July 2021 – nigeladamsbookworm

Next of Kin Kia Abdullah

This is the third book I’ve read by Kia Abdullah and I think I might have to admit to a bit of an obsession.

Her books come from a completely different perspective to everybody else’s

She looks at multiple layers, giving characters equal weight, each developing their own prospective on what is happening through the story.

In this book two sisters Leila and Yasmin are close, both geographically and emotionally.

Leila is a successful Architect, a busy woman, who has had trouble starting a family and is living apart from her partner.

Yasmin is a happy family woman with a 3 year old son.

That is until one day Yasmins husband asks Laila to drop the boy off at day care because he’s had an urgent phone call from work.

The problem is, on the way to day care, Leila also gets an urgent phone call, and with the little boy asleep in a car seat behind her, she forgets he’s there, parks the car, and runs into the office.

It’s the hottest day of the year.

When Yasmin’s husband gets a welfare phone call asking why his son hasn’t been dropped off at day care he phones Laila immediately. Then she remembers the little boy is still in the car.

What follows is a compulsive story that looks at the family dynamics between the two sisters and their partners.

It looks at the blame, and guilt, it explores peoples hidden feelings, emotions, empathies, and guilts, or lack of.

Add into the mix a tenacious Detective Sergeant who just keeps digging and chipping away at everybody’s story and you have one hell of a book.

Is this a tragic accident caused by a busy lifestyle, or is it something more sinister.

Should somebody be officially blamed, and charged with the boys death.

Does anybody blame themselves, or more to the fact is there anybody who doesn’t.

The best thing about Kia Abdullah’s writing is the way it plays with your mind. This book like the previous two I’ve read had me changing allegiances time and time again.

The one thing that is also certain about her books is it ain’t over, till it’s over.

Pages: 384. Publisher: HQ Release Date: 2nd September 2021

Previous reviews of Kia Abdullah Books

Child’s play. https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2019/08/19/childs-play-kia-abdullah/

Take it Back. https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2019/07/07/take-it-back-kia-abdullah/

Cross My Heart. D.K Hood

I read on another review that this book had a very dark beginning. That was an understatement.

This is the 12th book in the Kane and Alton series and if you are a fan you will know that DK Hood can come up with some chilling storylines, but in this one she’s surpassed herself.

With her sidekick, partner, and protector Dave Kane away at a conference Sheriff Jena Alton is home alone, in her house, in the woods.

What she doesn’t yet know is that there is a man in the mountains, capturing women and teasing them, by allowing them to escape and then hunting them down like game animals. Until he gets fed up of them, then he………..I’ll leave that to your imagination but I’d bet you won’t come up with what.

As Jenna lies alone in bed with just Dave’s dog, and her cat for company a vicious storm hits, and during it somebody launches an attack on her house.

After the storm the a grisly discovery is made attached to her house, with a message.

The message, and the method of attack, lead the team to think of one man. The problem is he is prison, for life, and Jenna put him there.

What follows is a story that is a heady mix of CJ Box and Greg Iles. Box for the way the story leads to the mountain trails and into the woods, Iles for the unfiltered psychological edge. Stunning

Some of the scenes in the book are so well portrayed I found myself sweating for no other reason than the tension that was in the story.

It ticks all the psychological fears that are inherent in most people, storms, fires, being out in the woodlands on mountains in the dark, being stalked by somebody you just can’t get away from. Hood has written what many people see in their nightmares.

But it’s all well within the realms of believable realism and at no point did I think “no, that’s not going to happen”

A great book in a great series.

Does it need reading in the correct sequence, it would be better, but it could be read as a standalone.

Publisher: Bookouture. Pages: 290

A Place To Bury Strangers. Mark Dawson

In my last review of one of Mark Dawson’s books I said Atticus Priest was a mix of Sherlock Holmes and Cormoran Strike, I should have said “ the perfect mix”

Priest is just the on the right side of arrogance, just on the right side of ignorant, just on the right side of insecure about his feelings.

But he is very much on the right side of genius when it comes to observations, deductions, and making connections other people would take ages to get to.

In this book Priest is approached by his ex-colleague, ex-boss, ex-lover DCI Mackenzie (Mack) Jones to help her work out where the rest of the body, that goes with the femur found by a dog, is located.

When he finds a disrupted grave in an abandoned grave yard, in an abandoned village, on a military firing range he has no idea what a large investigation it is going to lead to. Nor does he know just how involved he is going to become, and has been involved with.

It sounds complex, but it’s not. It’s a brilliant story that flows brilliantly but is hard to comment on without giving away spoilers.

