Category: book blog

Zodiac. Conrad Jones

It’s a common name in serial killers, one factual and many fictional but this Zodiac story is a real standout. One of the fastest paced psychological thrillers I’ve read for a while, and what a story.

With a time line that dances back and forward between previous kills and the current investigation the tension is built quite quickly.

The first murder, four years ago is brilliantly written without being gratuitous, the tension of a girl walking through the woods to her death, alluding to the horrors she’s been through since she was kidnapped, and the way she is about to die, without going into the gore of a complete description.

Today, a young brother and sister leave home with no breakfast, their mom and dad still in bed sleeping of last nights alcohol and drugs excesses, witness a gang fight on a bus. Two teenagers are killed one stabbed, the other hit by a car as he runs from the scene.

Another day on the streets of Liverpool. They live in a low socioeconomic area where kids hang out around a row of shops at night, where rumours are rife that the owners of the shop are grooming young girls, but those girls don’t care because they are actually getting the attention they should be getting at home, but it comes at a cost.

One of the boys killed on the bus is the son of one of Liverpools biggest organised crime groups. A violent man who leads a violent gang.

He wants the killer of his son.

More girls go missing and eventually bodies start to turn up.

It is when all of these seemingly isolated strands start to knit together that things really start to get dangerous on the streets.

The Police are running investigations into missing persons, murders, grooming, and organised crime gangs. Some of these are linked, some are just distractions that throw red herrings in their direction, but ultimately they realise they are after one person. The Zodiac.

The problem is the head of the Gang is also running an investigation, and his interrogation techniques are not as friendly as the police’s, his crew don’t have to stay within the niceties of the law, they can use things like pliers, drills and blowtorch’s.

Who will untangle the threads of the investigation first. Will the Gangs attempts to find their bosses sons killer get in the way of the police’s attempts to find Zodiac, or is it really one person they are both after.

I loved this book, well nearly. The cadence of the story telling is wonderful. The plot is fantastically woven right up to the last page it provides shocks and twist. But……there is a but.

Why do authors go to so much trouble getting the crime and policing side of a story right and then do such a poor job of other aspects.

There are two major scenes where the Fire Service is involved in this book, and the inaccuracies and naivety of these sections of the book was in stark contrast to the rest of the story.

I know not many people would pick up on this but I’m sure a few will.

For me, if I was writing reviews with ratings, this would have dropped an easy five star to a four. If those scenes had have been at the start of the book I would have put it down, but thankfully I was fully hooked by then.

Would I recommend it yes. It does get a bit gory in places, but it’s well placed, essential to the story, and not overly graphic.

The sections where the author talks about grooming are well written and I wouldn’t really say there’s any section I would warn about for triggering.

It is one of the best UK based psychological thrillers I’ve read for a very long time.

Pages: 402. Publisher: Red Dragon Books.

Hunted Abir Mukherjee

If you’ve missed the type of book that Robert Ludlum wrote back in the 70s and 80s, or some of the early Tom Clancy novels, then this book set firmly in the modern day is definitely for you.

Hunted is set against the backdrop of an imminent American Presidential Election, very thinly disguised and based on Trump v Harris, and hints that one of them, or at the least their supporters, are trying to sway the election by setting up terrorist attacks on US soil.

Young vulnerable Asian women are being groomed to join a US Terror Cell, but they are not being told the truth about the severity of there actions, or the cause they are fighting for.

Somebody wants to make it look as though there is a Muslim Terror Cell working in America.

After an explosion in a Mall FBI Agent Shreya Mistry manages to see CCTV footage of the alleged attacker, but she looks like she’s running away, not planting a bomb.

Mistry has difficulty getting her bosses to agree with her and finds herself increasingly distanced from the investigation.

Meanwhile and American mother goes to the U.K. to find the family of another Asian girl who is believed to be part of the cell. The mother’s white and is convinced her son is also part of the cell, but knows he can’t be acting out of principles the American Government Agencies, and the press, are attributing to the cell.

She convinces the father to go to the States with her to find their children before the FBI does, because she’s afraid they won’t be listened to fairly, if at all.

The title the hunted come onto play here. The mismatched couple are hunting their children. The FBI are hunting the cell, and also the mother and father team who they now think are also terrorists.

