Month: September 2025

The Night Collector. Victor Methos

One of my best reads this year. Brilliantly written Crime Thriller with believable characters and a storyline that had me hooked from the start

One of my finds of last year was The Silent Watcher by Victor Methos. Now book two in what is now called the Vegas Shadows Series has just landed on Amazon and it’s a cracker.

The Night Collector brings back together the two main protagonists of the first book.

Detective Lazarus Holloway and Piper Danes, a former attorney now acting as a guardian ad litem, a legal representative that looks after the interests of minors during investigations and court cases.

Unlike a lot of stories there is no will they, won’t they relationship between the pair, just hard grafting investigations.

In this book the pair are investigating the kidnap of two 15 year olds who were getting married when they were snatched in spectacular style.

The kicker is that the girl, Keri, is the daughter Lazarus wasn’t aware that he had.

The kidnappers are nasty characters that have been brilliantly written, and the tension that Methos creates in the scenes where they, and the young couple, are together is tangible.

Piper is representing Keri, whilst the investigation into the kidnapping, and hunt for her and her boyfriend, are going on.

But there’s more to play out in this than just this investigation.

Why was Keri and her boyfriend targeted.

Was it purely by chance. No ransom is sent, nobody knows what’s happened to them.

The favourite theory is that they have been taken to be trafficked into the sex or slavery trade, but they don’t fit the usual profile for that.

Now that Lazarus knows she’s his daughter, and that a terrible fate is awaiting her he ups his game.

As with the previous book the criminal investigation is over just over halfway through the book, the story then switching to the court room.

And that’s when things start to take a real twist.

And the twist keep coming right up to the last page.

I said that The Silent Watcher was one of my favourite reads last year.

Well. The Night Collector is definitely one of my favourites this year

I’ve included a link to my review of Silent Watcher below just in case you want to look at that book first

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/12/01/the-silent-watcher-victor-methos/

Pages: 363. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Lies and Bones. R.J Law. TikTok made me read it. Was it worth the hype

As a man in my early 60s I’m not the target for TikTok and it’s “ influencers” but I’m also inquisitive and like to keep up with the new technology and apps.

My TikTok search is all about books and authors and the algorithm is always chucking up top ten lists.

One book that caught my eye, because it was on loads of these lists was Lies and Bones by R.J Law. The way it was presented was as if it was a new release, it’s actually been published for two years.

It is a relatively short book at 208 pages and was available on Amazon Unlimited, so it wasn’t going to cost me anything.

Downloaded onto my kindle it was a quick read.

Nothing outstanding, not an original plot

It’s not a bad book but I couldn’t see why it had its place in all of theses top ten recommendations.

The story centres on a young female detective who is struggling to live up to the mythical status her father had in the same department.

When a series of murders fall to her, as lead investigator, several older noses are put out of joint.

Following a familiar format she makes headway, then gets taken off the case and replaced by one of the older detectives, because she is not making enough headway.

The older hand makes an arrest, but is it the right person.

The younger detective carries on her own investigation on the side, and against her bosses wishes.

You can guess the ending.

Is this really a story worthy of so many recommendations.

I’ve tried to have an open opinion. It rates an average 4 stars on Amazon, with the reviews I can see being split almost equally between 3 stars and five.

Many of the influencers on TikTok appear to be in their early 20s and claim to be reading as many as 20 books a month. Maybe they are, but I’m an avid bookworm and have been since my youth, the most I’ve ever read in a month would be about 6 or 7 and that would be when my holiday was included.

So can we believe this latest place to get book recommendations.

There are probably many good, and truthful reviews on there, but the algorithm only seems to chuck up young women with lots of followers.

I wonder what came first. The followers or the books, and just how n many of these people have actually read the books they recommend.

Will I continue on TikTok, yes because I’ve actively found a couple of what appear to be genuine reviewers who seem to give honest reviews about books, many of which I’ve never heard of but ended up enjoying.

But sifting the real from the hype is difficult.

The Hallmarked Man Robert Galbraith

I’ve been with this series from the start and with the exception of one of the books I’ve loved them all.

This is book 8 and quite possibly the best so far.

The hallmarked man in the headline is the body of a man found in a silver vault. His hands, ears and…….well other body parts are either missing or have been deformed.

Each of the missing or deformed parts could have been used to identify him but have been conveniently removed. Coincidentally several men could be the victim, all of which would have been identified by one of the missing, mutilated parts.

The police are convinced they’ve identified who the man is but his, but haven’t said they are 100% sure it is who they say.

The “alleged” victim has left behind a girlfriend and a baby. She wants to be sure it is him, because she can’t bear the thought that he’d just upped and left her and the baby.

It’s the girlfriend who employs Strike and Robin’s agency to prove that it was him in the vault.

The more the detectives investigate the more they become convinced that the body is not the woman’s boyfriend.

The victim had been killed during a silver heist. The police haven’t had any success in finding the perpetrators or whether the victim was part of the gang or just somebody who got in the way.

By digging deeper Strike and Robin start to uncover a very complex plot which makes up the main crime in this book.

The plot is excellent.

The other hook in this book is the ongoing will-they-won’t-they between Strike and Robin.

I would usually say this was tedious and irritating, usually. But I’m that engaged with these characters that I think it was actually this part of the book that kept me reading late into the night.

When I wrote about Ink Black Heart, the book I really didn’t like, I called the blog, Ink Black Heart. An Honest Review By A Fan, because I really didn’t want to sound like one of those haters who jump on the band wagon.

In the spirit of balance I should really say, as an honest review from a fan, this book is really good

It follows Galbraith’s usual formula. The agency is busy and the other investigations are a nice distraction from the main plot.

The main investigation is basically tagged onto an ongoing, or recently closed Police investigation, that realistically gives Strike and Robin the legal ability to take on the investigation.

Galbraith is very clever at pitching the story believably on the fringe of a proper criminal investigation

And of course there’s the ongoing Strike and Robin relationship. He, with his past has finally admitted he’s in love with his business partner Robin, but she’s in a steady, and growing relationship with with a senior Police Detective.

But, although she looks happy on the outside, in reality it’s not all happy families and roses.

As readers we begin to hear her doubt in her own mind. We begin to hear the inward battle she’s having with herself about the way she actually feels about Strike.

This book will have fans of the series on the edge of their seat for more reasons than one.

And the ending, well …………….

Pages 912 pages. Publisher Sphere. Audiobook length 31 hours 7 minutes. Narrator Robert Glenister