Crime novel – Page 3 – nigeladamsbookworm

A Random Kill. Andrew Barrett

Billed as the start of a new series, I can only hope it turns out to be a long one

I like my main characters to have a bit of grit. Detective Sergeant Regan Carter has a whole quarry.

A fiery red head, who has just been transferred to her nightmare job by the husband she’s just divorced, Regan hates dead bodies. She hates the smells, the body fluids, the injuries, the fact that they fart and belch when the trapped gases get released, in fact there is nothing about them she can get along with.

So as a piece of revenge, the worst thing that her nearly ex-husband could do, would be to get her transferred to one of the busiest murder teams in the country.

Just to put the icing on the cake she is replacing a woman that was dearly loved by her team and who died in a freak accident, with everybody presuming that one of the existing DCs on the team would get her post.

Regan Carter, yes she is named after the two main characters in the 1970s TV series The Sweeney, has a mouth that would match Gene Hunt, from another famous series and has an attitude to match, so making friends is not at the top of her list when she arrives at the new team.

Neither is getting involved with a complicated murder based around the drug scene in Leeds.

What follows is one of the best introductions to a new series I’ve read in a very long time.

A seemingly random shooting of a woman, her child taken in his pram, is Carters introduction to her new job.

But is it as random as it seems. Carter is the epitome of a “Dog with a Bone” and in her brash manner manages to annoy both her bosses, her peers, and the local villains.

In the real world she would undoubtedly be sacked, but in the none woke world of crime fiction, she is a breath of fresh air.

A bit like real world policing there are times in this book when a wry grin cannot be avoided. It’s the only way to deal with the horrors the detectives, and the readers, encounter, and in this book there is one very imaginative, and gory, way of killing.

I really hope this series is a long runner, because there is some entertaining mileage in Regan Carter.

Publisher: The Ink Foundry. Pages: 415. Available now

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

Body Language, Life Sentence, Case Sensitive and Dead Fall by A.K Turner

I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a new series this much.

One of the best things about reading is finding a new author with an established series, and binge reading it.

That’s exactly what happened to me with this series. I picked up Body Language just over a week ago and have just put down Dead Fall having read all four books.

There are two main characters in these books Cassie Raven and Phyllida Flyte, and they couldn’t be more at opposite ends of the social scale.

Cassie is a runaway school drop out who once lived, and took class A drugs, in squats around Camden Town, whilst embracing the Goth life style. Now she’s still a Goth, but she’s got herself together, and in her mid twenties she’s working as a Senior Morgue Technician, still in Camden Town.

Phyllida is a very prim-and-proper, Police Detective, who is suffering the culture shock of moving from a relatively safe shire constabulary to a high pressure, machismo fuelled , Major Crimes department in Londons Met.

Cassie doesn’t look the part, with her Goth haircut, tattoos and piercings but she’s good at her job.

She thinks the dead sometimes talk to her, but what is actually happening is her intuition is kicking in. She’s seen something on the body that isn’t right, or contradicts the initial findings, or the Police’s hypothesis of how a person has died.

She knows that instinct has highlighted something, and she is like a dog with a bone until she’s worked out what it is.

Meanwhile Phyllida battles the male dominated rough talking London Officers, she is not just there to make their tea, and although often given the menial tasks, her detective work soon gets to be seen for what it is, brilliant.

When Phyllida first encounters Cassie it’s fair to say she doesn’t like her, and it’s also fair to say the feeling is mutual. These two are everything the other doesn’t like in a person.

But inevitably the trust starts to build, they both recognise each others strengths and intuitions on a professional basis, but find each other immensely irritating on a personal level.

The series follows both of their personal lives, and as both of them have great back stories, and become reluctant friends , it makes great reading.

Each book contains one main crime, starting with a sudden or suspicious death. As in real life the investigation can be complex and convoluted, but it always stays well within the realms of possibilities.

Body Language.

When somebody Cassie knows ends up in her morgue she’s not happy with the initial findings. The Police say Accidental Death, a hypothesis the pathologist is, at first happy to support.

But Cassie’s intuition says different and she goes to great lengths to prove the death was anything but an accident.

The one person who listens to her is the “stuck-up, posh” new Police woman.

Life Sentence

Having learned something about her family, that she was blissfully unaware of ( It’s difficult to go deeper without spoiling book 1) Cassie tries to make right a wrong which has affected her family for as long as she can remember. Her unlikely ally, as this will also bring the police into disrepute is Phyllida, can Miss Strait-Laced be convinced to break the rules with the reputation of her colleagues on the line.

