Category: Blogger

The Hidden Child. Rebecca Griffiths

One of my often used phrases is “I love a book that gets me reaching for Google” and this is one of those books.

In fact it made me realise just how much I didn’t know about the Myra Hindley and Ian Brady murder spree that took place in the early 1960’s.

Maybe it was because the murders took place when I was two or three years old, maybe I thought I knew more about them because they have been in and out of the news ever since.

Rebecca Griffiths has taken those murders and woven a great story around them.

Ronald is a farmer, on Saddleworth Moor. He’s reclusive and keeps himself to himself.

It’s a solitary life and that’s what he wants. So when a couple start to appear on his land, he notices them straight away. When he starts to hear news reports about missing children he quickly realises what the mystery couple are up to.

But what can he do about it.

Go to the police, no way. Ronald has his own reasons for not wanting the Police snooping around his land.

Ronald is a great character, conflicted, would be the best way to describe him. But his story is tough and at times emotional.

Hindley and Brady, there victims, and the families of the victims are written about tactfully but grittily. In fact at times it’s a bit of a tough read when you realise that part of the story is factual

Books which weave fact and fiction can go both ways, really good, or really bad, this one is definitely in the really good category.

Rebecca Griffiths has used just the right mixture of fact and fiction, in fact it’s that good a mixture that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I hadn’t got to the end and found that I’d been reading a book bringing new evidence, and revealing new crimes. There have been rumours for years that there are more victims of Hindley and Brady, and that maybe there was another accomplice.

This book doesn’t open the door of another accomplice but it does open the door on other murders, and that’s where the fiction kicks in.

This is a great read. Weather you remember the Moors Murders, or as was my case, thought you knew a bit about them, I can guarantee that by the end of this book you will have used whatever research engines you have available to you, and learnt a lot more.

The story is great, the jump between what is present and what is past, within the story is sometimes a bit blurred and I got confused once or twice, but that may have been because I was reading it none stop. It hooked me from the start.

Print length: 361 pages. Audio book length: 10 hours 47 minutes. Publisher : Bookouture

A Life For A Life. Carol Wyer

Carol Wyer is one of those authors who I look for. When her books are out up for review I grab them as soon as possible.

There’s a reason for this. She ticks all of my boxes when it comes to crime fiction.

Great characters, great settings, realistic stories, gritty, and no guarantee of a happy ending.

The Kate Young series has been her best so far, and A Life For A Life just takes it to another level.

Kate is made SIO when a seemingly innocent, if somewhat irritating, young man is found dead on a train station platform. He’s been shot in the head with a stun bolt, like those used to kill animals in abattoirs.

But he’s only the first victim, there will be others.

Meanwhile Kate is still trying to expose the bent Senior Police Officer she believes is responsible for the murder of her husband.

Her husband was a journalist who had been investigating a story involving high profile men abusing underage youths, of both sexes, in a sex club.

One of the underage youths had been killed by an over zealous customer whilst The Senior Police Officer was abusing a young girl in the neighbouring room. Now that girl is on the run and Kate knows she’s the only person who will have information to help her nail the dirty cop.

How far will Kate go in her attempts to avenge her husband, and how much will it affect her ability to perform as a normal day-to-day SIO.

The continuing story of Kates attempt to get justice for her husband runs nicely in parallel to the core story of this book, the investigation into the murders.

There’s another parallel that binds Kate and the Killer, but I really can’t mention it without giving a big spoiler. However when you read the book you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, and just how clever Carol Wyer has been to use it.

This is crime fiction at its very best. It also shows why U.K. Crime Fiction is so popular and successful right now.

Fast paced, realistic crime, that just grips the reader and takes them on one hell of a ride.

A brilliant read.

Print length: 363 pages. Audio Book: 10 hours 5 minutes. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

The West London Murders and The Bisley Wood Murders by Biba Pearce

Books two and three in the brilliant London based crime series.

DI, or Acting DCI, Rob Miller is a great character. In his personal life he is the quiet man who seems almost shy. In his professional life he is thought of as the quiet but efficient background officer.

But in the first book of the series he was given a chance to be the SIO on what appeared to be a run of the mill murder. This turned out to be anything but run of the mill, and his ability as as leader, and as an investigator shone through.

It’s no surprise that he is given a second run at SIO in book 2, The West London Murders, when a man is stabbed to death in what appears a random attack.

As the investigation gets going it soon becomes evident that the National Crime Agency was aware of the man. Rob and his team are asked to lay of the main suspect as the NCA have him as one of their main targets in a County Lines investigation, which could lead to a major drug gang being taken off the streets.

