I've had my nose in a book since I was about 10, thats 50 years. Its about time I shared what I like, or don't like.
Author: nkadams999
An avid reader since I was young and have always found time for books through, two marriages (one still current), the raising of a beautiful daughter, who's now a lovely young woman, a short (5 year) career as a seaman, a long (30 year) career as a Firefighter- Officer/Arson Investigator, and latterly as a Lecturer, on Fire forensics and all things Fire related.
There’s a massive gap in the book market for decent espionage thrillers.
This book fills that gap very nicely thank you.
My formative years of reading, when I really became a proper bookworm , was the mid to late 1970s.
Back then this type of book was a staple in all bookshops.
Writers like DeMille, Ludlum, MacLean and the likes were my favourite reads.
With the exception of the early Tom Clancy books this genre has been sadly neglected ever since.
Until now.
Merritt is right up there with those authors, and has looked at today’s international security threats and come up with a brilliant story.
Stella McRae is a former MI6 Agent runner who is now working in the private sector, having set up her own Intelligence Agency.
When a former colleague is killed after giving her a drunken, rambling, cryptic brief into a current threat she feels compelled to look into it.
Tommy Kane is an ex SAS soldier and the only person Stella trusts to help her as she tries to uncover the threat by moving through Europe.
Back home her only employee Hoss, a nerdy social media and gaming geek, is trying to unravel the cryptic clues given by Stella’s friend, and the new ones she and Tommy are uncovering.
None of this story requires the reader to suspend reality, in fact it’s frighteningly realistic.
As Stella and Tommy work their way through Scandinavia and Europe they begin to uncover a plot to destabilise Europe.
Mystery figures lurk in the back ground prying on local extremest groups and hatching a plot for a multi city terrorist attack.
The one thing Stella’s friend told her in plain, straightforward English, before he was murdered, was “don’t trust anybody. They have people everywhere”
So going it alone is the only option for Stella and Tommy.
But is that a wise move.
A ritualistic murder marks the start of the terror campaign, but is only a small event that goes largely unnoticed.
The main event is days away and the consequences will be horrific and far reaching.
Tommy and Stella push themselves to their limits but will they stop it in time.
I got invited to read the ARC of this and I’m so glad I said yes.
There is no cliffhanger ending but there is an opening for a follow up, and just the thought of that has me excited.
Pages: 400. Publisher: Michael Joseph. Realise Date: 28th May 2026
The story starts with a realistic account of two people trapped in a house fire. Every choice they make in trying to escape is thwarted by something blocking a way out.
Whilst they are in the kitchen trying to break a window they see their murderer through the glass. Begging for help they can’t believe he just looks at them and does nothing.
They don’t survive.
Dr Olivia Winter is a Forensic Psychologist, one of three people working in the newly founded Behavioural Science Administration.
She is unequally qualified and experienced as a serial killer hunter, having escaped her father, who she caught in the act of killing her mother and sister.
But she doesn’t work live crime scenes. She is happy to look at scene videos and recordings and the last thing she wants is to see a live scene for herself.
That changes when DI Amyas Foley calls her to the scene of a particularly gruesome murder in London.
The family of a retired Police Officer, her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren have been murdered, had their faces disfigured and posed as a family group in the mother and father’s bedroom. The retired officers son, the husband and father, was in New York on business and escaped the murder.
This family won’t be the last, and each scene, although similar at the core, become more gruesome.
The investigation is going nowhere, each family are seemingly randomly chosen.
This drives the team to the edge, some are finding a tipping point where they suffer mentally and physically.
This is where Michael Wood is a masterful writer. Nobody, in British Crime Fiction, writes as well a he does about the psychological effects attended serious crime scenes has on the investigators.
From the dark humour to the sleepless nights, from flashbacks to nightmares, he covers it all in the most realistic of manners.
Winters can’t handle the scene and is on a downward spiral. Foley is getting pressure not only from his senior officers to solve the case, but also some of his team who think the use of Winters is a bad idea as they see her unravel.