Case Sensitive

This time it’s Phyllida’s turn to trust her instincts. When a body turns up floating in a canal she is sure she recognises him. It’s her that doesn’t like the initial Post Mortem, and asks Cassie if her intuition had kicked in.

This time what they uncover will test both of their resolves, physically and moralistically, but will both of them come out unscathed.

Dead Fall

When a promising young singer ends up on Cassie’s slab everybody thinks it’s a tragic suicide.

Cassie knew her before she became famous and had gone to school with her.

Reflecting the life and death of one of Camdens other tragic pop stars this girl had a roller coaster life of drugs and fame, even if it was very short lived.

Cassie spots wounds on the body that she doesn’t think are consistent with her jumping from her high rise flat.

Things have moved on in Phyllida’s world ( again I can’t go into that without spoiling book 3) but when Cassie is proven right, and that this is not a suicide, Phyllida is tasked to look at how the initial police investigation got things so wrong

The series needs reading in order. The running story forms the backbone of the series and Cassie and Phyllida’s needs reading in chronological order.

Having read 4 books in 10 days I now have to join the rest of the world in waiting for book 5. And to say I’m excited to see where the series goes next is an understatement.

Stunning.

Father’s Day. Richard Madeley

As good as this book is, and it is really good, I fell I have to start this review with a warning, there are triggers in this story that may affect people who have been affected by eating disorders, self harming, and bullying.

That is part of the reason this book is so good. It’s a story of modern day society that needs telling.

For the young girl, Lucy, suffering from PTSD having witness her mother die in horrific and tragic circumstances, life is a lie.

Lucy was living the perfect life in a small village in Cornwall. On a visit to a harbour that life changes when she and her dad witness a horrific accident that leaves her mother dead.

In an attempt to get away from constant reminders they move to the quiet Cotswold town of Willersey.

Becoming more reclusive, spending lots of time in her room, wearing baggy clothing, long sleeves in the height of the summer, all indications that her father eventually picks up on to identify what she is going through.

But there’s an outside influence that her Dad, Nick, has no idea about, until it’s too late.

When a man is murderer and left displayed in the Cirencester Amphitheater, a close to retiring Detective Chief Superintendent is in charge of the investigation.

It doesn’t take much to connect the dots. The storyline is pretty much established in the first few chapters. There is no who done it, more how he did it.

And more importantly what will the outcome be.

I haven’t read any other books by Richard Madeley, I don’t know why, he just hasn’t come onto my radar as far as authors go.

It was my wife who saw Richard talking about his book on the television, and it was her who recommended it to me.

If she hadn’t I’d have never picked it up. I’m so glad she saw that TV show. My next stop is downloading his back catalogue.

Pages: 373. Publisher. Simon & Schuster. Audiobook: 8 hours 25 minutes. Narrators Jamie Parker and Juliette Burton

The Confession Room. Lia Middleton

When a civilian sticks their nose into an ongoing Police Investigation it is a hinderance.

When that civilian starts to interfere in the investigation, and have an ongoing negative effect on it they become an annoyance.

When they start to withhold information they become a criminal

When that person is a recently retired Police Officer it’s inexcusable.

Or is it.

Emilia Haines is the ex cop. She’s a struggling Private Investigator. She’s also a victim.

Her sister was killed by a stalker. On the night she died she had repeatedly called Emilia who was to busy being a Police Detective to answer her calls. She knows she could have saved her.

The PTSD this brought on has seen her leave the job she loved.

The Confession Room is a website where people can anonymously make life confessions.

But when the site becomes the vehicle through which a killer targets people, before streaming their final confession and murder, things obviously take a serious turn.

Emilia has posted on the site, confessing the fact she thinks she could have saved her sister. But she’s also obsessing that some day, somebody will confess to her murder.

So when people are murdered in the Confession Room she starts nosing around the investigation.

Yes, she is the hinderance who graduates through to become criminally involved by withholding evidence. But that’s only the start.

Things get worse, much worse.

This story is a bit of a stretch. Lia Middleton lets Haines get away with too much. Not only in the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to get away with it in the real world, but also to the point of the reader losing any empathy they may have had with her.

But this isn’t a bad thing. There was no time in this book that I felt I knew what was coming.

And the ending certain wasn’t what I was expecting

That made for a really enjoyable read, full of twists and turns, and fast paced, every chapter captivated me.

Publisher: Penguin. Pages: 352. Audio Book: 9 hours 25 minutes. Narrator Rachael Stirling

The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle

Nick Louth

When one of your favourite authors ends a great series, and you wonder what they are going to come up with next, this is the type of response you really want.