When another death is linked to that of the first victim it becomes apparent that neither murder has anything to do with the drugs gang, and that a murder investigation is the Mets priority.

Rob is reunited with Jo Maguire, now working for the NCA, they both have their own priorities, Rob the murder investigation, Jo the drug gangs and their suppliers.

Can they play nicely and satisfy both of their bosses, can they solve the murders without jeopardising the drug investigation.

Just as intriguing, where will their own relationship go, now that Rob is in a very unstable marriage.

In the third book, The Bisley Woods Murders, Rob is made SIO when a young girl goes missing. A body is found but it’s not that young girl, it’s another one, and she’s been buried for years.

When the girl who Rob was initially tasked to find turns up safe and well it’s not the end of the investigation, because by this time a body dump has been found, and the team are looking for somebody who has been killing young girls for years.

How has this not been picked up before? It’s a testament to Pearce’s writing that I never asked that question. The flow of the story is brilliant, and realistic, it highlights how easy it is for mass killers to go unnoticed.

From the start the investigation is hampered in the most unexpected of ways. But this leads to the discovery of the burial sites. It also throws the investigation team down blind alleys in the investigation.

The frustration of the team is only added to when it becomes personal for one of their number.

Can the murdered in London be linked to The disappearance of Jo Maguire’s sister nearly 20 years ago.

I came late to this series, and I’m loving catching up.

It’s like that TV series you didn’t catch first time around and now you’re binge watching it.

It’s compulsive. The crimes are really well conceived and realistic. The setting, the London Suburbs is perfect for the story. Most importantly, for me, I can engage with the characters.

Rob Miller is brilliant, he is just an ordinary man, a bit shy and a little insecure in everything except his commitment to an investigation. His personal life is in turmoil. As the series starts he is engaged to a high maintenance girl who, in everyday terms is well above his punching weight.

By the second book they are married but in a very unstable relationship. In typical man style he ignores the situation at home to concentrate on his cases, but his home life is always on his mind.

And then there’s Jo. A career focused young woman who Rob finds solace with, and both of them would want more if he wasn’t married.

There are conundrums in the investigations and Robs personal life that keep these stories going at just the right pace.

A great series.

Publisher Joffe Books. Print Length: 266 & 338 pages. Available now

The Thames Path Killer. Biba Pearce

DI Rob Miller is somewhat of an anomaly amongst Police Detectives.

He comes across as shy and a bit insecure. Conversely, in his private life, he is engaged to an ex underwear model who now works on a beauty counter at Harrods.

When the body of a woman turns up on a secluded path Robs boss gives him his first major investigation as Senior Investigating Officer, all his other DI’s are busy.

But Rob is good, and the small team he gathers together are just as good, as well as being dedicated and supportive. Which is more than can be said for his fiancé. She hates him working outside “office hours”

The age old struggle between a detectives home life and their professional life is brilliantly portrayed in the interaction between the pair.

When another body is found it’s inevitable Rob will start to spend many late hours at work, but with pressure coming on him to solve the murders Rob is determined to see the case through as SIO.

The pressure mounts when a team from Lewisham MIT are drafted in to help and it has DCI who is taking charge of the case.

The DCI is a young woman, on fast track promotion, known to be the star in the eye of the Senior Ranks in the Met.

How will she and Rob work together, what will the dynamics of the newly formed team be.

This is a fantastic story by an author I have only just discovered. The book is the first in a series, and I’ve just downloaded the rest of the series onto my Kindle, and once I’ve reviewed a book I’m committed to reading next, I will read the rest of the series straight away.

I read in a review of this book that the rape murder scene was too explicit. That it could act as a trigger for victims of abuse.

I have no doubt it could be a trigger, and I would warn any reader that finds the subject difficult to skip the pages covering that part of the story.

But graphic, I don’t know, I’ve read a lot worse. Yes it is there, and it doesn’t leave the reader in any doubt about what’s happening, but if the one or two pages were taken out the book would lose a part of the story that gives it that psychological thriller hook.

The crime and the investigation is the main part of the story. But I love characters, you can have the best story in the world, but if the characters are weak, or poorly written, the story doesn’t work for me.

The story, and the characters in this book are great.

I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

Print length: 210. Publisher Joffe Books. Available now

When Does Crime Fiction Become Historical Crime Fiction

I was recent.y looking through a book shop and found that Colin Dexter’s Morse books were in the Historic Crime Section.

Now, I’m not old, I’m sixty this year, and I read The Morse series in the early 2000’s. I didn’t consider them old, in fact I enjoyed the transition made in Policing and technology, and the way Morse struggled with it.

