April 2019 – nigeladamsbookworm

THE DARE Carol Wyer

What would you do if your daughter went missing?

What would you do when she turned up after 48 hours and stated she had been taking part in a social media craze?

What would you do if your daughter went missing for 48 hours, and you were hoping she was taking part in the craze, but was then found murdered?

Social media is responsible for a lot these days and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to the trends, or should I say they are influenced.

What a concept to set a murder story around, and Carol Wyer has pulled it off to perfection.

The first girl to go missing, and later turn up dead is Savannah, and her mom will always blame herself for not being home when she should have been.

This is where DI Natalie Ward and her team start the investigation. An investigation that will be hindered by the social media trend, some of the girls going missing are simply hiding away for effect. Others are not so fortunate.

So, is somebody using the missing for 48 hour game to find their victims, or is there a murderer who is targeting random teenage girls.

As Natalie and her team carry out the investigation they uncover the secret lives that teenage girls keep from their parents, and I couldn’t help but think how realistic that is.

Shop lifting and dating older men are just two of the things these girls have been up to, and the perceived loyalty of their friends in keeping secret their slightly nefarious activities is hindering the Police’s investigation.

As girls go missing, and bodies start to be found, the team are in a race against time to identify the killer.

But has this killer found the best way yet of putting the Police of their scent. Not every missing girl ends up dead, but they all need investigating and its taking time. Time the Police can’t afford to waste on false leads.

Natalie is very aware of the lives of teenagers as she is the mother of two of them, and receives very little support from her husband in bringing them up.

In fact Natalie’s home life is slowly going down the pan and its beginning to distract her at a time when she least needs distracting.

Will she keep her mind on the game? Will she and her team, identify the killer before the body count gets out of hand?

This is book three in the DI Natalie Ward Series. All three have been brilliant stories, and have all had very original plots. The story of Natalie hooks me as nearly as much as the crimes she’s solving.

As a character Natalie Ward stands out as being one of the most realistic. Her problems are everyday problems, her family is a normal family, but her husband has got a problem and its driving a wedge between them.

The thing I find about these books is how on point they are. The issues with social media are very current and are most parents nagging worries with their teenagers, and Carol Wyer exploits that fear in this book.

The problem her husband has is one of Britain’s growing problems, he’s a gambler, and a again Carol explores the problems with living with somebody who’s gambling in a brilliant manner.

Yes this is book 3 in the series, but it can be read as a stand-alone.

My recommendation would be read all three, in fact if you are looking for some books to read around the pool, or on the beach this summer, get all three and save them to binge read. You won’t be disappointed.

Pages: 378

Publisher: Bookouture

Available: Now.

BOLD LIES. Rachel Lynch

The Lake District

DI Kelly Porter is back for her 5th outing in this cracking series. This time the crimes aren’t just focused on her patch in the Lake District. This time the crimes are connected to London and Kelly’s old team are investigating.

Kelly has a close knit team covering the North of the Lake District, and she has a close knit series of friends who support her when she’s on, and off, duty.

So, when one of those friends finds the body of a man on a boat he has been restoring Kelly and her team start their investigation, little knowing how far reaching the investigation would be, and who would end up being involved.

As the body is found in the Lake District a hit is made on an underground chemistry lab in London, and 2 respected research chemists are killed. It’s not long before a link is made to the three deaths and Kelly’s Team start to work with their colleagues in London.

So what is the link between the three murder victims, what were they working on, and who wanted to stop them.

The Police are not the only ones investigating the crimes, a freelance journalist is also on to the story, and as Kate travels south to work with the London team, the journalist heads north to follow up on her lead.

As the investigations continue more people are put at risk. The high tech approach of the Met is shown in stark comparison to the hands on local investigation of the Lakes team. Can they, between them, identify the motive for the killing, and ultimately the killers.

Rachel Lynch’s stories are always well narrated around a central cast of characters and are set in a beautiful part of the country. By branching out and sending Kelly back to London in this book she has introduced a whole new dynamic to the books. And it’s not just the crimes and the countryside that’s different. A bit of Kelly’s previous life is coming back and trying to get to know her, making working life in London very unhappy, will it affect her work? Will it affect her relationships back home?