There are some key peripheral characters in this book and Michael Wood does a great job of subversively building a case for two or three of them being the murderer.
I was convinced I knew who it was, more than once, but the reveal at the end caught me out.
This is a great story in a magnificent series. it could be read as a stand-alone but why miss out on the previous books which are just as good.
Pages: 476. Publisher: One More Chapter. Release date: 31/03/2026
Is it murder if as young woman picks up man to takes him back to her place. But on the way pulls into a rest stop, to let him pee, before tricking him into a nearby waterway and watching him get attacked by an alligator. Something she knew would happen, something she was banking on happening.
That is the way this book starts, and it’s absolutely gripping.
Set in a University in Florida the book looks at how some young men in Frat Houses take advantage of women as if it’s their right.
Not only do they seem to get away with it but they don’t even bother trying to hide their activities, in fact just the opposite they boast about it.
So when some of these men become the victim of alligator attacks is it a coincidence, or is it just bad luck.
Some Police Officers think it’s just bad luck, but some think that there is somebody getting revenge for the countless women abused by these men.
Rebecca is a criminology and journalist student and shares a University suite with a group of other girls.
Rebecca is the sensible one, the one who doesn’t drink, the one who thinks study is more important than partying.
Ellie is the polar opposite. A party girl who thinks studying just gets in the way of her nightlife life style.
Ellie has other problems, she likes to fight, she especially likes to fight the type of men who take advantage of the girls on campus. To exasperate the problem she’s also very vocal about her feelings, in particular she’s loud and proud about the fact that the men that are killed deserve what they got, and shes glad they got it.
Rebecca, and the other suite mates, try to keep Ellie out of trouble with the boys on campus and the Police investigating the deaths, but they are not always successful and Ellie manages to put herself clearly in the frame as the number one suspect.
This book is a brilliant look at crimes and victimology.
The girls who are abused are done so in the worst way, not only do they suffer the physical abuse but they then have to face the mental and emotional abuse as the men brag about their conquests and activities.
The usual defence of “they were asking for it” because of the way they were dressed, or because of the state they got into is at the heart of the story, and unfortunately it rings all to realistic.
But when the abusers become the victims, then things change.
Girls who should be seen as victims suddenly become the target of police inquires.
But as the male victims start to stack up, and as the police investigation is getting nowhere, the killer becomes a mythical street vigilante that the girls on the campus are cheering on, and even celebrating.
Things are changing. The Police need to find the killer but the students are making it difficult.
Rebecca and the other suite mates suspect Ellie is the killer, but shes their friend, and whoever is doing the killing is helping to keep the female students safe, so why should they report her.
In fact they find it hard to talk about it amongst themselves, they all have suspicions, but they all feel guilty sharing them.
Moralistically what would most people do in these circumstances. With no hard proof, just suspicions, would anybody accuse their friend of being a killer, who just also happens to be gaining local hero status, and in the process ridding the world of some scum.
Val McDermid was one of the first U.K. Crime writers I got hooked on, with her Tony Hill series, and for some reason she went off my radar.
I don’t usually buy books based on having watched a TV series, but when Karen Pirie appeared on our screens, even though I was late to the game, I decided to read the first book in the series, Distant Echo.
Why oh why did I stop reading this woman’s books.
Distant Echo
1978. What starts out as an innocent night out at University, for four friends, has an impact on the rest of their lives.
Walking home they find a young woman, Rosie Duff, who has been viciously attacked, bleeding in the snow. They try to help but she dies.
They instantly become the focus of the police investigation, and although only ever “considered” witness by the police, they are damned by public opinion.
When nobody is ever charged with the murder they are always considered the murderers who got away with it.
The four have been friends from childhood and each has their idiosyncrasies, and secrets.
The police become even more suspicious of the boys when they get caught trying to hide the fact that they’d borrowed a fellow students Land Rover, without his permission, on the night of the crime.
