Category: Crime fiction

The Art Merchant. J.K Flynn

When I was browsing through Amazon looking for a new author to read I came across this introductory paragraph

“An Alcoholic, sex addicted detective finds herself fighting her superiors in a bid to bring down a local crime boss”

It caught my attention but for the wrong reasons. My initial thought was “another one”. But something about the cover, or the description in the rest of the gumph, peaked my interest and I downloaded it.

Thank God I did

What a book. The Detective is DS Esther Penman. In her immediate bosses words “the best police officer he’s ever worked with” but it comes at a cost.

She has a brilliant analytical mind, when it’s not rugged with vodka.

She puts in hours of work but is often late.

In her words she’s woke up under too many strange ceilings, not knowing how she got there, again because of the vodka.

Her attitude toward people can at best be described as sketchy.

Her general admin is awful but, when it counts, when files are sent to the CPS, or Court Files need preparing, she is brilliant.

Esther as a character is superbly written.

Flynn understands the psychology of the functioning alcoholic. The sex addiction is just another form of self harm. The conflict between knowing what she is doing is wrong, and actually stopping is a fight played out in her head, and on the pages of the book.

I enjoyed every page and was happy to see there’s going to be another featuring Esther Penman released sometime late 2023.

The Publishers Gumph

Detective Sergeant Esther Penman is a mess. She drinks too much. She sleeps around. And now her chief inspector is threatening to kick her out of CID and send her back to uniform because he doesn’t like her attitude.

Luckily for Esther, if there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s solving cases…

When a woman is killed in one of Belfield’s wealthiest neighbourhoods, Esther quickly realises that it’s no straightforward homicide. The husband has an alibi, but he’s hiding something, and Esther is determined to find out what.

A few days later a man is found hanging in nearby woodland, and her suspicions of a deeper conspiracy begin to grow.

It isn’t long before Esther’s discoveries set her on the trail of forces far more sinister than she imagined…

And put her on a collision course with the man they call the Art Merchant…

Pages: 285. Publisher: Chingola Publishing

The Misper. Kate London

A new author to me and I’m not surprised to find out that she has experience as a Met Detective.

This story is as real as it comes. The aftermath of the killing of a Police Officer.

The life of a Roadman and the effects on his psychological health, and that of his “family”

The story of how Ryan Kennedy ended up getting involved in gangs. How that escalated to him carrying drugs and blades, and ultimately a gun.

The probability that if you carry a weapon you will put yourself in a position where you brandish it, and eventually use it.

The frustrations of the Police when the vagaries of the law, the distinctions between murder and manslaughter, the proof of intention the “ mens rea” means a young cop killer gets off relatively lightly

The celebrity that the young cop killer has in prison, balanced against the fact he is a frightened 15 year old boy who knows his only way of surviving is to keep his mouth shut.

The effects of the mental health of the police officers involved in the operation in which the undercover detective died.

The blame culture balanced against the arrogance of those who think it wasn’t their fault.

The surviving widow with the young child.

All of this in the first quarter of the book, and it really sets the atmosphere of the story

The Publishing Gumph

When Ryan Kennedy is imprisoned after killing a police officer, he knows what he has to do. Keep his mouth shut about who he was working for, keep his head down, and rely on his youth to keep his sentence short. When he gets out, he’ll be looked after.

Following the death in the line of duty of a fellow detective, DI Sarah Collins has left the capital for a quieter life in the countryside. But when a missing teenager turns up on her patch, she finds herself drawn into a much bigger investigation – one that leads her right back to London, back to the Met, and back to Ryan Kennedy, the kid who killed a cop.

This powerful novel from a former Met detective explores the devastation that organized drug-running gangs can wreak on young lives. It asks who deserves to be saved – and whether saving them is even possible…

Publisher Corvus. Publishing Date : 3rd August 2023

The Surgeon. Leslie Wolfe

A roller coaster of a book which brings one phrase to mind.

Bunny Boiler

If you are a fan of films like Fatal Attraction, and The Hand That Rocked The Cradle, this book will be right up your street.

The story starts with an eminent heart surgeon losing a patient during an operation. He wasn’t just any patient. He was the man that abused her sister. Did she give in too easily, could she have saved him.