This book is about more than the murders at the beginning of the book. It’s about power, and influence. It’s about relationships, past and present. It’s about Kelly’s new life, and her old, and many other strands that make this book one that I didn’t want to put down.

Will the crime get solved, will Kelly’s old life return to ruin the new life?

This is a great read, the whole series is stunning. Can it be read as a stand alone. Yes, but some of the nuances of the story might be missed if you read this before reading the others.

Pages: 313

Publishers: Canelo

Publishing date: 27th May 2019.

DEAD INSIDE. Noelle Holten

A few months ago I heard that one of the staff at a publishers I follow had written a book. In fact I began to hear a few mentions of DEAD INSIDE by Noelle Holten.

I had to read it, but I was worried, what if I didn’t like it. I talk to this woman a lot and do book reviews for some of the authors she’s responsible for. This could have been nasty.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I should have known better. If you represent the authors Noelle represents, and write the reviews she puts on line of other books she reads, I should have known she loves the same type of fiction as I do.

But she’s gone one step further than me, she’s written a book, and what a book!

Dead Inside is going to be up there with this year’s top releases.

Noelle has written this book in a way that not many, if any, other books I’ve read have been written before. Although it is billed as “Maggie Jamieson Crime Thriller Book 1” there is no real lead character. Everybody seems to get equal billing and the story is brilliant for it.

I was trying to find a way of explaining this and eventually came up with the analogy that the books characters are like those from a TV soap, everybody is important to the story, when it’s their turn they are front and centre, but it’s the story that takes precedent. The plot is lead chronologically by the character that means the most at that time. So although Maggie is a thread throughout, she gets no more or less page time than anybody else. I really like this style.

So who is Maggie, well she’s a DC who has been moved from a Murder Investigation Team in Staffordshire Police to a new unit. Why has she been moved? Her back story indicates that she was heavily involved in a serial killer investigation, and that maybe she suffered a bit during that investigation.

The newly formed team is the Domestic Abuse and Homicide Unit, and is a multi-agency team set up to quell the growing problem of Domestic Violence, and the deaths associated with it, across Staffordshire.

When the team was set up I would imagine that they thought the Homicides would be mainly women who had suffered abuse at the hands of their partners. So on Maggie’s first day it’s a bit of a shock when the body of a man who was an abuser turns up.

The team start an investigation as the man was known to them and involve the Probation Service in their inquiry, as he was also known to them.

A big part of this story is a group of people that represent a section of society we all know exists but hopefully never have an involvement with.

Women, a lot with drink or drugs problems, gravitating to men with the same problems, or men who will exploit those women when they are at their lowest ebb. Women who get abused physically and mentally, and when they find the courage to move on, nearly always end up in another abusive relationship.

In this story one woman should not be in that category, she should know better, she works with women that suffer abuse, then she goes home and behind closed doors she becomes one of the abused. At times the sections of the story that looks at Lucy and her Husband are hard to read but compelling at the same time.

As the bodies start to pile up another character is introduced to the team. Dr Kate Maloney is a Criminal Psychiatrist, a young Irish woman who dresses in full Goth clothing and has a tongue as sharp as a knife. What a character.

Maggie works the case and introduces the rest of the team as the investigation continues. All of the team have their opinions, and as the book moves on their individual characters are laid open for the reader. Each of them is realistic and everybody who has ever worked in a team will recognise the dynamics, there are some we will love, and there are others who will infuriate.

The story continues with more violence in the almost incestuous community of abusers and victims.

The Police battle against the closed nature of the group and the absolute denial of some of the victims.

But somebody out there is doing something about it, and the way they’re doing it is murderous. Spine-tingly murderous.

So now the abusers are becoming victims will anybody have any sympathy for them. How will the investigating team deal with looking out for peoples safety, when they have been trying to take them off the streets for years.

This book had me hooked from start to finish. It had me holding my breath and making out-loud exclamations. It had me reading way past my usual bedtime and then waking up early to carry on and find out who was safe and who wasn’t.

I had sympathy for the victims of abuse, and at the same time I was frustrated by their lack of helping themselves, and their constant denial of there actually being a problem. Yes, it is very real.

Like all good books it ends on a cliff hanger. One that I really didn’t see coming, but which opens the door for Maggie Jamieson Book 2.

In a strange way I would love to have come across this book after 3 or 4 had been published so that I could have binge read them.

