Crime novel – Page 37 – nigeladamsbookworm

Let the Dead Speak Jane Casey

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The newly promoted DS Maeve Kerrigan is back, and you won’t be disappointed.

Whether you’re new to Jane Casey’s work, or a fan of her books, this is a treat.

Although this is the latest in a series, it reads well as a stand-alone. So, if you are new to Maeve Kerrigan and her team you won’t feel like a stranger at a party; and if you’ve read the previous books, you will love this one.

Maeve is single, again, she’s still working on the Murder Investigation Team, but has been promoted to Detective Sergeant. With the added responsibility comes the added problem of looking after a new team member. Detective Constable Georgia Shaw is not exactly making friends. Being young and attractive is enough to rile some people, but add to the fact she is on the fast-track-promotion scheme, and has little or no experience as a copper, and you have a character that adds a nice little sub plot to the main story.

The main story is brilliant in its simplicity. The crimes all happen on the same street and involve two families and a few other local members of the community.

Kate Emery is a 42-year old single mother, divorced from her husband for over 12 years. Her daughter, 18-year old Chloe has cognitive disabilities, and Kate has dedicated her life to being her carer.

When Chloe returns home, from a weekend stay with her father and his new family, she finds her mother missing and the house is a blood bath.

Kerrigan and her team start a murder enquiry.

Chloe is left in the care of a family living over the road from her house. The Norris family are a tremendously well written bunch of characters. Devoutly Christian they stand for everything that Kate didn’t, but the daughter Bethany is Chloe’s best friend.

As the inquiry into Kate’s murder progresses Kerrigan and her team start to find evidence that Kate was not the woman she seems. Single, and attractive, it appears she has a secret life her daughter and “most” of the neighbours don’t know about.

She is receiving money from her ex-husband, and has her own business, but it still seems she needs more money.

Is Chloe actually as bad as her mother would have people think, or are her disabilities an exaggeration of her shy personality that her mother is trying to use to get benefits, schooling, and more money from her ex.

The story has a limited bunch of characters but anyone of them could be the killer, and I didn’t see the end coming right up till it leapt of the pages of the last chapters.

The Norris Family could have a whole book written just about them, would any of them want Kate dead, and what possible motive could any of them have for killing her.

Brian Emery, Chloe’s dad, and his new family could have a book written just about them too. His new wife is a bitch, and her two teenage sons are spoilt brats, who Chloe hates. So why does she spend the odd weekend at their house. Could one of them have wanted Kate dead. Does Chloe really hate them or would her mother’s death mean she could spend more time at the house.

This book has twists and turns in every chapter.

It has moralistic issues as well. I found myself liking characters I shouldn’t like.

Casey writes the story so well that when you are seeing things through Maeve Kerrigan’s eyes you find yourself going with her thought process. In other books of this ilk I often find myself disagreeing with the main character, or think “don’t be daft” but with Kerrigan everything just seems right and justified. Maybe we just think the same way.

If you haven’t read the other books in this series you really have missed out. Read this one then go back and start at the beginning.

Like I said at the start of this blog YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED

Bay of Martyrs Tony Black and Matt Neal

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I’m sorry to say this book was a bit of a damp squid.

The story was predictable from very early on. The characters were the usual collection of; corrupt politicians, dodgy developers, bent cops and a flawed journalist with different women inexplicably lining up to sleep with him.

I was looking forward to reading something different, and I kept with it till the end but ultimately it was a let-down.

It starts with a body washing up on a beach. The police decide, way too early, it’s an accidental death whilst and the main protagonist, the journalist Clayton Maloney, realises it’s far from it.

When Clayton is sent to interview the Local MP about his involvement with a new development its immediately obvious that the body on the beach, the politician, and the crooked developer are all linked.

Chuck in a bent police officer who is thwarting Maloney in his investigations and the only thing that is missing is the glamorous female assistant to the alcohol loving journalist and you have a story. Oh, wait there is a glamorous assistant. Bec O’Connor the photographer.

Like many of the other characters in the book O’Connor adds nothing to the plot except for the equation of whether she’ll sleep with Maloney or the only straight copper in the book.

I have to say I am yet to read a book, that is written by two authors in collaboration, that works.

Angela Marsons Kim Stones Series Looking forward to DEAD SOULS

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So, the latest Detective Inspector Kim Stone novel by Angela Marsons is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Why is this great news?

Because she is my favourite author, and not just mine. Within a couple of hours of her announcing it was available, on twitter and Facebook, the book was at number 16 on Amazons sales list. This was no surprise as it was recently announced that she has sold over 2 million books worldwide.

So, what makes Angela so popular. I can’t speak for everybody but here’s why I like her books so much.

The most important thing, to me, in a good story is its believability, it has to be real. Angela’s stories are. There is no over-exaggerated, unrealistic crimes. Everything you read is something that could, or has, happened. Yes, the crimes would make it to the front pages of the local paper and onto the local news, but there are no over-the-top, sensationalised, story lines which would have the general population in a panic over national news headlines.