Maybe it’s because the first book in the series was published in the mid 1970’s. I left home and started my first job in the Merchant Navy in 1977 so I had lived the era Dexter had written about.

So. Is it because of that I don’t consider books from that era as being Historic.

My current reading dispels that. I’m reading The Final Shot, by Simon Michael, book seven in the excellent Charles Holborn series.

This series is predominantly set in the 1960’s in London. Holborn is a Barrister who, because of his Jewish background, has suffered bigotry from his fellow Legal professionals, whilst suffering generally because of his association with people in the London Gangland scene. Including the notorious Kray Twins.

This is a series set before I was born and into my infant years, an era I have no association with, yet I don’t consider it historic. Is this because it’s being written today?

My favourite series, which I would consider Historic, is C J Samson’s Shardlake books set during the reign of Henry VIII. Surely by definition historic, but being written today. So my opinion isn’t being swayed by when the book is written.

I tried to look back at books I’d read and consider when they were set, and when they were written.

I enjoyed the near the knuckle writing of James Elroy in his L.A Quartet set in the 1950’s. A harsh read about the decade before my birth. But I don’t consider it historic.

I’ve never been a big Agatha Christie fan, but I have read a few of her books, mainly set in the 1920s, Historic, no, more old fashioned.

In the end I decided on the great Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes books as being the earliest books I would consider as being classed as true Historic Fiction. The series started being written in 1887 and was set in the same era.

That only left me one quandary. Can I really call everything set in the twentieth and twenty first century as Modern Crime Fiction.

That is a huge time span and the more recent modern crime fiction is set against a more scientific, and forensic, background that sets it apart from books that are written about times as late as the mid 1990’s.

In my mind I’ve now separated crime fiction into three groups, and this helps me to know what to expect of a story. It depends on when a book was set, and not when it was written.

Modern Crime Fiction, anything that is set in a time period post 1990.

Nostalgic Crime Fiction, anything set between 1900 and 1990.

Historic Crime Fiction, anything set pre 1900.

I’m sure that there are people who will have their own ideas and opinions, and my categories are purely for my own benefit, but Dexter’s Morse, Historic, I don’t think so.

Stolen Angels. Rita Herron

Crooked Creek is setting up to be Americas Midsummer.

A great place to set crimes, with its idealistic location, and it’s sometimes eccentric characters.

Detective Ellie Reeves has investigated murders before but the one thing that strikes home, and that gets into her head is child kidnappings.

When the first girl is reported missing it’s bad enough. But then a reporter gets told another girl has been taken.

An unlikely alliance is formed between Reeves and the reporter. Then the discovery, these are not the first girls to go missing. Is it a coincidence that another went missing on the same day the year before.

The community is up in arms with Ellie being the focus of their consternation.

Can she find the girls.

This is a great book but the one thing that makes it standout is the perpetrator.

Rita Herron is really going down the psychological thriller road with this story and the way the perpetrator is portrayed is brilliant.

Reeves and her team are well established in the other books in the series but the peripheral characters in this book are outstanding.

As a series this is one of the best out of America at the moment.

This book elevates the series, but can be read as a standalone.

Print length: 448 pages. Publisher: Bookouture. Audio book playing time: 9 hours 15 minutes

After Everything You Did. Stephanie Sowden

Another new writer to me, but one I will definitely be looking for in the future.

A young woman, Reeta, wakes up shackled to a bed in hospital.

Two Federal Agents tell her she is the killer of at least four women, two of which are still missing.

The problem is Reeta has suffered serious injuries and has no memories pre-waking up in hospital.

The Agents want to keep her in the blind about her past, unconvinced she has no memory.

They try to deal with her to get back the two missing bodies, but she is adamant she can’t remember a thing.

Set in 1966 in America, with the lack of todays science, two Agents try to bully and cajole a confession from Reeta.

Nobody will tell Reeta who she is, she wants to know where her family are. Latching on to one news report she approaches the reporter to find out about her past life.

Carol, the reporter initially hates Reeta, but soon realises she really does have no memory, and starts to be suspect of the Federal Agents methods. Surely they should tell Reeta about her past.

Her past involves been born into a religious colt, led by the mysterious Jeb.

I was convinced I knew how this plot was going to culminate. I was wrong.

There are little red herrings all leading in one direction, but I couldn’t call it misleading, more intriguing.

The characters are brilliantly engaging, and the plot is compelling. This book had me in a bear hug from page 1 and kept me there until the last full stop.

Print length: 327 pages. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Publishing date : 7th April 2022

The Dying Game. Ruhi Choudhary

Do you want to play a game..a simple question with chilling consequences.

A beautiful woman murdered, a local man committed suicide leaving a note saying he had to killed her.