But I am really chuffed to have been in from the start. I hope I’m about to ride a wave that includes many a venture for Maggie and her team.

Noelle Hurry up and write the next one please.

Pages: 293

Publisher: Killer Reads

Publishing Date: 31^stMay 2019….Just in time to buy for a the summer holiday books.

Final Betrayal, Patricia Gibney. Blog Tour

Today sees the publication of the latest in the DI Lottie Parker series by Patricia Gibney. So is book 6, FINAL BETRAYAL, as good as the rest of the series? Of course it is.

I recently read that the series had reached the milestone of 1,000,000 copies being sold. This should have come as no surprise. At the end of each year I get a break down of the statistics from my web site. In 2017 and 2018 the reviews of Patricia’s books were in the top three most viewed on my site. The stats also show that many of the hits come from the US. In the “gumph” sent out by her publishers, Bookouture, it states that she is a best seller in the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia.

All of this has to be a testament to how good these books are, but why do so many people take Lottie to heart and follow her investigations in the Irish town of Ragmullin.

Well a lot of it is down to just how realistic the crimes are, how engaging the characters are, and how the story always weaves its way through several story lines, knitting together a tale that has the reader hooked from start to finish.

That can only be done by a really skilled writer, but there’s more to it than that. I find that the best writers are the ones who have lived a life and experienced the real world. Patricia has certainly done that. Widowed way too early, and left with a family to bring up I’m sure there is more than a bit of her in the main character Lottie Parker. Lottie is also a widow bringing up a family. I don’t think Patricia’s family is anything like Lottie’s, but I suspect a lot of the worries of a single Mom are used in the stories, and to great effect.

Just beneath this paragraph is my review of FINAL BETRAYAL. Book 6 in one of the best crime series available at the moment. I can’t wait to read Books 7, 8, 9………. And hopefully lots more.

Final Betrayal Patricia Gibney

The sixth book in the series, where has that time gone, and every bit as good as the rest.

The small Irish town of Ragmullin is again going to be devastated by murder.

When two women go out on the town together, they get separated, one of them pulls and the other can’t be bothered to wait around for her friend.

When one of the women is reported missing Lottie starts to investigate, she soon finds out that both are missing, and it’s no surprise when they are found murdered.

The killer has left a clue, or is it their signature, but what does it mean.

At same time two other things are happening. A man is released from prison after doing 10 years for a serious assault which eventually ended in his victim dying; and Lottie’s family comes under threat from within.

With Lottie concentrating on the murder of the young women, the last thing she needs is her half-brother meddling in her life, but he does, and he opens a real can of worms.

Part of the investigation see’s the Police covering old ground. A property developer is renovating the Old Courthouse. He’s not the most honest of people and has been on the peripheries of investigations in the past. Has he stepped over the line this time, or is he just a puppeteer trying to manipulate people to get his deals done.

Inevitably this book races to a thunderous end.

Patricia Gibney has a way of writing a story that has so many threads. It’s a bit like the rail tracks just outside of a main station. Lines running parallel to each other, and occasionally crossing, before they end up at the same destination.

In this case the threads cross numerous times as the different incidents, and investigations, drew close to each other and either crossed or veered off again. This made for an epic compelling story

I look forward to getting reacquainted with DI Lottie Parker every time a new book comes out, and I’m yet to be disappointed. In fact, every time one comes out, I make the same mistake of picking it up and starting, not realising I’m going to get very little done until I’ve finished it. Yes, it happened again, I read this book over two days, well I did have to stop to sleep.

This is book six in the series. Can it be read as a stand-alone, yes. Should it be read as a stand-alone, no.

If you haven’t met Lottie Parker yet start with first book and read them in order. You will get so much more out of them if you do.

Pages: 484

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 18^thApril 2019

A tale my New Kindle and the impossible hunt for a cover that fits

New Kindle Owners Beware

A few years ago I acquired a Kindle, and I loved it. In fact I have owned two, and when the new “Waterproof, 6 inch screen, 32GB, Paperwhite ” was launched, this month, I purchased one.

When I ordered it I looked at the specifications and just below them was the suggested Kindle Cover to “personalise your Kindle” so I purchased one of those but was told I had to wait because they wouldn’t be available for two days after the arrival of my Kindle.

