Month: September 2026

Nothing Left Behind. Hannah Brennan

Book two of the DCI Liz Field series.

All emergency services suffer from regular nuisance callers. Most are malicious false alarms, sometimes they are a cry for help, but they are always taken, and responded to. Sometimes that response can be a bit slower than they would expect, the calls being prioritised, and known false callers get put to the bottom of the queue.

But what happens when those callers really need help. The time they are calling wolf because there is actually a wolf there.

Anne was one of those callers. Her regular cry for help was that “he” was going to burn the house down and kill her inside it.

So when one night another call comes in, to her house being on fire, the nearest Police Officer takes his time in responding.

When he does get there he finds the house well alight and goes inside to rescue the old lady most police officers in the area have come to know.

His life is saved when a neighbour pulls his unconscious body out of the house.

And so begins a complex investigation which takes more than a few unexpected, and thoroughly compelling twists.

DCI Liz Field is appointed SIO but her team is reduced to help cover another team who are investigating the murder of a high profile activist who had been shot on her own doorstep.

Fields investigation soon uncovers the real identity of Anne, the victim in the house fire had changed names, and location, following the conviction of her husband who had previously assaulted her.

Could this be the reason for the murder, he had always said he would kill her and her son.

Who is the son, and where is he. The police officers who had grown to know her had no knowledge of her previous life.

This is the basis of a fantastic story.

As with the previous book No Safe Place, the story revolves around Field, and the two or three other key players in the plot.

As the story progresses the slow drip of clues finally builds up and I eventually realised who some of the characters really were. I had a good idea of who might be the murderer, but when it was revealed I was still surprised.

It’s been a long time since I have read books so well plotted. Hannah Brennan hides things in plain sight so that when the reveal is made I couldn’t help thinking to myself “how did I not pick up on that”

It helps that I love DCI Field. She is about as realistic as it comes, and I find empathy with her every time she makes a decision.

What really struck me about this book is how well it is researched. I recently read and reviewed a book in which the main character was a Fire Investigator. I criticised the research for that book as it was factually and procedurally incorrect. And that was with the FIre Investigator as the main character.

In this book the Fire Investigator has a bit part, an important part in the story but still a small part. The realism in the scene setting, and the procedural aspects, in this book are really very good, and there is absolutely no comparison between the two. This one is far better than the other.

For me, as a retired Fire Investigator, that makes a hell of a difference.

I can’t wait for book three to be published in November 2026, in fact I preordered it as soon as I finished this one.

Pages: 446. Publisher: Avon. Audiobook length: 10 hours 13 minutes. Narrator: Rachel Atkins

No Safe Place. Hannah Brennan

Book one in the Detective Chief Inspector Liz Field series, and if this is the standard to come it’s going to be one hell of a series.

What starts out as a single attempted murder quickly escalates.

DCI Field is close to the attack when the call comes in. A man has been stabbed multiple times and left to die in the street.

Her and one of her DS’s are the first on the scene and the description of the chaos they encounter, and the way the next few minutes is described sets the cadence for the story.

The victim is a Mental Health Doctor who published a paper about his observations of 5 teenagers who had undiagnosed OCD. The study took place fifteen years ago and the front page of the paper is found beneath his body when paramedics move him to hospital.

The next day a second victim is savagely stabbed, in a similar manner, but she dies. She was one of the teenagers in the study carried out by the Doctor, and she is found on the steps of another of the cohort included in the study.

The study only contains an identifying letter for each of the teenagers. The police now know the identity of two of them, but they need to identify the other three to either rule them out and protect them, or arrest one of them for murder.

All of the subjects of the study had previously been diagnosed with other mental health issues, but by identifying the underlying issue was severe OCD the Doctor had been able to offer them all help before they were discharged from his care.

Each of them has made a recovery, to differing degrees of success, but some still suffer, and when the investigating team start to identify them it’s only the start of the process. Interviewing people with hidden, or in some cases not so hidden, OCD issues is difficult. But it makes for a great story plot.