The story of the murder, and subsequent investigation takes up much of the first half of the book, and it’s an intriguing read.
The effects of one lie, the car. The test of the relationships between the boys as each begins to doubt one of the others story. They’d been to a house party on the night of the murder, and none of them can account for what they did for the entirety of the time they were there. Could one of them have sneaked out and attacked the girl, who they all knew, from the local pub.
2003. A cold case review team has been set up by the Police. The murder of Rosie Duff is one of the first investigations.
Science has moved forward, so examination of the evidence should help, but it’s gone missing.
The men, now in their forties are still considered by many as the chief suspects and have struggled to escape the rumours that they got away with murder.
Rosies brothers were free with their fists back in the 70’s and one of them hasn’t changed much.
But there’s somebody else out there holding a grudge, and the identity of the killer has never been established.
So when, around the 25th anniversary of the murder approaches, and the four find themselves under threat, and worse, is it somebody out for revenge, or is the real killer trying to stop any reinvestigation by getting rid of the main witnesses.
The second half of the book is addictive as the first.
I changed my opinion three or four times as to who the real killer of Rosie Duff was, but when it was finally revealed it was a real “doh” moment.
That person was on my radar but dismissed, but the reveal made real sense.
As always the book is so much better than the TV adaptation, but I’m glad I watched it to trigger my interest.
Val McDermid is firmly back on my reading list, and right up there with my favourite authors.
A new author to me and I’m really excited to see he has other books already published.
Why?
Because I’ve just read the best British crime thriller I’ve ever read.
Reading is subjective, and not everyone has the same tastes, but for me this book ticked every box, and ticked them in style
Predominantly set from the mid 1930s up till just after the Second World War the story mixes fact with fiction.
Real events, and real people populate the story alongside the fiction.
The fact, in the 1930’s somebody was killing prostitutes in the red light area of Soho. Several murders were attributed to Soho Strangler, a case that was never solved.
These murders form the skeleton for the story in this book. When the first woman is found the Clubs and Vice Unit, known by the locals as “The Dirties” start an investigation.
Lead by DS Leon Geats the team are more known for keeping the girls and their pimps in line, and controlling the gangs running competing clubs which provide drugs and girls.
Geats knows the streets and the people who inhabit them, a proper old school, skull banging policeman.
When senior officers decide to allow the notorious Flying Squad, with their maverick leader Nutty Sharpe, to take over the investigation it only leads to conflict amongst the police, whilst the murder investigation merely trundles along.
Geats is tasked to partner up with one of the flying squad, DS Mark Cassar. The unlikely partnership begin to link several murders, much to the annoyance of Sharpe who is convinced he has his man, but the murders continue.
The murdered women, mainly prostitutes, are factual, as is the leader of the Sweeney. The rest is a cleverly woven, semi factual, brilliant story telling.
The lives of Geats and Cessar are consumed by finding the real killer, with the story moving, at times into the 1960s before finishing, where it started in 2002.
I love stories set in the recent past, with real life settings, where the fiction is knitted into real events and includes real people.
British readers might be familiar with the excellent Charles Holborn series by Simon Michael, and international readers will know of James Ellroy and his books set in 1940s onwards America.
Dominic Nolan is right up there in that category.
The historical events in the book had me disappearing into Google for hours. The story of the Soho Strangler is fascinating and the way Nolan has written it took me right into the heart of 1930s Soho and the police investigation.
Some of the periphery character also prove to be real life people. The Mitford Sister were socialites associated with Oswald Mosley and his Black Shirt fascists. In fact Unity Mitford was umpired to be a lover of Adolf Hitler.
Another few hours spent on Google educated me about them, and what a story that is.
All of the things we hear on the news about London, and other big cities, today were happening in the 1930s Soho.
People trafficking with women being sold into the sex trade. The women having to pay off the debt of the traffickers being forced into prostitution.
To make sure the debt was never paid getting the girls into drugs, which they had to sell their body to purchase.