So the Kindle arrived, lighter, brighter and very nice. I wouldn’t use it until the cover arrived because it is that light it appears almost fragile, and the screen has no protection.

When my Kindle Fabric Cover “Charcoal Black” arrived I was quite excited….Until I tried to put the Kindle in it, the cover is way too small.

“Oh Well” I though and went on line to find an alternative. I found a cover from Moko which states in its specifications “Fits All-new Kindle 10^thGeneration 2019 release, Thinnest Protective Shell Cover” (sic) so I purchased one of those, and then went away to work for a few days.

When I got home an Amazon package was waiting with my new cover inside. Like a kid at Christmas I tore open the packaging and went to fit the cover to my new Kindle. It didn’t fit, again the cover was too small.

I had a bit of a rant on twitter and somebody from @AmazonHelp tweeted back in minutes, surprise-surprise. They suggested I try talking on the phone to somebody. I replied I’d tried that but kept getting an automated voice telling me that the waiting time was in excess of 20 minutes, so I didn’t utilise that offer.

They then gave me a direct dial number, which at that time didn’t connect. They also gave me a link to “real-time chat” at customer services.

I opened the link and was quickly talking to somebody called Vasnath Kumar.

Vasnath was very helpful and sent me a link to the cover which would fit my new Kindle. I opened the link to find it was to the first cover I’d purchased.

Sorry Vasnath I replied that’s one I’ve already tried. So he apologised and gave me a second link. Yes you guessed it was a link to the second one I’d ordered.

Sorry Vasnath. I replied that’s the other one I’ve already ordered. He apologised again and sent me a link to one I hadn’t seen before with the guarantee that it was the correct one for me. So I ordered it.

About 4pm this afternoon the same Amazon delivery driver attended with a padded Amazon Prime envelope, we’re getting to know each other well me and this driver.

I opened the package and found the case, this time from a company called Ivos.

Guess what, yes it was too small, and it was identical to the Moko one.

That’s it, I was determined to talk to somebody, so I tried the phone number supplied by the person from @AmazonHelp.

The first person I spoke to was obviously not from these shores and after about ten minutes he told me I wasn’t fitting the cases right and I should send him a screen shot of the Kindle and the cases.

A screen shot over a land line phone ? I asked. Yes, he said. How I said. He didn’t know, so he said he’d speak to the Kindle department.

After a 5 minute hold another man came on the line with a very similar voice. He couldn’t help me either, so I asked to speak to a Supervisor.

After a further 15 minutes on hold, during which time a man came on the line and asked if I was still there and was surprised to find I was but said they were still trying to find a Supervisor to speak to me, I finally got to talk to the Supervisor.

A very pleasant young lady with the same accent came on the line and tried to help.

She gave me a serial number to put directly into the Amazon search bar. It was to the Kindle cover I’d originally purchased. “Yes” she said ‘it’s the one frequently brought with that Kindle”

“No” I said “it’s the one that Kindle suggests you buy to personalise your e-reader”

“ Yes that’s right” she said.

“No it won’t fit” I say

So then asks me to wait and emails me the same link. I open the link and we have the same conversation.

“Ok” She says, “I’ve found the one for the waterproof Kindle” and sends me another link.

I open the link and find she has sent me a link to a waterproof cover for the 2018 Kindle.

I point this out to her and tell her it’s a waterproof cover, not a cover for a waterproof Kindle.

“Yes, Yes, the same thing” came the reply

“No, no it’s not” I replied.

A thought had occurred to me that I had been sent the wrong Kindle, but this nice young lady had already taken the serial number and confirmed it was the latest model.

She then tried to get me to buy further cases all of which were for the 2018 generation.

When I queried this, she said yes that’s the one you’ve got.

So I asked her if she was aware that Kindle had launched this new model earlier this month, April 2019. This appeared to confuse her.

As it happens I had my other Kindle next to me and popped it out of its cover. The new Kindle was too small for this cover but, surprise-surprise, my old Kindle fitted perfectly into all three of the cases I’ve been sent so far this week.

The young lady was still confused and trying to get me to order 2018 cases, so I asked her “Is there anywhere in the UK where I can go and talk to somebody about this”

“Yes” she replies with glee “We sell through Argos you can go there and try all of the cases till one fits”

Oh hum.