Meanwhile an Assistant District Attorney is in a hotel room enjoying the delights of the future Mayor, but she’s not his wife. His wife is in hospital trying to fathom out if she could have saved the man who died on her operating table.

The ADA wants to be the woman in the future mayors life but she knows he’ll never leave his wife. So maybe she can find some way of proving she killed the man who died during his heart operation. If she can discredit her maybe her husbands political ambitions will lead him to leave her.

All that in the first few chapters. What follows is a twisting turning path to a firecracker of a finale

The characters in this book are beautifully written. Empathy swaps with sympathy, and changes to loathing as new pieces of the plot fall into place.

Nobody is who they seem to be from the start.

Written partly in the first person, and mainly in the third, this book had me on tenterhooks from the start.

I defy anybody to read this and not say they are shocked by the twists the story takes.

From the first minute the reader is made to sympathise with the Doctor, and even feel empathy for the ADA, the mistress, but things quickly change.

The story is like a tidal river changing flow, encouraging huge surges in empathy with different characters with each change of tide.

Right up until the last few chapters, then just when I thought I had it all worked out I read the very last paragraph

I really hope there’s a follow up to this book.

Pages: 290. Publisher: Bookouture.

Audio book length: 10 hours 46 minutes. Narrator: Gwendolyn Druyor

Available now.

What The Shadows Hide. M.J Lee

Ridpath is back for another instalment of this Police Procedural series with a twist.

Ridpath is a DI in Greater Manchesters Major Investigation Team, but following a brush with cancer he has been on secondment to the Coroner, acting as her Head Investigator.

But with staffing, and budgeting issues within the Police he is increasingly been brought back to his old team to add his expertise and experience,.

With Greater Manchester Police in Special needs, and with a follow-up inspection by the Inspectorate of Constabularies only days away, the last thing the force needs is a high profile case that has gone unsolved for over 6 months, but that’s what they’ve got.

Two bodies found bricked into a hidden room in an office block by demolition contractors.

With the original investigation team failing to identify the bodies, or make even the smallest step forward in the murder investigation, Ridpath is given the poison-chalice of solving the crime in seven days.

To make matters worse a new temporary Coroner is appointed, following an attack on sitting one, and he’s flexing his muscles in an attempt to get Ridpath to concentrate his time on working solely for the Coroner.

Ridpath, and his very small team are bolstered by a DNA and Genetic Research specialist who gives the team hope but seven days is a small time span to solve what is effectively a cold case, and most likely his Police career.

M.J Lee has created a great Detective in Ridpath, and by combining his duties as a Coroners Officer, with his Police duties has developed character that has the scope to carry out investigations in a relatively unexplored way.

The book can be read as a stand-alone story, but this is a cracking series and well worth reading from the beginning.

Pages: 382. Publisher: Canelo Crime Publishing Date 23/03/2023

Three Widows. Patricia Gibney

A group of women have formed a self help group following the loss of their husbands, either by death or them just leaving the marriage

Women who at the start of their loss are at their most vulnerable

It’s only a small group and when one of them goes missing it leaves a big hole. When a second goes it must just be a coincidence.

Mustn’t it???

The last thoughts of one of them when they are taken is how unfair it is on her children, they’ve only just lost their Dad.

When the body of the first woman to go missing turns up DI Lottie Parker and her team are given the task of investigating.

Lottie was widowed young and has been a single Mom to young children. She starts to feel the anxieties that may throw her off her “A” game.

One of the murdered women has been living reclusively, hardly leaving the house. But the rest of the group didn’t know that, in fact what did they know about the young widow Éilis.

It’s not long before Parker begins to think there is more to the Grieving Woman’s group than meets the eye.

The Lottie Parker series is now at book 12 and doesn’t show any signs of losing its impact.

This story, like the others, is a hard hitting Police Procedural, wrapped up in a psychological thriller.

Parker is one of the best Police characters on todays book shelves. I’ve said it before but Patricia Gibney puts a lot of herself into these books.

You can’t write books as good as these purely based on research. The policing side, yes. The crimes, yes. But the emotions and feelings have to come from the heart

I always recommend this series to people who want to know why I get hooked on crime fiction. And it’s going from strength to strength.