Detective Inspector Jan Talantire and her team work in a Major Investigation Team of Devon and Cornwall Police. What they face in this story is a unique and baffling crime.

Ruth Lyle was a 16 year old girl when she was killed on the alter of a church 50 years ago.

When a woman is killed in the same way, in the now converted church, on the anniversary it is the start of an investigation that will span half a century.

It’s not just the location and manner of death which are identical. The woman killed today has the same name as the original victim, the same date of birth, and her birth certificate.

As far as debuts for a new series goes this is second to none.

The crime is clever and left me intrigued up till the very last page.

Talentire is a great character. Nearly 40, newly single and struggling with trying to establish a life balance that would actually give her a chance on the dating scene.

She is driven as a detective, and doesn’t take any heed of pressures from above, or below, when she is on the right track.

The supporting characters of her team, especially the newly appointed digital expert Primrose, are going to be great to watch develop over the series.

But what really steals the show is the setting. Small town crime on the North Devon coast needs all the skills of those investigated in the big cities. Without overlapping CCTV, with sketchy mobile phone coverage, and with the infrastructure difficulties of rural policing, it is more old school than some of the stories set in the cities, and for me that makes it all the more readable.

Let’s hope this is the start of another brilliant series.

Publisher: Canelo Crime. Pages: 326. Publishing date: 2nd May 2024 Audiobook 10 hours 9 minutes narrated by Mandy Weston

Crow Moon. Suzy Ashley

If Hitchcock had directed a film starting Miss Marple this would have been the plot.

Set in a remote Scottish village, around the time of the crow moon, the plot is set in the current day but has at its base ancient folklore.

Martha Strangeways is a reporter who is on extended leave following the death of her young twins in a house fire. She has a teenage son from a previous relationship, and unknown to her he had a dabble in the occult with two friends, one of which is found dead in the woods with a verse from an poem written in his back.

The police carry out a major investigation but Martha, who is carrying out her own unofficial investigation, isn’t sure they are doing enough.

The Police Senior Investigator recognises the benefits of having a renowned journalist, who lives locally, on his side, and agrees to share information with her as long as she is not working as a journalist.

She isn’t, she’s investigating because she’s made the connection that the police don’t want to take seriously, and she’s worried for other teenagers, including her son.

When a girl, another of the three teenagers who dabbled in the occult goes missing Martha starts to make spurious links, and disagrees with the police when they think they know who is to blame.

The setting for this book, and the premise of the story, are dark and could have been written by James Herbert. As I’ve already said the main character of Martha could have come from the pen of Agatha Christie.

That simple formula has produced a cracking story.

As far a debut books go this is one of, if not the best, I’ve read.

Publisher: Orenda Books. Pages: 402.

Audio Book length. 10 hours 18 mins. Narrator Sarah Barron

Every Move You Make C.L Taylor

Five people in a self help group, all of them the victim of a stalker.

At the very start of the book the group loses a member when their stalker murders them on their doorstep.

At the funeral the group are delivered a chilling message. In just over a week one of them will die.

The story is told from the remaining four members of the groups point of view.

They hatch a plan to find out who’s stalker delivered the message, who is the target, but can they trust each other.

With the book being written from the point of view of the four potential victims the concerns, and insecurities soon start to manifest themselves in one of them.

As those concerns appeared on the page it led me to change my hypothesis on who was the intended target, and even start to develop thoughts on if one of them was in fact the puppet master using the others fears to manipulate them.

But why would that be. If all of them are victims of stalking why would one of them go from victim to predator.

This is a cracking story.

The pace of the book is perfectly set. It had me hooked from the beginning and kept me enthralled all the way through.

I can’t remember how many times I changed my hypothesis, up until the point it became obvious, and even then I wasn’t completely convinced there wasn’t going to be a twist.

Publisher Avon. Pages 422. Audio book 10 hours 8 minutes

Jack’s Back and Unlawfully At Large Mark Romain

Books 2 and 3 of the DCI Jack Tyler series set in London at the turn of the 21st century

By setting the books around the millennium Mark Romain has given himself the ideal era for for a great Police Procedural series

Technology is moving forward at a pace, Forensic use of DNA is well advanced and in use.

The use of Mobile Phone technology for tracking criminals is in its infancy, as is the forensic recovery of data from mobiles.

CCTV is starting to cover more of the City but is nowhere near as all-encompassing as it is now, and the quality isn’t great.