Each story is self-contained, so the books can be read as stand-alone novels, but an outstanding cast of characters run through the them. I have found myself liking the most unlikely of people, getting conned into thinking some are nice, reliable people, only to find out they are the complete opposite, and actually hating others.

Characters that have bit parts in one book reappear in others.

All of the characters, especially Kim Stone and her team, are developing throughout the series. Books don’t always need cliff hanger finishes, they just need characters you want to meet again.

Every time I pick up a new book in this series I look forward to the character’s stories as well as finding out what crime has been committed and who’s responsible for it.

Then there is always the setting. The Black Country. I know some of the appeal in these books, for me, is that they are based around where I live. But that’s not the main thing, it’s the way Angela captures the places, and people of the region. You don’t have to live here to appreciate that. Greg Isles is also one of my favourite writers but I’ve never lived in Natchez on the Mississippi.

Why does the Black Country make a good setting? because it has everything. There are low social-economic housing estates and edge-of-the-country piles worth millions. There are every possible combination of nationalities, and the communities they develop. There are out of town shopping malls, and there are run down market towns. There are people who are the salt-of-the-earth and there are out and out scumbags, and everybody in between.

The possibilities are endless, as is Angela’s story telling ability.

The books are a testament to Angela Marsons and her persistence. She has been writing for years and suffered God knows how many rejections by publishers. Now she is one of the UK’s top selling crime authors and is going from strength to strength.

How good are these books? Silent Scream, the first in the series, was published by Bookouture in February 2015. Now, in March 2017, we are eagerly awaiting DEAD SOULS, the sixth book in the series.

If a publisher is willing to bring that many books to the shelf in that short a time, the stories must be good.

So, if you haven’t read any of the books in this series yet, and you want to know why I Iike them so much.

I’ve put some links below to my reviews of the first five.

Treat yourself, you won’t be disappointed.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/silent-scream-evil-games-angela-marsons/

https://nigeladamsbookworm.wordpress.com/category/lost-girls/

https://nigeladamsbookworm.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/play-dead-angela-marsons/

https://nigeladamsbookworm.wordpress.com/2016/09/24/blood-lines-angela-marsons/

Playing With Fire Kerry Wilkinson

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Seven years ago, a young lad, Alfie, has too much to drink and staggers home. He’s lost his wallet and can’t get a lift. Stopping at a derelict pub he decides to shelter from the weather and sleep inside for the night.

Unfortunately for him Martin Chadwick decides to burn the pub down that night, killing Alfie.

Martin is tried and convicted for manslaughter, and now he is being released from prison.

There have been threats against Chadwick so his release from prison is supervised by DS Jessica Daniel. In an unorthodox passage from prison Jess talks to Chadwick and finds him strangely humble.

At the same time, Private Detective Andrew Hunter is hired to find out who got a rich man’s daughter pregnant.

What follows is a series of arson attacks and some teenage suicides, but are they all connected, and if so, who is the connection.

During the investigation, Jess Daniels crosses paths with journalists and must rely on help from unexpected allies. At the same time she is dealing with issues in her private life.

The main thread of this story rotates around the arson attacks and the possible connections between them, and maybe the suicides.

Those of you who have read my bio will know that I spent 30 years in the Fire Service with 12 years as a Fire Scene Investigator.

There is a scene in this book which is the best I have ever read when describing events inside a fire.

This is reflective of the whole book, it’s a great story, well researched well written.

There is a great blend between the investigations and the private life of the main character. Jess Daniel has had a turbulent career. For those of you who haven’t read the other books in the series I would highly recommend that you put them straight to the top of your to-read-list.

Right I’m off to read more Kerry Wilkinson.

Ashes to Ashes PaulFinch

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I have to say I have never read any of Paul’s previous books, and I really don’t know why I’ve never come across him before. A quick look at Amazon told me this was the 6^th book to feature DS Mark Heckenburg; but I must say reading this as a stand-alone, or out of sequence, book didn’t detract from my enjoyment of it.

I had only read the first 5% when I sent a tweet out saying WOW what a start to a book. The next 95% did not let me down either. Its fast paced, and intriguing.

It’s one of those books where you keep looking for a point where you can put it down and get on with what you should be doing. In the end, I gave up and just read it straight through.

Detective Sergeant Mark Heckenberg, Heck, works in the Serious Crime Unit, a national resource based in London. It has to be said he is the typical “doesn’t work to the rules” “always in trouble with his bosses-who secretly like him” type of character. A cross between a British Cop and Jack Reacher. Not my preferred type of protagonist but I really did enjoy this book.

His latest investigation is taking him home to Manchester.

A torturer-for-hire has moved from the Capital to Manchester and the SCU team follow him.

Once they’re there another crime crosses their investigation. Somebody is using a flame thrower to kill people associated some of Manchester’s gangs. Very unoriginally the press give this killer the name of “The Incinerator”.

Meanwhile, as The Incinerator piles up victim after victim it appears that The Torturer is also working within the Manchester Gang Scene.

The race is on to find both killers, who they are associated with, and why they are carrying out the killings.

Vic Ship is the head of a established gang and he has started introducing Russian Thugs into his team to enforce his law.