All of these we think of as today’s problem. But in the 1930s there was another layer.
Some of these women were foreign agents acting for the German military, trying to infiltrate British society, and get access to British troops, and ultimate their knowledge of how Britain was preparing for war.
This all forms part of the story and adds real intrigue.
Who is the murderer, but almost more importantly who are some of the victims, they certainly aren’t who they seem to be.
And if that’s the case, are they just random prostitution who happen to have met the wrong man, or are they women working undercover who have been specifically targeted.
And just to add to all of this, the killer is a pervert with a liking for incapacitating and flogging his victims.
My next few reads are already loaded on my Kindle and it’s no surprise that they are written by Dominic Nolan.
Don’t be fooled by the title or the cover. This is not one of those spicy Fifty Shades of Grey type books. It’s a psychological thriller that explores the alternative sex scene through the eyes of a, as the book describes her, very vanilla woman.
Sarah is a middle aged teacher, married with son in university.
Who, whilst she is away with her husband, she receives the shocking news that Simon, her twin brother, has died suddenly.
She knew Simon had been struggling. Recently divorced he had gambling issues and had spent a lot of money in online chat rooms.
What she wasn’t prepared for was the apparent dive her brother had taken in to in the Brighton BDSM scene.
A lot of his antics are alluded to without going into gratuitous detail.
The other surprise is that he had changed his Will to leave everything to his dominatrix Angel.
The book describes Sarah’s journey of discovery whilst carrying out her role of executor of the Will.
Discovering the depths of his drug use, his gambling addiction and his use of Dominatrixes.
She finds that Angel was actually trying to help Simon by taking control of his finances, a fact that totally throws her off guard, as does the friendship she develops with her
Ultimately she just wants to find the truth about her brother, finish off her role as executor, and scatter his ashes.
What she actually does is find herself being pulled into the world he occupied. Becoming obsessed in her commitment to her brother she finds herself losing friends and family.
Where will the descent end, and will she succumb to some of the temptations that come her way.
For me this was a good quick read. The was no need to think too deeply about the plot. Thankfully it wasn’t one of those books that had me going to Google every few chapters. It was the very definition of bubblegum for the brain. A nice distraction.
Pages: 322. Publisher: Broodlero. Available on Kindle Unlimited
Before I start on the content of the book I’ve just got to comment on the quality of it.
It’s been a while since I held a book that was so aesthetically pleasing, and made of such good quality materials.
The paper quality is really nice, the text is printed in a lovely format, and the two sections of pictures are plentiful and have quality images.
I don’t think I’d realised how badly presented books have become until I picked up this quality product.
So what about the content.
I’ve been a fan of Nigel Owens for years, since well before his one liners and comeback responses started to go viral.
This is a second autobiography by Nigel, Halftime being the first. This book pretty much starts at the darkest time in his life. It’s no secret that he had attempted suicide, and that he’d been very nearly successful. In this book he lays out how he got to that point.
He also details the struggles he had with coming out. Announcing to the world that you are gay can be tough at any time, but within the world of professional sport, particularly one seen to be so alpha male macho, it must have been terrifying.
The reaction from the general population, and in particular the rugby fraternity was fantastic, apart from the odd moron.
The descriptions of some of the memorable moments in his career are an absolute must read for any sports fans.
It’s a measure of the man that he speaks as fondly of refereeing matches in his local Llanelli and District League, as much as he does of refereeing massive internationals between the top countries in the world.
His progress through officiating rugby games sees him taking charge of the World Cup Final in 2015 between New Zealand and Australia. The man with the best seat in the house gives a great account of this, and many other games, most rugby fans would have dreamed to have been in the crowd for.
His self analysis is humbling. Where many would have considered they had done a great job Nigel looks at the one or two decisions he, and his team of officials got wrong.
He’s at pains to point out that the one referee we see is not alone in running the game, touch judges, fourth officials and the TMO, all get credit, and the occasional tongue in cheek jibe. Step forward Wayne Barnes.