I thanked the young lady for her help. I have filled out the return forms for the 3 cases which I will drop off at one of the Doddle agents. But I won’t get refunded my costs of £49.93 until the items have been returned and checked.

Happy?

Not a lot

Dead Man’s Daughter Roz Watkins

Roz Watkins has a way of writing books that I find refreshing and fascinating. Taking a piece folk law, or urbane myth, and interweaving a modern crime she arrives at a book which is a realistic crime thriller with a touch of horror novel. In fact I can’t make my mind up who would be the most proud to call her a student of their genre, Colin Dexter or Stephen King. If you are a fan of either you’ll love this book, if you are a fan of both, this is really going to get your juices flowing.

DI Meg Dalton is a recent transferee to Derbyshire from Manchester Met Police. She not only has to battle the “she’s a know it all from the big Force” brigade but also prove herself better than the men from Derbyshire she was promoted over to get her job as SIO in one of the MIT’s covering the Peak District.

When she stumbles across a crime scene Meg is suddenly immersed in an investigation that seems to have one strikingly obvious outcome.

A man is dead in his house, his daughter is found running through the woods covered in blood. When Meg traces the child’s steps back to the house, she realises the crime has happened in a premises where the Police have had numerous calls to report a stalker but have done little or nothing about it.

The investigation leads Meg and her team down one route, the little girl appears to have killed her father, but Meg is not convinced.

So, why is this book a bit on the horror genre, well the little girl, her name is Abbie, has had an organ transplant, and everything seems to suggest that somehow the organ she has received is affecting the way she now behaves.

To add to that the house that the murder took place in is wrapped in folk law and has connections with a past series of sacrificial killings.

It’s up to Meg to work out who the murderer is, and what the motive was behind the killing.

This story is complex in places with different characters swapping hypothesis to suit their own agenda, more than one of which is purely because they want Meg to fail.

But the story is absolutely brilliant. Like all the best books it had me Googling about things I wasn’t aware of, such as Cellular Memory Phenomenon, and yes it does exist.

What a subject to identify to base a crime story on, and to keep it so realistic. Brilliant.

This book is the second in the series, The Devils Dice is the first, but can easily be read as a stand alone but once you’ve read it you will want to read first.

I really can’t wait for the third book in the series.

Pages: 384

Publishers: HQ, Harper Collins

Available now

Catch Your Death Kierney Scott

This is another one of those series that I really look forward to. A story with Special Agent Jess Bishop in it is bound to be gritty and borderline scary.

Jess is no ordinary agent; her father is a serial killer serving a life sentence, she shot and seriously wounded her one time partner Briggs, and in her last case best friend and fellow agent was killed. She uses random men for sex, quick, dirty sex, often in shady alleys outside equally shady bars to help her keep her mind off her troubles, and she swallows pain killers like smarties to help her with the pain in her disfigured hand, an injury she sustained at the hands of another mass killer.

So when her boss phones her and asks her to go and see her nephew in nearby academy, because he didn’t sound right on the phone, there is no surprise that she finds trouble.

The nephew Levi is found hung in the shower block, but Jess doesn’t believe it’s the suicide everybody else wants to believe it is. After a bit of digging she finds that there have been a series of suicides linked to an on line game “The Last Super”.

At first it is enough that teenagers are committing suicide to get Jess’s back up and start an investigation, but when she starts to be hindered at every stage of her inquiries she soon starts to piece together an even more disturbing story.

Worried by her previous experiences she is loath to get her team involved in the investigation into their boss’s nephews death, especially as she is beginning to build a conspiracy theory that she believes will put whoever looks into the deaths in danger.

But is it really as bad as Jess thinks, or is she simply, and finally, beginning to lose her mind.

This really is one of the best series on the shelves at the moment. Kierney Scott simply has no filters when it comes to writing her stories. The characters are really put through the mill throughout the books. Jess is one of the most challenging lead cop characters I’ve read but I just can’t help liking her.

These books fly by, it wouldn’t make any difference if they were 200 pages or 500 pages long the last page always arrives at such a pace you just don’t see it coming, and as usual when it arrived this time I was left wanting to dive straight into the next instalment.

Oh well I’m just going to have to wait, hopefully not for too long, to see what happens to the frustratingly good Jess Bishop

Pages: 278

Publishers: Bookouture

Publishing Date: 14^thApril 2019