June 2025 – nigeladamsbookworm

Hidden Daughters. Patricia Gibney

I used to worry about long series losing there impact or running out of ideas. The Lottie Parker series by Patricia Gibney is one I really don’t have to worry about

Every new addition to the series jut seems to get better, and the bar was high from the start.

I read this book as a recent story about the discovery of a lot of human remains, those of young children, was found in an old school in Ireland, run by the church for unmarried women and their babies

This not only brought a credibility to an already brilliant book, but somehow underlined everything about the story.

When two, seemingly unrelated murders take place, both involving young women with sad stories that include attending the Sisters of Forgiveness Convent Lottie Parker can’t help but get involved but the emotional attachment to this casenearly unhinges her.

Emotionally she has always struggled to keep her family, and partner, separated from her work. Although that’s hard when you’re in a relationship with another Officer.

But the one has always been a refuse from the other.

This case seems like its make or break for her career and her relationships

Lottie will do anything to get justice, and in this case get news of the women’s demise to any family that they might have.

All the time the threat of another murder hangs over her and her team.

This is a timely and very suspenseful story, told by one of the best crime fiction writers on the shelves at the moment

It’s also one of those books I would only pick up if you’ve got nothing else to do for a couple of days because once you start it you are not going to want to put it down.

Pages: 464. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook length: 13.25. Narrator Michele Moran

What The Dark Whispers. M.J Lee

The DI Ridpath books are right up there in my favourite reads, and are always the next-to-read, as soon as they are available to me.

Ridpath is a brilliantly conceived character. Employed by Greater Manchester Police, and posted within the MIT, he has, from the start of the series, been on secondment to the Coroners Office, allowing him a greater range of deaths to investigate.

His secondment was intended to give him an easy ride back to work following a battle with cancer, but over the years he has been involved in some serious murder investigations. He has become a single parent who is struggling to bring up his now teenage daughter, and balance his home life with work. A typical cop his work often comes first.

Now, with GMP under increasing scrutiny , and with staff shortages being exacerbated by increased crime levels the Police want more and more of Ridpath’s time.

So when he is called in by his boss (police) to look at a serious crime that another DI and his team have already wound up Ridpath is put into conflict with one of his peers.

The crime, a young girl accused of killing her mother, a seemingly open and shut case following the girls confession. But she is a minor, and the interview was not carried out well.

Did she really killer mother.

In a separate case Ridpath is tasked by the coroner to look into the death of a man who set himself on fire on a petrol station forecourt.

Suicide? Everything points to it.

But why did both victims, who died hours apart, say the same thing insinuating they are dying in order to save others.

As the investigations continue more similarities are uncovered.

Add to this another team investigating the murder of a family of four, which in isolation seems unrelated. And that’s the problem if these crimes were looked at in isolation nobody would ever get caught.

Can the connections be made.

Are there more deaths to come.

The pace of the book is none stop. M.J Lee’s cadence in his writing just keeps me hooked every time I pick one of his books up.

This one, in my opinion, is one of the best in the series.

Could it be read as a standalone, yes, there is enough mention of previous happenings to leave new readers with no doubt as to how Ridpath, and his family, have got to where they are.

Nicely, for those of us that have read the previous books there’s not too much rehashing and it certainly doesn’t detract from the story, it more reminds us of what has gone before.

But, if I was to be asked, I’d say read the series in order. It really is that good.

Pages: 351. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Release date: 03/07/2025

The Secrets Of Forest Lane. Sian Morgan

The first few chapters of this book are scene setters so please don’t think you’ve stumbled across an urban romance, because that’s the last thing this book is.

This is a psychological thriller, and it’s a very good one.

Based around three families living in close proximity to each other this story could be happening on any street in the U.K.

Lily is a single mom to a young girl. Only 22 herself she is wondering what happened to her dream of a successful career and a university degree.

When her little sister Jasmin, 18, goes missing after a night out her mother spins into a panic.

Meanwhile two outwardly happy couples, both with children in the same nursery class as Lily’s girl are hiding troubled relationships.

Katherine and her controlling husband are in a destructive relationship. He’s controlling and increasingly heavy handed with her, she wants to go back to work and have her own life.

Tom and Carol appear to be the ideal couple, she’s a successful doctor and he’s a stay at home dad. So when he goes out after an argument and gets drunk and stoned it is out of character. So is the fact that he had drunken sex with an 18 year old girl in the toilet of the pub.

The problem is the girl he had sex with turns out to be the missing girl Jasmin, and he appears to be the last one to see her.

The story revolves around these three families and particularly Lily trying to find out what happened to her sister.

All the women like Tom and he’s that central overlapping part of the Venn Diagram made up of the sexual relationships between the three families.

This is a cracking story.

I can almost guarantee that you will never look at families doing the school run the same again. Yet as shocking as the murder is, the relationships and the characters are very, very believable.

Pages: 352 (paperback) Publisher: Mind Brief Publishing

The Seventh Floor. David McCloskey.

This is the third book in a stated series of four, with the fourth due to be published later this year (2025)

This story is about finding a mole somewhere in the higher ranks of the CIA.

With Artemis Procter still sitting at a desk in the diminished Moscow Station in Langley her patience is running out.

When one of her agents gets snatched in Singapore, whilst meeting with a Russian asset, she starts to suspect things are not right.

The fact that a highly placed asset had recently committed suicide on his return to Moscow only heightens her suspicions.

So when she is sacked by the people she once thought friends she has no choice but to go rogue, and try to out the person she suspects as the traitor, no matter how highly they are positioned.

Meanwhile in Russia two factions are fighting. One wants to act on every piece of information given by the mole in the CIA, one wants to take it more cautiously for fear of tipping their hand.

What follows are struggles in both America and Russia.

At times it’s hard to unwind the twisting plot, and that is where this book is not as good as the first two in the series.

There is too much rambling, too much unnecessary padding with side stories that don’t really add to the main story.

Some bit part characters carry too much detail, with their back stories taking up pages of unnecessary text.

If I awarded star markings both the previous books in the series would have been easy five stars. This one would be a three because of the unnecessary content.

Had this been the first book in the series I doubt I would have finished it, I definitely would not have read any others, but I’m invested and hope that the final book will throw some type of meaning, or give context to some of this story.