The book starts with the end of the trial that resulted from the investigation Atticus carried out in the last book.

His business is booming because of the publicity the case brought.

So it’s surprising when he takes on the case of a missing teenager.

It’s not so surprising that when Mack comes calling he goes to her aid.

Trying to concentrate on both cases Atticus is also caught up in his feelings for Mack, but typically he doesn’t know how to deal with them.

Can he keep his mind straight enough to not miss something.

The body count at the abandoned church rises, and the bodies are much fresher in the ground than they should be.

I would highly recommend reading this book, but I’d make sure you read the other book in the series first click the link below for my review of that one. ⤵️⤵️

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2021/06/10/the-house-in-the-woods-mark-dawson/

Publisher: Unputdownable. Pages: 436

Circles of Confusion. JJ Graftoon

A unique book for me. One that doesn’t look at a crime from the police point of view. One that doesn’t look to solve a murder or other serious crime.

This one is a story of abuse. The story of a young woman graduating from University. One with an empathy for street prostitutes.

Jilly is about to submit her final project. A photographic assignment in which she has documented the lives of local, street based, sex workers.

Her boyfriend Rob has never liked her associating with, in his words “prossies” But in her own way Jilly has used him in the same way the sex workers use their clients, for gain.

She doesn’t love him, in fact she doesn’t really like him, but he has put a roof over her head, kept her fed and safe, and brought her a high end computer to do her work on, so she can put up with the sex.

What she can’t put up with is his increasing mental, and occasional physical abuse, especially when he’s drunk. And when he starts to humiliate her in front of his best friend and drinking buddy Nige, she decides it’s time to move on.

But not before she does a favour for a friend, and goes to a sex workers house to take some “nice family photos” for her.

Tina is too old to be on the streets, her husband, and pimp, Noel is against the photos but he, and their son Leon, take part in the session.

It’s when one of the candid shots make it into the national press that things start to spiral out of control.

Jilly wants to help Gina, but how, without making things worse.

This is a cracking book that enthralled me from page one.

Circles of Confusion is a great title but it’s misleading, there is nothing confusing about this story.

Spirals, free falling, out of control are much more descriptive.

The characters in this book are great.

The violence and abuse are alluded to without graphic depictions, and in my opinion that makes the book more tense.

It’s a tough read in parts but the subject is treated well by the author, without reducing the serious issues it covers.

A great read

Pages: 283. Publisher: Independently Published. Available on Amazon

The Corfe Castle Murders. Rachel McLean

I would say this is the start of a new series but actually it’s more of a spin-off from McLeans “Deadly ….” series set in Birmingham

In this series DCI Lesley Clarke is seconded to Dorset, to recover from her injuries suffered during a Bomb attack in Birmingham

But if she thought she was in for a gentle introduction, to a quiet life, she would be very disappointed

24 hours before she is due to start her new duties she is the first Officer on a the scene when a body is discovered at an archaeological dig. This body is fresh, in fact it’s one of the team carrying out the dig.

The investigation into the murder takes Clarke and her new team into the world of academia, the murky ways of a wayward Professor, who has a liking for young ladies, and the money involved in funding major projects.

The crime investigation is a great story but the way McLean has used it to set up the next books in the series is brilliant.

Clarke herself is a great character, abrasive with a colourful approach to language. She is used to working her teams flat out in a busy metropolitan setting.

What she finds when she arrives in Dorset is a way more laid back approach, and her main man, her Sergeant, is something that she has never come across before.

DS Dennis Frampton is set to be one of the great DS’s in current crime fiction.

Frampton is a church going, throwback who seems to still think Policing is a mans job, and to Clarke’s horror, he employs a swear box in the office.

I think this is the first spin-off series I’ve ever read, and certainly the first I’ve commented on. It works. Clarke was a strong, if occasional, character in the previous series, and she certainly deserves an outing in stories of her own.

The move from writing stories based in a big city, to ones based in the slow pace of the Dorset countryside has also worked. The setting for this book is stunning and fits the story perfectly.

But perhaps the biggest gamble on Rachel McLeans part was hitting the right note when it came to integrating a successful City cop into a County Force. The obstacles that Clarke has to overcome, without being the big “I am”. The relationships she needs to form, especially with DS Frampton.

But that gamble is the reason the book has worked so well. McLean has dealt with it all perfectly. I can only hope this is the first in a long series.

Pages: 352. Published by: Ackroyd Publishing. Available now to preorder Published on 15th July 2021