Pages: 507. Publisher: Bookouture Available now.

A Truth For A Truth. Carol Wyer

Carol Wyer

 

Wow. Where do I start.

This has been a great series from the start and its got even better with the addition of this book.

Kate Young has been trying to break the ring of abusers she thinks is responsible for her husbands murder. The problem is the ring includes at least one Senior Police Officer.

Throughout the series she has been driven by the voice in her head, that of her husband.

But now she’s killed somebody, somebody in power, somebody who was part of the ring.

The Police, and probably her team, will be asked to investigate his death.

But first they have to find the body, at first its just a missing persons case and Kate is doing her best to carry on as if she has nothing to do with the death.

Then there’s the bigger problem. Her husbands voice of reason is being fought against, and at times replaced, by another voice. The voice of the man she murdered, and he’s ridiculing her.

As much as this is a great crime story its also the story of a woman having a breakdown, she’s functioning but her mental health is really on the edge.

Can she keep her mind long enough to escape blame.

Can she break the ring and expose everybody involved.

The very last page made me gasp out loud.

There has to be another book. It can’t end there, or can it.

Pages: 411. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer. Publishing Date: 4th April 2023

The Snow Killer & The Soul Killer. Ross Greenwood

I picked up Snow Killer on a recommendation, and I’m really glad I did. It was that good I went straight to book 2 The Soul Killer

Gentle Giant, and family man, DI John Barton is the main Police lead and a cracking character, but what steals the show in these books, and makes them stand out in current crime fiction, is the main criminals.

Greenwood dedicates as much time to the criminal and their activities, as he does to the Police and their investigations.

The criminals sections are written in the first person, with the investigation side written in the third person.

This allows Ross to get right into the criminal mind and explore the psyche the murderers.

The Snow Killer

In this book the killer is out for revenge. 50 years ago her family were murdered in a Gangland killing. She escapes badly injured, with the killers thinking she had died.

It took her a few years but she got revenge. Now a he’s killing again, but why.

An old Lady annoyed at the way the youth have no respect. The way the neighbourhood is run by silly, arrogant, tooth sucking teens.

Barton really has his work cut out. The old cases don’t even come on his horizon until a retired officer comes under suspicion for an unrelated issue.

Who would suspect an old lady. But then again we were all young once, and why would our attitude change just because our body isn’t as strong.

A gun is a great leveller, so is a well placed knife in skilled hands

Soul Killer

Following on from the aftermath of the shocking end to the Snow Killer

This time the killer is very close to home.

Again revenge is at the heart of the crimes. This time the killer is young, clever and calculated. But what Greenwood does brilliantly is show the escalating downward spiral of their mental health as they start to make mistakes.

One killing has to lead to another, just to cover up their tracks, the more killings the more chance of a mistake. The cold calculated killer starts to turn into a panicked psychopath.

One of Barton’s team is a new and very blunt young DC. The team find him hard to get on with but Barton sees something in him and lets him have his head. He hits the nail on the head quickly but is largely ignored, after all how could the person he thinks is a serial killer be responsible, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Both of these books had me hooked. I’ve not come across any other stories that give the killer so much time in a story, and have them writes so well.

Greenwood gives a real gravitas to the mind of the killer. He looks at their history, in both stories the issues the killers have started years ago and have festered in their minds.

He looks at the planning and consequences. The average person these days think they are Forensically aware, and know that a mistake will almost inevitably lead to their capture. So when killers start to make mistakes, even the coolest start to panic. The more they panic the more mistakes they make.

Barton’s team are good at what they do. There are some great characters amongst them, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but everybody knows their worth, what they are good at, and how to support each other.

At the end of the second book, in the acknowledgments, yes some people do read them and I’m one of them, Greenwood states he didn’t realise, when he was writing the first book, that it would turn into a trilogy.

Well it must really have come as a surprise to him that it went beyond book three. In fact according to Amazon there’s five books in the series.

How good are the first two. I’ve just finished Soul Killer and immediately downloaded the rest of the series.

The books are also available as Audiobooks, narrated by David Thorpe

Publisher Boldwood Books. Available now on Amazon.

Rich Blood. Robert Bailey

A great book for readers who like authors like John Grisham and Greg Iles, and American legal thrillers.