So, who is the puppeteer grooming and guiding the would be activists into terrorism.

And what s their ultimate goal.

I loved this book. It took me right back to the books that hooked me as a young adult. This sits nicely alongside Ludlum, Clancy, and DeMille as a brilliantly tense terrorism novel.

Hopefully there will be a follow up. It doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but there is scope for another book.

Pages: 468. Publisher: Vintage Audiobook length: 13 hours 21. Narrator: Mikhail Sen

Onyx Storm Rebecca Yarros

To start with I acknowledge that I am not the target audience for this book.

Last year I read the first two in the series, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, as a challenge to myself to read a different genre, and I really enjoyed them.

This book, the third, has been really hyped over the two or three months prior to its publication, and I was one of the people really looking forward to seeing what happened after the cliff hanger at the end of Iron Flame .

Before I read it I saw some reviews where people were stating that they were struggling to catch up with the plot or make sense of where the story picked up immediately after the end of the last book.

Some even went as far as to say they had reread Iron Flame just to make sense of the start of this book.

The story told through the series is actually quite complex, with people of different families having different allegiances, dragons and other mythical monsters forming bonds with different people, all having their own intricacies.

So with Iron Flame finishing at the end of a vicious battle, which saw a whirlwind of death, injury, and changing sides, it’s easy to see why people were a bit bamboozled, I was over 100 pages in before I was comfortable with being caught up and on the right track.

Onyx Flame continues in the aftermath of a battle. Lines had been crossed and alliances tested, stretched and in some cases broken.

Spoiler alert if you haven’t read the first two books

Xaden is not all that he seems, he has bad blood running through him, poisoning his soul and it should be turning him to the dark side, but he’s fighting it.

Violet won’t accept that she’s losing him and sets out, with her friends from the Fourth Wing, to try and find a cure. This involves trying to locate the mythical seventh breed of dragon.

At the same time the Wyvern are attacking with towns and villages falling.

As Xaden tries to hide his changing bloodline he helps to battle the type of beings that he is turning into.

During the quest, and one of the ensuing battles Violet meets her ultimate enemy, the her of the enemy, and only one of them can be allowed to live, unless Violet crosses over.

Although the main gist of this story is the quest to find a cure, and the seventh breed, it’s also a story of war and politics, and as with the previous book’s loyalties

And of course the relationship between Violet and Xaden.

I put a warning on my blog about the first two books, that although they were classed as young adult, they contained some graphic spice scenes. I was amazed how many people replied thanking me because their young, thirteen and fourteen year old, teenagers had been asking for the books as presents. Well if anything the spice in this book is even more graphic.

So what did I really think of the book.

Would I have read it all the way through if I hadn’t read the first two. No, I read this because I became invested in the whole story.

If this was the first book would I have been as engaged. No, if this was the first book I would have given in after the first fifty or sixty pages.

Will I read the next instalment. Yes. I’m invested in the characters and as this book ends on an even bigger cliff hanger than the last one I feel compelled to read whatever comes next.

That’s the sign of a clever author. Like Ink Black Heart in the Strike books by Robert Galbraith, I might not have loved the book, but the ongoing story has me hooked, but if the next one is in the same vain as this one, it might be my last.

Publisher Piatkus. Pages 544. Audiobook length 23.54 hours. Narrator Jasmin Walker

Hidden. Kendra Elliott

Billed as book 1 in the Bone Secrets series, and what an opener.

Looking online there are 5 books in this series, so far, and I can’t wait to get stuck into the next one.

Forensic Odontologist Lacey Campbell is young and at the beginnings of her career. A lecturer at her local Dental School, and occasional forensic consultant, she is called to a scene where a collection of bones have been discovered.

She quickly realises she knows the victim. The last time she had seen the girl she had been taken by a serial killer, and became his last victim.

The bones are found in a building belonging to a medically retired cop, Jack Harper.

Jack had once dated another victim of the killer, and when his ex cop partner is found tortured to death, links start to fall in place. That cop had been one of the officers to catch the killer.

An uneasy alliance forms as Lacey and Jack start to work on their own theories.

Both come under suspicion by the officers investigating the current killings.

But what is the link?

Can Lacey really trust Jack?

