Month: October 2021

Frozen Souls. Rita Herron

When a serial killer has to start leaving bodies out in the open to make room for their latest victim things are seriously wrong.

The snow storm should have hidden the body, possibly for months but every crime books favourite unnamed character, the dog walker stumbles not only across the body, but also has a close encounter with the killer.

Detective Ellie Reeves is the first to the scene and is about to start a game of cat and mouse with the killer that will revoke memories of her own childhood.

The star of this book for me is the setting. Rita Herron uses the remote township of Crooked Creek for the small town scenario really well. Everybody knows everybody, except who is the killer.

They also know where to find Ellie, and how to show their frustrations when the case isn’t going well.

So when another girl goes missing the pressure starts to mount. Will that cause her to make a mistake, or let a slip of concentration leave her exposed.

One things for sure when everybody knows the towns detective, her history, and where to find her, that means so does the killer.

And, if you are a killer who thinks a Detective might be on to you, what would you do.

Is the killer in their own community, or is it one of the strangers who have set up remote communities around the mountains at the start of the Appalachian Trail

The characters Herron uses in all of her books are believable and engaging, when they are on the right side of the law, and utterly chilling when they are not.

But, as I’ve already said, it’s the setting that brings chills, and not just because of the snow storms. This book has that psychological thriller slant that had me on the edge of my seat.

A stunning read.

Pages: 449. Publisher: Bookouture Available now

Drawn to Murder. J.J Sullivan

Welcome to the start of a new series. Drawn To Murder is billed as book one in the Batterton Police series, and what a great way to start.

When the victim of a Gang Rape teams up with a woman convicted of Manslaughter it’s not surprising that vengeance is on the cards.

But this is years later, and will anybody be able to piece together the the evidence, and see that the murders that are taking place are connected.

DI Susanna David is the de facto Senior Investigating Officer until DCI Blazeley is finished with a court case he is attending.

She is a competent Officer and Blazeley is happy to let her carry on in the role whilst he takes a bit of a back seat.

With her team she soon has a lead, but whether it will be in time to stop the pair getting more revenge is largely down to luck.

When a local reporter gets wind of the implications of the first murder, and links it to a second, it looks like the Police are losing the race to identify the killer

What they don’t realise is that in there own ranks there is one person that could blow the case wide open, but he’s battling his own demons and is loath to come forward.

This is one of those books that had me hooked from the very start. J.J Sullivan has a great way of writing that makes the story flow. I’d usually put a book down at a convenient point to take a break, the problem with this book is every time it came to one I was desperate to find out what happened next, so I didn’t really put it down.

He makes the characters very believable, there is nobody with the usual “Cop-Problems” found in most Police thrillers. There are budding relationships, there are frustrations between colleagues, there is frustrations of balancing private lives with their Police work. That all makes this very realistic.

The crimes that are committed, and investigated, are compelling reading. Sullivan takes the reader right to the heart of everything, just stopping shy of making the crime scenes tasteless or tacky reading.

I can’t wait to see where this dries goes. Which of the Officers in Batterton appear in future books, and what roles they’ll play.

Yes. This is going to be a great series that I shall keep my eye on, and wait eagerly for every publication.

Publisher: Mandrill Press. Publication Date: 1st September 2021

The Last Time She Died. Zoe Sharp

If the two lead characters in this book don’t end up in a TV series somebody is missing a trick

John Byron is a Senior Detective who is on long term sick leave. But that doesn’t stop his boss being in almost constant contact about an unofficial inquiry he’s carrying out.

He is attending the funeral of a Politician who was about to become a whistle blower. A man who was about to blow the lid on an elusive child abuse ring.

Blake was 15 when she disappeared, 10 years ago, just after her mother’s death. Since then her father has remarried and has step children, and has recently died in a car crash.

Nobody had seen or heard from Blake until the day of the funeral, when she accesses his house and personal files.

In fact nobody knows who she is, even when she just sits in the house and waits for the Police to find her.

The funeral is the same one Byron is attending. He is one of the first to attend the house and talk to Blake.

What follows is almost a dual inquiry. First the Police really need to establish if Blake is who she says she is, then he has she turned up now after so long.

Now Blake is doing her own investigation. She wants to know why she was given up for dead 10 years ago, and why nobody looked for a 15 year lad who just disappeared.

There are people in the town who need to worry.

What is Blake after, deadly revenge or justice.

This book has a fantastic story, and more than a bit of “will-they won’t-they” between Byron and Blake. In more than one way.

I loved the concept, I loved the characters, and thankfully there are those six words on the cover that have got me really excited.

“Blake and Byron Thrillers: Book One”

Publisher: Bookouture. Pages: 384. Available now

The Lost Boys. Rachel Amphlett

The murder of a youth, at a fair leads, to a disturbing investigation

Why is a young teenager miles from where he should be?

Why has he been stabbed and left dead in an alley?

What are the pills found close to his body?

This story covers some of the more scary issues in today’s society. Homeless or desperate young men running County Boundary drugs, Gangs Cuckooing vulnerable people, scared young people making bad decisions.

Detective Sergeant Mark Turpin is part of the investigation team. Both himself and Detective Constable Jan were close-by at the time of the killing, and arrived on the scene quickly. Both are affected in different ways. Jan struggles with the psychological issues raised by the death of a youngster, but for Mark things get a lot more personal.

The story of the crimes, and the investigation, are brilliant, but for me, the thing that elevates this book is the look at how vulnerable Police Officers are. Not every cop becomes hardened by experience. Jan in particular is affected psychologically by the first murder in this book.

The other thing that made me smile was the research that went into the book. Yes I have a personal interest in that, but when I know an author has asked for advice, on what is a relatively small part of the story, and has used that advice so well to make just a few paragraphs realistic, I know that all of the rest of the book is also researched and realistic.

This is a great book in a great series, but it can be read as a standalone story.

Available now

Amok. Sebastian Fitzek

This book took me straight back to some of the best books I read as a young man. The way it is written, and the story that unfolds reminded me of great books like Rivers of Babylon and Cathedral by Nelson Demille, brilliant stories that hooked me into the crime thriller genre

In this book a desperate man takes over a radio station in Berlin during the breakfast show.

Jan is a Psychologist who is convinced his Girlfriend is alive, a year after a Policeman knocked at his door to tell him she’d been killed in a car crash.

To get everybody’s attention he takes hostages and plays an evil game where he changes the radio shows competition. Now people aren’t answering the phone to win a lot of money. They have to use the right phrase to save a hostage. If they don’t…………

Ira is a barely functioning alcoholic who is about to take her own life. That is until she is drawn into the hostage situation as the Police Chief negotiator.

What follows is an intriguing story with that many twists and turns at times I wasn’t sure who were the good guys and who weren’t, but that’s what made it such a good story.

Ira is brought in to take over the negotiations from another Officer, at Jan’s request, but why her. Ira is also a trained psychological but who is analysing who. The dialogue between the two is mesmerising.

There are some brilliant characters in this book, amongst them is the Masseuse, a gang boss with his own unique way of killing. Spine tingling reading.

The complexity of the story kept me gripped to the end. At no time in the book did I get who was going to be on which side of the law. But when the last page was turned it all made sense, and at no time did I get the feeling the story was unrealistic or deliberately misleading.

Sebastian Fitzek is a new author to me, but one I will be looking for in the future.

Pages: 464. Publisher: Head of Zeus. Published 11th November 2021