Category: Book review

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

Mercy Killing. Lisa Cutts

A good story but it comes with a warning.

The story centres around victims of child abuse, and although there is no gratuitous scenes, it is alluded to strongly, and may act as triggers to anybody who has been affected by these crimes

DI Harry Powell is newly promoted, in an unhappy marriage, and is the father to two teenage sons.

He has a wondering eye, when it comes to attractive women, but is to afraid of his wife’s r eaction to anything other than looking.

In short, he’s a wonderful character for a series.

In his first major investigation as DI he, and his team, investigate the murder of a man who has been convicted of child abuse.

The man is found in his flat, hands secured with cable ties, and strangled with another.

From the start of the book the reader is led down the line of knowing who the killers are, but as the book moves on it becomes less obvious and there appears to be a handful of people who are in the frame.

As the last few chapters draw the story to a conclusion these suspects spiral around until the murderer is finally identified.

Throughout the book Lisa Cutts does a brilliant job of looking at the long term psychological damage suffered by people who are abused as children.

What she also does really well is examine the effect it has on Police Officers. The difficulty in investigating the murder of a monster who has abused children. The fact that most people, cops included, would probably think he got what he had coming to him. But they still have to identify and arrest the people responsible, ensuring fairness in justice.

Part of the book also looks at the tragic consequences of making accusations of abuse, another trigger warning.

As much as I’ve made this sound like a tough read it’s actually not. It’s a good Police Procedural, but it’s also thought provoking.

Pages: 365. Publisher: Bloodhound . Series number 1/3 so far Audiobook. 11 hours 2 minutes. Narrator Iain Batchelor.

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

Her Last Walk Home. Patricia Gibney

Every time I read a book in this series I know it’s going to be frighteningly realistic. The crimes, the characters, the lot, all add up to stories that have me hooked, and this one is no exception.

Walking home at night you should be safe, but everyone knows it’s increasingly risky. So when one young woman doesn’t complete the journey and is found dead, on a bit of grass, a murder investigation is got underway.

As a mother, with children about the same age, Detective Lottie Parker is always going to give the investigation her all, she always does.

The team soon identify the girl and find that she had been on an innocent date the night she disappeared.

Or at least on the face of it she had.

When another girl is found dead in similar circumstances the victims begin to look a little less “innocent”

Two things you are Guaranteed with Patricia Gibney books. Firstly they are written from the heart. Every emotion, of every character is carefully crafted and plays out wonderfully on the pages. Secondly the plot is always original, surprising, and most importantly realistic.

I can’t write too much about the plot, the victims, and the person, or persons responsible for the crimes without including huge spoilers.

In a vague way I will say that the young women that are killed are just being young women, and that nobody deserves to be murdered.

But in modern society what is innocent.

It’s a question this book ponders. When does moralistically wrong become illegally wrong.

When does a person cross the line from having fun, to needing the fruits of having fun.

At what point does the empathy of the reader, or the bystander, become negatively judgmental, a luxury a Police Investigator cannot afford to let cloud their investigation.

All of these things Patricia Gibney handles better than most writers.

Lottie Parker has had it rough, her family have put her through the wringer, but no matter what she is still a supportive mother, grandmother, and daughter, faced with all the trials and tribulations of being the “responsible adult” to all of the generations.

The Parker family story is central to these books and although this, and the others, could be read as a standalone, I would highly recommend reading the series to get the full impact.

Print length: 500 pages. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook length: 13 hours. Narrator: Michele Moran

Zero Risk. Simon Hayes

This is the book I’ve been waiting for, for years.

Back in the 1970’s, as a young sailor, I discovered Robert Ludlum via the Matarese Circle. I loved his books and found others like him, Nelson Demille being another favourite reads in the down times on board deep sea tankers.

Moving into the 1980’s I devoured each of Tom Clancy’s books, well the early ones anyway.

I loved espionage thrillers.

But there has been a very thin offering of new authors worthy of these, until now.

Zero Risk by Simon Hayes has filled the void.

The book isn’t about espionage in the more traditional sense, it’s about a person who tries to bring down one of Britains biggest banks, and in so doing the Prime Minister.

It has a touch of the Dan Brown, with the antagonist sending cryptic emails with art references in them, but although they add to the story, if you don’t get them, they are quickly explained.

The plot, as written on the Amazon page.

23 December 2024… Rob Tanner should have been enjoying a rare day off from his life-consuming work as Chief Operating Officer at one of the country’s largest banks. But a panicked phone call from a senior colleague forces him to put his Christmas plans on ice: more than a thousand of the bank’s accounts have seen their balances increased by a factor of ten. Exactly ten.

Tanner enlists the help of brilliant American cyber security expert Ashley Markham, but the attacks only worsen: bank balances rise remorselessly and spread to all the nation’s banks. The only clues to the hacker’s intentions are cryptic daily emails, centred on Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval representation of the seven deadly sins—and packed with colourful artistic and cultural references—taunting Tanner and the newly incumbent Prime Minister, James Allen.

With financial markets—and the very world as he knows it—on the brink of collapse, Tanner races against the clock to decode not just the bizarre emails but their deeper meaning, and the implications for who he can really trust. All the while, his former boss “The Toad” is seeking revenge… and answers of his own.

That only really covers the first couple of hundred pages of a book that stretches to nearly eight hundred pages.

There were times in the book I thought I had things cracked, but then something would happen that would throw me entirely in a different direction.

There were times when I thought, “this has to be almost the end, how come there are so many more pages to read”, but a twist would open up another chapter.

Simon Hayes uses the fact that this is a standalone novel to its best advantage.

Nothing, and nobody is sacred. Anything can happen to anybody.

Having said that there are is no shark infested custard. There are no improbable situations. Everything is scarily plausible, and realistic.

An absolutely stunning read.

Pages: 780. Published: The Rubriqs Press Limited. Audiobook length: 25 hours 8 minutes. Narrator Stephanie Racine