He talks about the isolation of the officiating teams during world cups, the elimination of the referees, not always being put down to their performance, but also the success of their home nation. A referee can’t officiate in a game in which their own country play, but also, and as a direct result of a championship he refereed in, they can’t officiate in a game that could have an influence on their home teams progression.
Imagine being the best in the world at what you do, but never been able to reach the pinnacle of your profession because you come from country that keeps getting to the World Cup final. I’m tempted here to say thank god Nigel Owens is Welsh, but as my wife is from Llanelli I might let that slide.
Perhaps the hardest thing to do when you enjoy the job you do, especially when you do it so well, is to know when to quit.
Nigel covers this in the later chapters of the book. A decision that was so nearly taken out of his hands. I recently heard another sportsman say that people at the top of their game are the first to know when they are losing that edge, that extra yard of speed, that extra ounce of strength, but they are the last to admit it.
Nigel seems to be the opposite to this. Towards the end of his career he was slowing down, even though he was in great physical shape. The trouble was rugby was changing, and even the pack were now, in the majority, becoming racing snakes built like brick outhouses.
He didn’t step back and think he couldn’t keep up. He sought help and changed the way he reffed the game. Took up different positions on the pitch, and extended his reign as one of, if not the top Rugby Union Referees right up till the end.
What did he do when he retired, not only is he running a farm with his partner, he has a media presence, and why not he has a great personality.
But the things he mentions right at the end of the book, almost as a few throwaway comments, about how he is helping the next generation of Welsh Rugby Officials will guarantee his legacy.
And whilst the rest of the WRU seems to be in disarray at least we will know the the future of the officiating is in good hands.
Max Boyce used to sing about the The Outside Half Factory buried in the Valleys of West Wales. With Nigel Owens on the production line I’m sure it’s about to reopen producing the men and women in the middle, giving us great match officials who can run a game with a smile on their faces whilst commanding full respect from the players and fans alike.
A brilliant read
My wife got me this book for Christmas and Nigel had put an inscription inside the cover.
It will take pride of place amongst my growing collection of books with inscriptions.
I may have left on of the best reads of 2025 to one of the last reads of 2025.
N. Joseph Glass is a new name to me but one I will be watching out for.
The story is that of the investigation into the murder of Sandra Rawlings, an innocent 17 year old, church going girl.
A girl who it appears has been murdered by a serial killer who had previously killed eleven young girls, of a similar age, but having not been caught has laid dormant for four years. Is Sandra really the 12th victim of a man who killed girls who had either just lost their virginity, or are just about to.
The story is cleverly told via six main characters, all of which have equal billing. Each chapter has one of these characters at its centre but is not written in the first person.
Walker Michaels is the veteran senior detective who was the lead on the first series of murders. A middle age man with virtues and an ethos that are typical of his age and experience.
Brandon Jones, the junior detective on his first murder case. His youth and enthusiasm, along with his misplaced confidence and machismo getting him into trouble with his more experienced partner.
The other main characters are the immediate family of the dead girl.
Allen Rawlings, a hard working man who is a pastor in the local church. An oxymoron of a man he rules his own house with a sullen harsh hand. At the same time he is having an affair with a foxy single mother in his congregation.
His wife Sonya, the down trodden and at heal wife who outwardly defends her husband attitudes and actions, whilst secretly harbouring more liberal thoughts.
Their son, Connor, a typical moody teenage boy who spends most of his time on his computer shielded from the outside world by his headphones. His sisters death brings him closer to his mom and he starts to rebel against his dad.
There are peripheral characters that add to the investigation. The mysterious M, who it quickly become obvious is a killer.
Pete, one of the other Pastors and Charlotte, the single mother Allen Rawlings is having an affair with.
The plot is nicely written with a fast pace.
I like to think I’ve usually got an idea of who the killer is relatively early in a book, not this one.