The characters are really well written in particular the Police Officer at the head of the story.

DCI Liz Field is the female version of a lot of the fictional Police Officers you find in some established series, but with Brennans writing she is elevated to another level.

As well as dealing with the investigation she is also dealing with two Detective Sergeants on her team.

DS Wilson is a traditional Police Officer. She joined as a uniform Constable and did her time on response, dealing with all the rubbish and violence that that job brings.

DS Riley has a degree in Criminology and joined the force on a Direct-to-Detective scheme. Who Wilson sees as an inexperienced underling.

Wilson an Riley often but heads, most SIOs would do something to stop this but Field almost encourages it, and sees the competition between the pair as a good way of getting the best out of them.

This story moves with pace. For a story with, at most, eight main characters, three of which are Police Officers, it’s amazing how well hidden the perpetrator is hidden.

I did’t have a clue who was carrying out the attacks until the reveal, and thats not a bad thing.

A great start to a new series.

Pages: 414. Publisher: Avon. Audiobook length: 9 hours 34 minutes. Narrator: Rachel Atkins

All She Burns. Charlotte Essex

What happens when the person who investigates the cause of a fire is actually an out of control deliberate fire setter themselves.

Dr Catherine (Red) Carter is known to the Police Officers, and Fire Investigators, she works with as the Fire Guru.

She has the ability to read fire patterns and work out which direction the story travelled so that she can ultimately identify where the fire started.

She has the ability to look closely at the seat of the fire and scientifically work out what caused the fire.

This is why she works for an independent Fire Investigation firm in London.

Most people think that she honed her skills when she was a Firefighter, whilst studying for her Forensic qualifications and writing her doctoral thesis.

What they don’t know is she has a psychological fascination with, and for fire.

She is a fire setter. She has set numerous fires but never knowingly put anybody in danger.

Until now. She had been planning a fire in a boarded up council house. She’d cased the building, gone in an and set the scene, but she wasn’t meaning to start the fire that night.

She hears a voice in her head, Scarlett is the personality driving the fire setting. Usually Red can keep her under control but in a moment of weakness she goes to the house and sets it alight.

The next day she is surprised to be asked to attend the scene to investigate the cause of the fire. It should have been a simple cause diagnosis for the Fire Service.

The problem is the fire didn’t go as she planned it, and worse, there was a body found in the upstairs bedroom.

Now she is tasked with investigating a fire she set. But the deeper she looks the more convinced she becomes that the fire the Fire Service encountered when they arrived at the scene, was not the one she’d set.

As the guilt of killing somebody is replaced by the knowledge that somebody else set a bigger fire, after she set hers, she begins to worry that she may be a target.

I’m going to have to review this book in two parts, firstly as a crime fiction fan, reader and book blogger, and secondly as a Fire Investigator.

As a Crime Fiction Reader.

I loved the story and Red is a great character.

The weaving of the narrative to take the reader on a route that brings all sorts of suspects to the fore, without ever actually giving us a firm reason to suspect them, elevates the story to another level.

Red herself may be one of the best characters I’ve encountered for a while. She is flawed, and there is no way I should have felt any empathy with her, but I just couldn’t help myself liking her.

She drinks too much, she’s self destructive, she’s a fire setter, yet somehow she comes out of this as a good person.

As a Fire Investigator

I spent thirty years in the Fire Service, nineteen on fire engines at all ranks, and eleven as a dedicated Fire Investigator, all in a busy Metropolitan Brigade, so forgive me for being picky.

There are too many procedural errors to overlook, things that just either don’t happen or wouldn’t happen, and yes I understand the need for license in fiction but to me the basis of a good story is being as accurate to real life situations as you can.

There are some technical issues about the observations made at the scenes which I found too much of a stretch.