A open and closed case until another person is murdered.

Then the first clue, a letter. somebody is showing people how vulnerable a member of their family is. The question. Do you want to play a game. Kill the person I deliver to you or a member of your family dies. Your choice.

Detective Mackenzie Price is assigned the case, and immediately starts to send ripples through the small community she works in.

One of the families involved is old money rich, and they have influence.

But with more people going missing, and now knowing they only have a limited time to find them, she doesn’t care who she upsets, or what the consequences might be.

The way Ruhi Choudhary writes always grips me. She has a way of guiding the story down avenues that always make me think, I’ve got this, only to find it’s another clever plot twist.

But that’s what makes it so good. Real police investigation is all about building hypotheses, the investigators investing their theory, until it’s proven wrong and they have to back track and build another

It’s always about the clues you don’t see, often right in front of your eyes, the clue that only takes relevance when that one piece of the jigsaw falls into place, and you finally see the relevance of the picture.

This is where Choudhary is the master. She lets little things slip into the story that help build the final hypothesis. There’s no sudden revelation of a clue, or suspect who hasn’t been in the story until almost the end.

Everything is there in the build up, but can you spot it. I’m usually quite good at spotting it, but not till really late in these stories.

A great book in a brilliant series. Yes it can be read as a standalone. No it won’t ruin the earlier books if you choose to go back and read them.

Loved it.

Print length: 382 pages. Audio book running time: 10 hours 45 Publisher: Bookouture

The Body Beneath The Willows. Nick Louth

The fourth book in the DCI Craig Gillard series, but just in case you’re put off by that, this book can easily be read as a standalone without losing any of its impact.

For crime fiction fans I’d describe Gillard as a character similar to Lewis from the Morse spin-off series. Nothing is unusual about him. He’s an honest cop, a family man who is happily married, even if he has a mad aunty who occasionally gives him hassle on the domestic front. He just gets on with the job, and that make really comfortable read.

The Publishers Gumph

On the tree-lined banks of Surrey’s River Wey, a decaying corpse is dug up by workmen in the middle of an Anglo-Saxon burial site. His modern dental fillings show that this is no Dark Age corpse…

DCI Craig Gillard is called in, but the body’s condition makes identification difficult. One man, however, seems to fit the bill: Ozzy Blanchard, a contractor employed by the same water firm doing the digging who disappeared six months ago, his crashed company car found nearby.

But then an X-ray of the corpse throws the investigation into turmoil. A shard of metal lodged in his neck turns out to be part of an Anglo-Saxon dagger unknown to archaeologists. Who wielded this mystery weapon and why? Does the answer lie in a murderous feud between two local families?

The deeper Gillard digs, the more shocking truths he will uncover.

A totally original crime mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Body Amongst the Willows is an absolute thrill-ride, perfect for fans of Michael Connelly, Ann Cleeves and Mark Billingham

What I thought

Nick Louth has created a great character in Gillard. The story clatters along at a great pace, and takes enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, without stepping into the realm of the improbable, or impossible. It’s very realistic.

There’s a clever thread running through the book that had me convinced I’d spotted who the murderer was, but no, I was wrong.

Gillard is written in such a way that you can feel his frustrations as the investigation seems to hit brick walls.

This is made even more realistic by the fact that Louth has fully embraced the way of the world today. He is the first author, that I’ve read, who has taken on the way the pandemic is affecting the country, the reduced number of Police Officers available, working from home, the mental effect of lockdown.

Nick Louth books are very much of the now, and I suspect in years to come people will read them and remember the period we’re going through. Hopefully as a distant memory.

Print Length 306 pages. Publisher Canelo Crime. Published 27th January 2022

The House Fire Rosie Walker

As a retired Fire Officer I didn’t know quite what to expect of this book.

What I got was a great read.

Don’t be fooled by the title. Yes fire, and arson, are a running theme but it’s the story of why the fires are being set that makes this book stand out.

It’s the story of one woman, Jamie, and her partner, Spider, trying to make a TV documentary about a series of fire that hit a town in the 1980’s. It’s about the fire setter starting over again and threatening Jamie and her family.

Jamie’s family also play a central role. Her mothers new husband, a minor TV News reporter, and her young sister just don’t get on. The new husband, is he just too good to be true. The little sister is she just being a teenage brat.

The family dynamics examined in this book are a big part of what makes the story so compelling, and at times chilling.

At times this book seems a bit Nancy Drew, at others it’s very much straight off the pages of Val McDermid, and that blends it into a great psychological thriller .

Print length: 343. Publisher: One More Chapter. Published on 6th January 2022