The Police have recently been criticised over their handling of the Stephen Lawrence case and the ramifications ripple through officers day to day investigations.

The woke society is not yet in full swing and officers, rightly or wrongly, get away with stereotyping and, in some cases, forming unfounded opinions of people.

All of this allows Romain to write books about what many people class as “proper policing”. Using the skills of a detective, actually carrying out an investigation into a crime, doing the boot work.

But it also allows Tyler and his team to use the incoming technology. CCTV, ANPR, mobile phone tacking, in its earliest of forms.

Jack’s Back.

A sadistic killer is using Jack The Ripper for inspiration.

Killing prostitutes in the same area of Whitechapel as the Victorian killer, using the original Jack as a template, but he is also out for revenge, could this be his Achilles Heal

As good as Romain is in writing from the police point of view it is the insight into the mind of the perpetrator.

The parts written from the point of view of the killer is chilling enough, but there are some peripheral characters that brought goosebumps.

Prostitutes and pimps feature heavily in this story and are written in a way that brings them to life as well as the Police characters.

The violence and deprivation of the seedy side of life is portrayed graphically, but without being gratuitous.

In telling the story Romain takes the reader inside the mind of minor players, and some nasty gangsters. He shows us the vulnerability of the girls working the streets and introduces us to the desperation for drugs that sees most of these women selling themselves to strangers.

Most shockingly it also shows us the dangers they face.

Unlawfully at Large.

When a vicious gangster is helped to escape police custody Tyler’s team is assigned to the team hunting him, whilst Tyler takes a back seat to that teams DCI. That is until an unfortunate case of food poisoning see Tyler take over as the SIO.

The vicious gangster escapes from custody whilst he’s in hospital. Aided by a family member and an assortment of small time gang members, and a drug dependant prostitute the group leave a trail of destruction during their getaway.

The case is personal for Tyler and his team and they stretch the limits to try to arrest the group before the main man can make the ultimate escape across the channel.

Again this is a gritty story that doesn’t hold back on the shock factor. But what really impressed me in this book is the feelings and emotion described within some of the main characters.

The pure desperation and unhinged logic of the escaping gangster. The realisation by some of the group that he has become unhinged and that they are involved in something way over their heads.

The pure blissful ignorance of one of the gang as he seems to want a normal life, but doesn’t really seem to realise just how much trouble, and danger he’s in.

On the Police side Tyler and his team are pushing the hours to a ridiculous rate. What Romain doesn’t shy away from is the fact that bad decisions can be made when somebody is exhausted.

The Series so far.

I can’t praise this series highly enough. Reading is subjective and everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I know this series won’t be for everyone but for me it ticks all of my boxes.

It’s realistic, it’s set in an era when policing was coming to terms with new technology and the investigations were not over reliant on CCTV or DNA.

Each of these books can be read as a standalone but I’d really suggest reading the whole series in order.

The Mind Of A Murderer. Michael Wood

Billed as the first Dr Olivia Winter book, I’m really hoping this turns into a long series.

Dr Olivia Winter carries the scars of a failed attempt on her life when she was 9 years old.

The attacker killed her mother and sister, and was the last attacks of a notorious serial killer. He was also her father, who is now serving a life sentence.

Olivia has become a world renowned expert on serial killers, travelling the world to interview them, publishing books on them, and doing lecture talks to students and academics.

But, she won’t work live cases. She has been asked numerous times but she won’t get involved.

When her best friend, a Detective in the Met, visits with a file on four recent murders she still refuses to get involved, until the unthinkable happens, then she has no choice.

Somebody is just walking into peoples houses and killing women. There’s no sign of a forced entry, no attempt at sexual assault, but there is signs of a chase. All of the scenes indicate that the killer likes to instil fear into his victims before making the final stab or slash.

Nobody has seen them come, or go, from the buildings.

The Police are at a dead end.

So what can Olivia add to the investigation.

As it turns out her insight and thoughts are brilliant, but there’s one person that could help identify the killers thought process even better, her father.

The story is great and I enjoyed every page. Michael Wood has created at least one character, in Olivia, that I’m really looking forward to reading more of.

My only problem is all the time I was reading this book I was thinking I’ve know this story, or at least the plot.

As much as the story felt familiar I know haven’t read a version this good.

The one thing I hope is that the series doesn’t turn into the daughter, brilliant minded, police consultant; and father, incarcerated mass murderer, forming an alliance that is unwanted by Olivia, but manufacturing by her father’s manipulations.

That really would be too similar to other things

Pages: 454. Publisher One More Chapter. Publishing date: 28th March 2024