April 2020 – nigeladamsbookworm

I OWE YOU. RONA HALSALL

A great stand-alone thriller.

Sara and Matt are happily married with teenage twin daughters and a 4 year old son. Or that’s what everybody thinks.

Matt has been a bit off for months, and Sara doesn’t know why, so when she tells her sister she thinks Matts having an affair she suggests she follows him.

But Matt isn’t having an affair, he is made redundant on the same day he is followed.

What follows is a series of errors of judgement made in all innocence. Sara had invested her inheritance, against Matts advice and has lost the lot. Matt has a business idea, but he needs the money from the inheritance.

Sara can’t’ tell him she’s lost it so makes her second mistake.

And so the first two dominos are tipped, and the domino rally of bad decisions and the subsequent consequences rush through the book to its thrilling end.

This book carries a story that could so easily be true.

There is no greed involved, only ambition, secrets and lies, all of which are initially made in all innocence, all of which exasperating the situation.

This is definitely a case of things going from bad to worse, but who will be the casualties.

A great read

Pages: 328

Publisher: Bookouture

Publishing date: 5^th May 2020, available to pre-order

BATTLE STATION. ROGER JEWETT

Back to old school World War 2 action books. If you are like me, and was weened onto adult books by the likes of Douglas Reemnan and Alistair MacClean, writing about “the war”, and if you, like me, have missed this type of book you are in for a treat.

Battle Station follows a group of men, from just before Pearl Harbour through the Battle of Medway, Guadalcanal, and through to the early days of 1944

Andrew Troost starts the war as a Captain but is soon promoted to Rear Admiral, whilst his son Warren, who funked out of flunked out of flying school takes his commission on a supply boat.

One of Warrens friends Jacob Miller, who graduated flying school, reports to his aircraft carrier just after Pearl Harbour but is very much amongst the action from then on.

Farmer boy Glen Lascomb is a Naval Reservist when the war starts and his brother is killed on the Arizona. Glen reports for duty and is soon in the thick of the action.

Tony Trappaso, an Italian decent New Yorker, is a commissioned officer on submarines fighting the war from below the waves.

The story of these sailors interweaves, their paths crossing in the peaceful harbours, which compared to most countries during the war seem strangely unaffected, and at times fighting from different vessels in the same battles or campaigns.

The action comes thick and fast and is realistic in its sudden, traumatic, adrenaline fuelled, fear filled pace.

Relationships are formed ashore which leave adds a personal thread in the story and makes the loses, and there are loses, emotional

The ending of the book is not so much a cliff hanger, more a the story isn’t over, why stop here type of thing.

I will read the next one because I want to know how the story ends, but I think this could have been done n one volume.

Pages: 330

Publisher: Sapere

Publishing Date: 20^th April 2020

THE BODY UNDER THE BRIDGE Nick Louth

DCI Craig Gillard is a detective in the Surrey Police. As the main character in a series of books by Nick Louth I’ve come to enjoy the character, and like all series his story ticks along throughout. Unlike many other series though, they only play a minor part of the books, which allows each of them to be read individually without deterring from the main plot.

This instalment sees Gillard trying to crack an unfathomable crime. A young woman, the daughter of a German Cabinet Minister, has gone missing. She is not underage, nor does she appear vulnerable, in fact far from it. She is the lead violin in a string quartet and an accomplished performer on stage, she is also trained in self defense. But as the daughter of a foreign diplomat pressure is put on the Police to find her.

The strange thing is that the investigation uncovers images of her on a commuter train to London, then she just disappears between stops. Her phone coverage continues but when it’s traced only leads to more confusion.

Meanwhile one of the Detective Inspectors under Gillard’s command finds out his wife is having an affair and takes his eye-off-the-ball during the investigation to uncover his wife’s infidelity. A distraction he, Gillard, and the rest of the team could do without.

As the investigation continues a storm hits the South East of England, and the ensuing floods lead to the discovery of more dead people, not all of who have died as a result of the storm.

This book is a great read. It rattles along at a hectic pace and just when you think you have it sussed, it wriggles down another route, until the last few pages unveil a brilliant conclusion.

Nick Louth is the only author I’ve come across that has used the floods that the UK suffered in 2019 and 2020 as tool for his story, and it works really well. In fact it raised some good questions in my mind……but I won’t share them for fear of spoiling the book. Needless to say this is right up my alley and I spent hours navigating Google to see if anything like this has happened in the real world.

As I write this blog we are in week 3 of “self-solation” during the Covid19 virus outbreak. I wonder if this will feature in future books. If it does I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nick Louth being one of the first, and no doubt using it to great effect.

Pages: 288

Publisher: Canelo

Publishing Date: 30 April 2020, Available to pre-order on the usual sites.

HER LAST MISTAKE. Carla Kovach

A wedding day in a nice Country House Hotel.

Holly, one of the Bridesmaids, is killed in her room.