An ambulance chasing, personal injury lawyer, Jason Rich, has just been released from 90 days in rehab. He has turned to booze once to often and rehab was one of the conditions of him being allowed to carry on practicing.

But his troubles are nothing compared to his sister. They don’t get on, since childhood they have had a tumultuous relationship which has worsened since the death of their father.

So when he finds out she is desperate for his help he’s unsure what he will do.

Why does she need help? She’s being held in prison after being arrested for the murder of her husband.

Jana, the sister, is not easy to warm to. She’s an alcoholic, who also uses hard drugs. She’s had more than one affair and it’s alleged she withdrew $15000 dollars from her, and her husbands, joint account to pay a man to kill him.

She’s in debt to the local drug Lord and is paying him off in “favours” in lieu of the interest in the $50000 she owes him.

So as well as being in prison accused of murder, she is under threat from the drug Lord not to implement him, or trade information on him, for a lower sentence. With her in prison it’s her two young daughters that will pay if she goes against him.

So how will the alcohol dependent brother, who has never tried anything other than compensation cases, defend the alcoholic drug taking sister with no morals, against a murder charge.

This book was a bit of a bolt from the blue. I love this type of story, and I thought I was on top of the current authors writing this genre. How wrong was I. As soon as I finished this I downloaded Robert Baileys back catalogue.

U.K. Publisher Thomas & Mercer. Pages 379. Available now

The Deptford Murder. Jez Pinfold

Detective Chief Inspector Bec Pope. A new Police Officer on the book shelves, and hopefully one here to stay.

The Deptford Murder introduces Pope in spectacular fashion.

The first body is found posed in a church, with a personal message to Pope, in the form of a formal invitation, placed neatly on the body.

The second body appears within hours, another message to Pope.

This is the beginning of a cracking story that had me turning the pages well into the night.

Pope is a great character. Typical of a Police Officer her job takes president over her family, even she admits it.

She works late, drinks when she gets home, has trouble sleeping. She lives with her husband and his kids, but it’s not an easy relationship.

As another attack takes place more pressure is put on Pope’s team, mainly born of her own professionalism, but they crack on and work long hours to find the killer before there are more victims.

Inevitable there is strain on family relations, and almost as inevitably there is a close bond between Pope and one of her colleagues. But will “that” line ever be crossed.

As the investigation, and the book, fly along, surprising connections start to be made and the final twist is a real surprise, without being out-of-the-blue, or unrealistic.

This is hopefully the first of a series. Pope, and her team in Londons Met, are really well conceived. As individuals there is great promise, as a team the scope for the stories to come is wide and I can’t wait to read whatever is to come

Print length: 302 pages. Publisher: Joffe. Published: 3rd December 2022.

Deadly Christmas. Rachel McClean

Rachel McClean came to my attention last year with the Deadly…. Series of books set in Birmingham.

Since then she has been writing the Dorset Crime series, which is a spin-off from the Deadly Series with one of the bit-part characters from the original series taking a the lead role, with another book set in Scotland also heavily featuring one of the characters from Birmingham

This book is a return to the Deadly series with DI Zoe Finch and her team from Force CID investigating the suspicious death of a man found in Birmingham’s German Christmas Market.

The investigation leads them into the different worlds, Birmingham’s Homeless and the war crimes of the Yugoslavian Conflicts.

The team are soon battling over ownership of the investigation with the Home Office taking over.

But that’s the least of Zoe’s problems. She needs a new DS and she doesn’t like, or trust, the one she’s given.

They have history and Zoe is not convinced it’s resolved.

DS Kaur had been part of the Professional Standards Team that had included Zoe in the investigation into corruption in the Force. She was completely innocent, and had even been helping to gather evidence against the corrupt officers but Kaur really pushed her buttons.

Now Zoe is suspicious of why she’s been placed in the team.

The Deadly……. Series has always had a “Line of Duty” vibe running through, it continues to run in this book. It’s an excellent undercurrent to an already brilliant story.

I would never have thought that such a prolific writer, over a relatively short time, could produce such good books, but these are some of the best books I’m reading at the moment.

Pages: 292. Publisher: Ackroyd Publishing. Available now