For example I would imagine every firefighter, or Fire Investigator will have the same thoughts as me about the fact Red thinks it unusual for a fire setter to start multiple fires at the same incident. Multi seated fires are one of the main indicators of deliberately started fires.

But as I said, I’m being picky. It’s just that a lot of people who read my blogs would be surprised if I didn’t bring these things up.

Does this put me off recommending this book.

No it doesn’t. I would recommend it as a great story with a great character.

In fact, I’m hoping for a second instalment.

Pages: 320. Publisher: Wildfire. Publishing Date: 25th March 2027

All The Sinners Bleed. S.A Cosby

Titus Crown is a newly elected Sheriff in a small town in Southern Virginia, and he’s about to have a very bad day.

When a young black boy walks into a high school and kills a popular white teacher Crown and his small team rush to the scene.

The boy is coming out, holding a gun, when they arrive and he is shot dead on the school steps.

That alone is enough to rile the white minority in the community but what Titus discovers during the early stages of the investigation is going to send the town into meltdown.

Spearman, the teacher, was not as good a man as most people seem to think. Disturbing images on his computer show him to be part of a trio that has been abusing, and killing young, black, early teenage boys and girls.

Was Latrell, the shooter, a victim, a willing participant of the trio, or something in between. He is implicated, but him and Spearman are dead, and the one part of the trio that is still alive is an absolute monster.

With the town divided along racial lines, the whites not believing that Spearman was guilty, but the blacks too scared to talk to the police, the investigation is tough.

I’m a big fan of John Grisham and Greg Iles, and now that I’ve found S.A Cosby he’s joined the list.

There is something disturbing about the fact there is still a big divide between some communities, along racial lines, in some states in America.

The fact that this book, like the ones penned by Grisham and Iles, bring it to life, and highlight the issue with such believable realism, belies the issues but makes for great stories.

There seem some graphic scenes in this book, especially around the description of disposition scenes, but nothing that should put the reader off.

The story is brilliant, though provoking, and definitely worth reading.

The characters are well written and it’s great to see an author showing the frustrations of investigating a crime, and the mental and emotional effects the scenes, and the investigation have on the Sheriff.

Pages: 353. Publisher: Headline. Audiobook length: 13.05 hours. Narrator: Alex Lazarre-White

Crimson Thaw.

Bruce Robert Coffin

I think I may have found my new favourite American Crime Fiction series

This is book one of four so far published in the Detective Brock Justice series, and the good news for those that have it, its on kindleunlimited.

Set in a small rural community in the north of the state of Maine, close to the Canadian border, the story uses the countryside and lakes to produce a different type of suspense to that where the story is set in a city.

The isolation of each location, the small town everybody-knows-everybody community. The outdoor activities, including hunting and the use of all terrain vehicles, all add to the tension.

The investigation even starts with the recovery of a man, from beneath a remote site on a frozen lake, who had been handcuffed to a snowmobile.

The characters are just as good. The main protagonist is Detective Brock Justice. Once a city detective he has returned home under a cloud. Transferred from the city to his backwater home town force following a dubious shooting of a criminal during an arrest.

It wasn’t him that was accused of the bad shoot, but he was there, and it was partially his fault for not waiting for backup. But he committed the ultimate crime by testifying against his partner who did fire the fatal shot.

That reputation precedes him to his new post and he is never going to be the most popular man in the small team.

Because of his experience he is appointed lead detective on the case of the body recovered from the lake, and is partnered up with a brand new detective recently promoted from uniform. Chloe Wright may be a rookie detective but she has a brain on her, and despite Brock’s reputation she is keen to learn from him.

There may sound like there’s a lot of cliche character traits here but believe me the story, and the characters, are so well written that that is soon overlooked.

I’d describe this book as a cross between Michael Connelly’s Bosch books and C.J Box’s Joe Picket books.

A great I can highly recommend

Pages: 378. Publisher: Severn River Publishing