It almost sound like an Agatha Christie plot. But Miss Christie never wrote like this, in fact I don’t think she would have stood a chance against some of the modern day writers.

Carla Kovach is one of the best of these modern crime fiction authors, and the thing she does best is line up a series of suspects, making each one very plausible. This turns each book into a proper who-done-it.

In this one there is the mystery boyfriend, the local drug dealer, and a childhood friend of the bride who has never forgiven Holly for taking her friend away from her all those years ago.

All this in the first 30% of the book. (I read it on a Kindle)

Every time I thought I knew who the killer was there a little twist that made me change my mind. Not the type of twist where you think “Crikey where did that come from” just a tiny nuance, or hint, just a little thing to lead my mind down a different path.

From there the story just gets better and better. It’s a fast paced book which takes place over a few days, and leads to a wonderful conclusion.

The characters in a book are as important as the plot as far as I’m concerned. DI Gina Harte is one of the best. Every book in this series could be read as a stand-alone but the Gina-plot, which runs through all of the books, is one of the best stories I’ve read. Her story alone would have made an excellent book.

Keep them coming Carla Kovach, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Pages: 358

Publisher: Bookouture

Publishing Date: 11^th May 2020

TAKEN FROM HOME. B.R Spangler

I have a confession, until I read this book I had not heard of B.R Spangler. Well I have now and I shall be looking forward to the release of his books, especially in this series.

When I see that a book is the first in a series I always think, “That’s a brave thing to say, what if it’s no good”.

There is no such worry with this book. The story and the characters are great and I have a feeling this one is going to fly off the shelves.

Detective Casey White is a cop on enforced leave following an incident in her own department. Casey’s daughter Hannah was taken from the road outside her house 14 years ago, and Casey hasn’t stopped looking for her. So whilst she’s on leave she follows up an old cold lead that she rediscovered when she was moving her stuff around on her home incident wall.

As she approaches her destination, a holiday town on the coast, she comes across a young woman in the road.

The woman has just escaped from her own hell and Casey rushes her to the nearest hospital.

Whilst she’s there she comes across one of the towns former Sheriffs, Jericho Flynn, who is now marine patrol officer.

It becomes apparent that the town has recently lost its detective and needs help investigating where the young woman had come from, and when a second, seemingly unrelated crime, occurs aboard a Super Yatch the towns Mayor, and Jericho convince Casey to stay and help.

What follows is a great story. Small town USA, a relatively sleepy place, becomes the national focus because of the story of the Super Yatch. Meanwhile Casey and Jericho are convinced that the story of the woman, found by Casey, and the Yatch incidents are unrelated and start a second investigation.

From there on the crimes start to increase, and at times the lines between the two investigations become blurred.

But, what a story.

This book is fantastic. The characters would stand out in any book, but as the start of a new series this is a great introduction.

I love it when I find a new author that I like. It’s even better when I find them at the beginning of a news series.

I’m into this one from the start, and I’m here for the long term.

Pages: 378

Publishers: Bookouture

Publishing date UK: 15^th May 2020

THE SECRET ADMIRER. CAROL WYER

The Secret Admirer. Carol Wyer

When I reviewed the last book in this series I asked, How is Carol going to top that.

Well she has, and she’s done it in style.

The start of the book picks up 3 months after the end of the previous one and finds DI Natalie Ward living on her own, in a small flat, getting ready to return to work for the first time since the shocking conclusion of Blossom Twins.

She’s not sure of how she is going to react to some of the scenes she knows she is going to have to attend, the first one couldn’t be much worse.

A young woman has had Acid thrown in her face and has died a horrible death.

When a second murder follows quit quickly afterwards it appears to be related.

With no time for a gradual reintroduction to work, and battling her own demons, Nat and her team are in a race against time to stop a killer who is quickly escalating.

This book, like all of Carol Wyer’s Books, had me gripped from the very beginning, but where Carols books differ from so many others is that she keeps me hooked with every chapter.

She recognises that many crimes affect small groups of people, and manages to find a way of engaging me with every character, in her small cast of characters

Natalie, herself, is one of the best fictional cops I’ve ever read about. Her story across the series has been fascinating, and at times heart breaking.

The occasional characters which make up her team, and her family, are stunningly written and add a depth to each book with their own intertwining story-lines.

But, in my opinion, the criminals and victims stories always give the books extra edge.

All of these combine in this book. Natalie and her ongoing emotional and mental struggles. The small community of characters involved in the crime, two houses full of students, and their families. The twist in the plot which sees Natalie’s husband come under suspicion.

At 413 pages this book is a bit longer than the average book released these days, but every page holds something. As the DJ’s of old used to say it’s “All Thriller and No Filler”

Could this book be read as a stand-alone? Yes

Should this book be read as a stand-alone. No, why would anybody want to miss out on the rest of the series.

A brilliant read from one of my favourite authors.

Pages: 413

Publisher: Bookouture

Available now.