A great story. I don’t know where the series will go next, which characters will return, but there’s enough interesting subplots in this book to open many avenues.

Lacey is young, hot, and hot blooded. Her character is a really enjoyable read.

The relationship with Jack is steamy. They are both passionate about finding this killer, and that passion boils over into a will-they-won’t-they scenario.

Jack is a business owner who owns many properties. He was a cop for a short time, until an arrest went wrong and he got injured. He had returned for a short while but found it wasn’t right for him so joined his father’s business.

Then there’s Lacey’s friend Michael, a no nonsense journalist who she once dated but is now best friends with.

Set in the coastal state Oregon there is loads of potential for crimes to investigate, big cities, isolated towns, seaports, the list could be endless

So let’s see where it goes next.

Pages: 373. Publisher: Montlake Romance (Don’t know why, it’s definitely a crime thriller)

The Unravelling Vi Keeland

A dark psychological thriller with some well disguised twists that keep coming right up to the last page.

Written in the first person from Dr Meredith McCalls point of view.

At the start of the book McCall is a successful psychiatrist, with her own practice in New York. Her marriage, to a NHL Hockey player is perfect, but then he suffers an injury on the ice.

The first few chapters alternate between McCall now, as she struggles to get over her husbands death, and the incident that killed him, and the lead up to the incident as her husband turns to drink and pain killers.

A young woman and her daughter were also killed in the incident and all the evidence points towards it being her husbands fault.

In the present McCall fixates on Gabriel. The husband and father of the woman and girl that were killed by her husband.

She’s just finishing a years ban from practicing and is completing mandatory counselling herself, but although she knows what she is doing is wrong she struggles to tell her therapist the entire truth.

When she starts back, at her practice, Gabriel turns up as a patient. She should turn him away……….

The story follows the way she starts to unravel, lack of sleep, increased drinking, mood swings brought about by distracting herself with dating apps.

Some of her other patients mirror her own thoughts and actions, she can see it’s wrong in them, and can give them advice. So why can’t she help herself.

Her unraveling is going to ruin her, both professionally, and as a person, but can she put a stop to it.

This book is brilliantly written.

It’s psychologically dark.

The twists in the plot are well hidden until they hit.

There is a bit of “spice” but it’s not gratuitous, it adds to the story, and believe it or not, the suspense.

A big recommendation for this one from me.

Pages: 305. Publisher: Piatkus Audiobook length: 8 hours 45 minutes Narrator: Aidan Snow

Books of the Year

It’s that time of year again. Hopefully all the presents are brought and wrapped.

I just thought I’d look back at my favourite reads of the year, and add links to my original blogs

My favourite book this year is by Greg Iles. Southern Man is the culmination of of the Penn Gage series. Which in turn is probably my favourite modern American Crime series. Set in the Deep South it looks at the effects that one man can have on an electoral campaign. When I was reading it I thought “Trump” now, scarily, I’m thinking “Musk”

Is a great story to finish off a brilliant series

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/07/06/southern-man-greg-iles/

Talking of series my favourite new find in British Crime Fiction, is the Cassie Raven series by A.K Turner. Raven is a school drop out, goth, who finally settled down and has become a Senior Morgue Technician.

She has a forensic eye, and a deductive mind, and pairs up with Phyllida Flyte a Police Detective who, in personality, is about as far removed from Raven as possible. But they make a formidable team in this series. I found and binge read the series without breaking to read anything else. Yes it hooked me.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/08/03/body-language-life-sentence-case-sensitive-and-dead-fall-by-a-k-turner/

The biggest surprise for me, this year, has been the fact that I was intrigued by the amount of people I saw reading Fantasy books. Every time I jumped on a train, every coffee shop I went in somebody, and on many occasions quite a few people, were reading fantasy books. All age groups, and all genders, seem to be reading these books. So I thought I’d try one.

One of my favourite crime authors, and fellow book blogger Noelle Holten, recommended Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. This was the second in a series so I downloaded Fourth Wing, the first, and with some trepidation dived in. I was instantly enthralled by what is, at its core,the story of a girl who joins the army and goes through basic training. The difference being people die when they fail. And instead of modern technology the armies rely on magic and dragons.