And the reveal when it came, although surprising, wasn’t one of those unlikely or unrealistic reveals. It was perfectly in context, just really well hidden.
Pages: 404. Publishers: Monocle Books. Available on Kindle unlimited.
Adverts for this book kept appearing on my timelines, and after reading the gumph, and some reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a go.
I wasn’t disappointed, at first.
I read on a kindle so page numbers don’t really mean anything but at 85% into the book things started to go rapidly downhill.
The pretext of the book is that a woman, Hannah Herbst, has confessed to killing her family; her husband and their son, and her step daughter.
She is a consultant that works for the Police examining facial expressions and reading lie tells.
The problem is she cannot look at her own face in the mirror, scared of what she might see in her own personality.
It is a real problem when she wakes up with short term memory loss having suffered a self inflicted knife injury following the attack.
She’s been arrested and has made a full confession, on video.
The man showing her the video of her confession is also a serial killer, and he has taken Hannah hostage when he escaped.
All this might sound very confusing but it’s actually the backdrop to a really good story, up until that last 15% of the book.
It becomes evident quite early on that Hannah probably didn’t carry out the attack that left her husband and step daughter dead and her son missing presumed taken and killed.
But that last 15% basically shifts through every character named in the book being identified as the killer only for each hypothesis to be wiped out by the next.
Each is more fanciful than the previous and as a reader I was left giddy by the amount of twist and turns the last few chapters took.
I don’t do star rating but if I did, the first 85% would be a 5 star rating, the last 15% a generous two star.
Every now and then a TV series will hit the screens stating it’s based on the books of a best selling author.
If the series looks good I’ll try to read the book before watching the program, especially if I’ve never heard of the book series.
This was the case with the Copper and Fry series that recently started on Channel 5 (UK November 2025). The previews looked really good so I looked up the books. I was surprised I’d never heard of Stephen Booths books, there’s 18 in the series, and it’s my favourite genre.
Black Dog introduces DCs Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. Who police the Peak District.
Cooper is a local man. He is well respected and thought highly of by his peers and bosses, and is favourite to be promoted into the upcoming vacancy for a DS.
Fry is a fast track graduate who has just transferred from the West Midlands Police.
They are polar opposites in their professional approach, private lives, and attitudes.
Cooper is very much the local lad cop, he knows everybody and everybody knows him, the problem is many civilians only know him as his father’s son, a well respected Police Officer who died on duty.
And that really annoys him.
He has problems at home, his mother is suffering severe mental illness, and it’s taking its toll on him and his extended family, all of who live on the family farm.
Fry is battling her own problems, her and her sister had been in care since she was very young, her sister, already a drug addict, hasn’t been seen since she was sixteen.
Then there’s the reason she left the WMP, a dark secret she is desperate to keep from her new colleagues.
Set in 1999 the police are still plagued by old attitudes, especially towards fast tracked graduates, who have come from a Met force, and just happen to be young attractive females.
The story of the murder which is investigated in the book almost seems secondary to the setting the scenes of the two main characters and preparing the reader for what is to come.
For what it’s worth the murder is that of a young girl. The daughter of a couple that moved into a large house in the peaks. Rumours abound that orgies and sex parties are regular occurrences at the house.
Three old men, World War Two veterans are at the centre of the investigation. Arrogant doesn’t begin to describe these characters and they quickly become frustrations to the police, and the reader.
Fry and Cooper work together as DCs and in a way there is a begrudging respect beneath a simmering contempt. Expected a will they, won’t they, thread in the series.
I enjoyed the story and the characters, but, and for me it’s a big but, there is way too much spurious writing. As an example Fry leaves the Police Station after one of her first shifts, and goes straight home to her flat. That journey takes eight pages and contributes nothing to the story, and there are a lot of examples of that throughout the book.
There were times I found myself speed reading through five or six pages that held no relevant content.
Will I read more of the series. Yes, it will be one of those I dip into occasionally but it won’t be one I binge read.
nigeladamsbookworm 