocery store somewhere in America. Miss Oyster Brown is a devout spinster in a Berkshire town. An unnamed Scottish doctor works in Swaziland. What do these disparate characters have in common with the learned Horace Rumpole, Queer Customer, and Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh? All of them are connected with crimes – either as victims, perpetrators, or investigators – in this brilliant anthology. Full review...
All the Pretty Girls by J T Ellison
We're in Nashville and a local girl has gone missing. She's a pretty twentysomething with the rest of her life to lead. Until now, that is. A gruesome find and a gruesome 'trophy' left by the killer. Who and why - are the important questions for both Taylor Jackson of Homicide and Dr John Baldwin, FBI profiler. Straight away this novel is shaping up nicely, I thought. And it gets better. The police have their work cut out in more ways than one. 'A decomposing body in ninety-degree heat could fell even the strongest professional.' And Ellison then goes on to describe in detail how all that unrelenting heat and all that cruel humidity affects a dead body. Full review...
Frozen Moment by Camilla Ceder
One cold, dark morning in December 2006 a man was driving to work when he began to have problems with his car. It was a fairly deserted part of the Swedish coast but he had vague memories of a car-repair business in the area. When he limped his car in there he discovered a body: the man had been shot in the head and his lower body crushed as a car had been driven over it. The man panicked and called his neighbour for help. Seja was a trainee reporter and when she arrived she was fascinated by the murder victim, but her lies to Inspector Christian Tell are soon discovered. It's not the end of the matter though as there's an immediate attraction between Seja and Tell – and he's well aware that he's breaking all the rules by getting into a relationship with a witness and even a potential suspect. Full review...
The Whole World by Emily Winslow
The Whole World is a sort of crime/suspense novel set in Cambridge, England, told in turn from the viewpoint of five different characters. The first two narrators, Polly and Liv, are friends, and seem to have much in common – they are both American students with things to hide, and they are both attracted to the same young man, Nick. One night things come to a head as Nick somehow ends up kissing them both, then goes missing and is presumed dead. Then Nick, a blind woman called Gretchen and a local police officer, Morris, tell their stories, and the novel takes several weird twists. It is hard to say more without revealing too much about the plot. Full review...
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen
Holmes and Watson are called in by a bereaved father who's convinced a pair of spiritualists have deceived his wife by holding a séance in which their daughter seemed to return. When the pair attend a second séance, the girl comes back again, and it's clear that this is no ordinary trick. Holmes gets assaulted and kidnapped, and Watson realises that for the second time in their investigative career they're dealing with vampires. He's left with only one choice, and turns to Holmes cousin, the legendary Prince Dracula, for aid. Full review...
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Easy Rawlins is a little down on his luck, having just been laid off from his job and with a mortgage payment due. So when DeWitt Albright walks into Joppy's bar and offers him money for finding a young woman who has gone missing, it seems like the perfect opportunity for him to keep his house, as well as to pass some time. Of course, what Albright doesn't mention is that the reason he's looking for this woman is that she's run off with a large amount of someone else's money and quite a few people on the streets of Los Angeles are prepared to kill to get that money back. Full review...
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Seventh Bullet by Daniel D Victor
In 1911, author, journalist and celebrated dandy David Graham Phillips was shot multiple times by Harvard educated musician Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, who then committed suicide. The journalist had received on the morning of his death a threatening telegram signed with his own name, but had shrugged it off as during his career as a 'muckraker', to use the term coined for him by Theodore Roosevelt, he'd made many enemies. Full review...
Love Songs From A Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill
Dr Siri Paiboun is about to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday but it looks as though it might be his last. Instead of being at home with Madam Daeng, his wife of three months, he's in jail. It's not your average run-of-the-mill jail either. Siri is chained to some lead piping and conditions are not exactly five star. Meanwhile Phosy and Dtui are having marriage problems whilst he struggles to investigate the deaths of three women, all skewered by an epee and their thighs showing a letter engraved with a knife. Full review...
Dead Like You by Peter James
Brighton is faced with a serial rapist who appears to have a fetish for shoes - after the rape, he removes the woman's shoes and takes them with him. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is immediately reminded of a previous unsolved case that he was involved in several years before, during which a young girl disappeared, never to be found. It was precisely at that time that Grace's own wife, Sandy, disappeared and, although he is now having a child with another woman, he has never been able to forget Sandy. If the rapist has reared his ugly head again, why has he chosen to do so after so long? Could it be a copycat rapist? And will Grace's memories of Sandy help him to find some clue as to her disappearance? Full review...
I Kill by Giorgio Faletti
Monte Carlo: not generally a place associated with moderation and temperance of any kind and therefore probably the perfect setting for a killing spree by a serial killer with a particular fetish for extreme souvenir gathering. Full review...
Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice) by Michael Ridpath
Magnus Jonson was in some difficulty in Boston. He'd overheard another detective getting himself involved in something illegal and when he reported this he found that even the good guys weren't terribly fond of him – and the others would prefer to see him dead before the case came to trial. The solution was simple but unusual: Jonson was born in Iceland although he'd mostly grown up in Boston and the police in Iceland wanted someone to give them some help in beefing up their murder squad. Jonson disappeared from Boston, telling no one where he was going and resurfaced in Iceland. Simple? No. Full review...