Oh and it’s spicy. When I downloaded it of Amazon it was listed as youth and young adult fiction. On my initial blog I had several people replying thanking me for being honest about the “spice” as they had considered buying it for their early teenage kids.

It’s definitely an 18 if you are going to use the movie classifications.

Both books are fantastic and I have the third on preorder and can’t wait for publication in January.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2023/12/11/fourth-wing-and-iron-flame-by-rebecca-yarros/

There are other series I haven’t mentioned. Angela Marsons has added two books to the Kim Stone series, and this is always going to be my favourite UK Police Procedural series. Set in the Black Country, great characters, both recurring and occasional. Utterly brilliant.

The True Crime, and autobiographical book Every Contact Leaves a Trace, by Jo Ward is a gritty read by one of the UKs top CSIs. Jo has been on TV a few times in fly-on-the-wall documentaries about murders in the West Midlands.

What those programs don’t show is what’s going on in the Forensic Scientists mind, how some cases can have an adverse effect on the mind and the body.

I have worked a few times with Jo and to see her put her heart on her sleeve like this is tremendous. It’s a must read for crime fans but should be compulsory for anybody thinking of joining the Police as a CSI.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/05/18/every-contact-leaves-a-trace-jo-ward/

What a year to be a reader. I can’t wait to see what 2025 brings

The Dark Arches. Andrew Barrett

This is the second book in the DS Regan Carter series, and as brilliant as it is, it come with a but…….you have to read book 1 A Random Kill first.

It’s not often I say a book can’t be read as a standalone but this really does feel like a continuation of the last, and without reading Random Kill you would be thoroughly confused.

That said, this is a fantastic story. Carter has not only annoyed a deranged gang leader, Bradshaw, she has identified his mole in the Police, or at least one of them.

So with Bradshaw still missing a significant drug package, and a good few thousand pounds, he is really miffed with Carter.

His crew has a loose cannon that’s too unpredictable, unreliable, and utterly violent, who is fixated on Carter. So the best thing Bradshaw can do is set him out to get her and fix his biggest problem.

Meanwhile Bradshaw has come up with a plan to get rich quick, the way he does it is not original, but the scale of the effect it has is massive, and also totally realistic and believable.

Carter is heading-up one avenue of the investigation, whilst her boss starts looking at the person Carter identified as the leak.

What follows is an intriguing story. Carter is out for Bradshaw. Bradshaw knows this and sets psycho Eric after her.

However Eric proves to be a burden and Bradshaw decides he’s too much of a risk and sets him up to fail.

The dance that follows is as good as anything on Strictly.

The suspense contained in the chapters is palpable. At times I had to tell myself to breath

The end of the book, just like the first, leaves the door, not only wide open, but knocked off its hinges, for the continuation in book three.

I really wish I hadn’t found this series until it was complete. I only had a couple of weeks wait between finishing A Random Kill before this one was published. Now I’ll have to wait months for the next instalment.

It would have been a massive book, if it’s only a trilogy, but Galbraith (Rowling) gets away with 1000 page books, so I think this would have been an epic, but brilliant, one book story.

Pages: 328. Publisher: The Ink Foundry

36 Hours. Angela Marsons

Wow. In fact several wows

Wow 1 How is this book 21 of the series. I know time flies but it only seems like yesterday I was enthralled by Silent Scream.

Wow 2 The fact that the series just goes from strength to strength

Wow 3. What a brilliant story.

Kim Stone and her team are back, but at first not officially.

When Stones not so favourite journalist turns up on her doorstep with a half baked story Kim should not be giving it any credence, but there is something about the message that Frost brings her that impacts and makes her take it seriously enough to text her team, on their day off.

So what exactly is it that grips Stone. Frost has been given a deadline. If she doesn’t follow the clues she’s going to be sent, and solve the puzzle within 36 hours, somebody is going to die.

Not everybody, including Stone’s boss take it seriously and the team are given the opportunity to bail out, or help Kim with the investigation on a voluntary basis.

To make matters more complex Stone includes Frost in the team and gives her a seat in the office.

Even those that decide to stay find this a step to far and the tension in the office is palpable.

The first clue leads them to a box, amongst the contents is an audio file in which a person can be heard screaming.

As each clue is discovered the contents get more horrifying.

I’m running out of superlatives to describe Angela Marsons books. Amongst all of the things she’s always good at, characters, plot, settings, this one added a rhythm to story that only the really best authors seem to get right.

Any author can add pace but this story pulses. The anxiety of a new clue and the rush to find it, the lull and anticipation when the team, back in the office, are waiting to hear what Kim and Bryant have found whilst out in the field.

As a Black Country lad I always look forward to seeing where the plot will be set, in this case they race across many locations that are absolutely perfect for hiding clues.

Pace, suspense and a terrific story meant that I read this book in as close to one sitting as it is possible whilst carrying on with a normal life.

Can it be read as a standalone, yes.

Should you read the rest of the series in order, I would, but then again I’m lucky enough to have been in from the start.

Pages. 362. Publisher. Bookouture. Audiobook length. 8 hours 3 minutes. Narrator Jan Cramer

The Silent Watcher. Victor Methos

The crimes, two horrendously bloody murder scenes several years apart, the latest in Las Vegas close to the city.

The detective, Lazarus Holloway. He was part of the first investigation and he never got over the scene, or the fact that he couldn’t catch the killer.

The survivor. Sophie Grace, 15 escaped the latest murder scene, but why was she allowed to survive.

Piper Danes, the Gaurdian, a legal representative who looks after the interest of Sophie during the investigation and any court proceedings. Young and inexperienced but with a moralistic compass that makes her a fearsome advocate and protector.

The investigation into the crimes is a gritty story, but to my surprise an arrest is made just over halfway into the story.

Enter a defence attorney that is one of the most aggravating characters I have come across in a book, but I loved her. Russo Blanchi only cares for one thing, winning. She doesn’t care who she defends, who the victims are, or weather her client is guilty or innocent, she just wants to win.

The first half of the book was really good, but the second half goes up another gear.

Victor Methos is another new author to me, and I’m not sure how widely known he is here in the U.K.

I found this book as an Amazon recommendation after I read a US Courtroom thriller, otherwise I think I’d still be in the dark about Methos’ work.

His writing style is fast paced and easy to read, but to keep me as enthralled, as this book did, it has to have a great story.

What I liked was the realism and the fact that at no time could I predict what was coming next. That meant that none of the characters were, in my mind, safe. This added a real suspense to the story.

For me, this is one of my finds of the year.

Pages: 306. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer.

Her Deadly Game. Robert Dugoni

It’s inevitable that every American, legal, courtroom, thriller , I read gets measured against John Grisham. Few get an equal billing but this book is right up there with any of his.

Keera Duggan is an attorney in Seattle. Formerly she worked for the state prosecutor’s office, which she left after a short but ill advised affair with her boss.

Now she’s back working in the family law firm trying to salvage its reputation. Her father, Patsy, was once a fearsome defence attorney, but over the years he has became more dependent on booze and is ruining his own fearsome reputation as well as his firms.

When Vince LaRussa, a rich investment fund manager returns home to find his disabled wife shot dead in their kitchen, the Police do what Police do and instantly suspect the husband.

He is aware of Patsy’s reputation off old, and hires his firm. He doesn’t get Patsy who is recovering from his latest bender, he gets Keera, who is yet to defend at a murder trial.

The case is a strange one. It’s a locked room mystery that LaRussa seems to have an airtight alibi for. But Keera’s ex-boss and lover, wants to get it to trial quick, he wants to use the case to humiliate her.

What follows is an excellent courtroom drama.

As is usual in American courts Keera’s defence is that somebody else, unknown, killed LaRussa’s wife.

There are at least two suspects but why would either of them want Anne LaRussa dead.

There are twists in this story that leaves the final verdict in question all the way up till the end, and even then there is a vicious sting in the tail.

I like books which are fast paced, with a bit of grit, and that are totally realistic. This story ticks all of those boxes.

There is no spurious writing. Every page holds meaning to the story.

Although Keera’s relationship with her father is an important part of the story it doesn’t get over relied on in the plot, a mistake I’m finding more and more writers make these days.

This is book one in a three book series.

I have a big to-be-read pile, and it speaks volumes that they have all gone on hold whilst I download and read the other two in this series first.

Pages: 396. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer. Audiobook length 11 hours Saskia Maarleveld