Lee Shaughnessy is a young man, the head of a breakaway gang. Both have a history of drugs, prostitution and violence. Both want to run Manchester, but is either of them capable of the atrocities that are taking place, or is somebody else trying to disturb the food chain.

The story runs at a very, very fast pace. Every page is a new breathless experience, and maybe, just maybe that could be the only thing wrong with it.

If you like your Lee Child you will love this.

If you prefer a more sedate, and dare I say it, more realistic read then this book won’t be for you.

I have said in previous blogs, and my Bio, I don’t do suspended reality. Yes we have violent crime on the Streets, and yes it is getting worse, but this for me was just a step too far.

However would I read the next one, yes definitely, and not only that I’m going to read the first 5 as soon as I’ve got a chance.

I think I’ve just found my guilty pleasure amongst my usually keep-it-reel reading list.

He Said She Said Erin Kelly

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Another book which uses flash backs to a previous crime. Is it me or are these becoming more and more common.

The story centres around Laura and Kit, and their family and “friends”.

Kit is a bit of a strange character, introverted when younger, and not much of a change when he is older. But he has one unique quality, he is an Eclipse chaser. Whenever a total eclipse of the sun occurs, wherever it happens in the world, Kit must be there.

In the present-day Laura is his wife, and she’s pregnant. This wouldn’t normally be a problem but there is an eclipse due and it means Kit is going to travel to the Faroe Isles, not a trip suitable for his wife.

This will be their first time apart for some time, but worst of all, it will mean that both are isolated from each other since the incident they refer to as The Lizard.

The Lizard was an incident that happened during the total eclipse of the sun in 1999. An eclipse that Kit and Laura witnessed in Cornwall at the Lizard.

The flashback crime happens during the festival which marked the 1999 eclipse. Laura witness a vicious attack and becomes a key witness.

Ramifications of her actions ripple out to start to affect the couple in 2015.

The isolation of the Faroe Islands would be an ideal place to get to Kit on his own. Laura is more isolated than she thinks at home, and somebody is out for revenge.

This story is very original, at times for me it’s a bit rambling, but it is worth persevering with for the twists and turns in the plot.

It will keep you guessing till the end, and may even have you a little bit frustrated that you didn’t see the outcome earlier, but that’s never a bad thing.

This is the type of book I like to read on holiday when I have time to luxuriate in deep descriptions and dead-end sub-plots.

However, right now, I found myself skimming through chunks of it that were all a bit unnecessary.

The Cleaner Elisabeth Herrmann

What I love about e-books is that they allow me to find Authors from around the world and read their stories. Stories I would never have heard of, or had just been lucky to come across in an Airport bookshop.

The Cleaner by Elisabeth Herrmann came up as a book suggestion following another book I had read. A quick look at Amazon, and Herrmann’s own website, revealed that she is a well published novelist in Germany with many German Edition copies of her books available in the UK, but I think this is the first English copy.

That must change.

This is the story of a child victim of the Cold War, and the adult she became fighting to find out the truth.

1985 and a child is taken to a government run children’s home in East Germany, quickly swallowed by the system she suffers years of institutional abuse, which she extends into her private life as she gets older.

Her name is Judith Kepler, and after struggling with drugs, and self-harming, she gradually gets herself together and becomes a cleaner in the reunified Germany. Her specialism is cleaning crime scenes, moving in after the police and forensic teams have finished an investigation and making the building habitable again.

One such scene see’s Judith cleaning up after the murder of a woman, but she realises that she has a link with this woman and wants to know more.

Her investigations lead her into contact with agents working for the German Security forces, old and new. There is a secret out there that somebody doesn’t want discovering. Old allies are now on different sides, and old allegiances have changed, but this secret has to remain buried.

Who is the woman that was killed in the flat, the investigation leads Judith across Germany and Sweden. Judith’s life is put into danger but it only makes her put more effort into finding the truth.

Why?

Because until she finds out the truth, she won’t know who she is, why she was abandoned in the children’s home. One thing is for sure, what she knows now is false.

The book starts in 1985 and stays there for just the first chapter, moving on to the modern day the reader follows Judith’s actions as she fights to find out the truth. An ordinary woman battling against the power of agents from agencies with a profound interest in keeping the secret in the past.

As she digs deeper she begins to uncover a story of treason and double cross. She needs to know what would have set the wheels in motion that left her in the home; and what was worth so much, that so much subterfuge was used to hide the past

The characters in this book are good, and believable. Judith is one of us, and acting like one of us. She has no secret skills, she is no super hero, she is just getting on with life when things take a vicious turn. You will love her.

People who have read Marnie Riches’ the Girl Who……… series will love this book.

People who have read Ludlum at his best will love this book.

People who are looking for a new thriller author in the UK, this is your woman.

Most of all, anybody who likes a good story, will love this book.

The Promise Casey Kelleher

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Modern day Brixton, with all the drugs and prostitution you expect from it.

Washed out old hags working the streets to feed habits, that are slowly eating them alive.

Attractive young girls, looking to be the next WAG and getting tricked into being High Class Escorts, to feed their addiction to the modern scourge of materialism.

Pimps feeding off addictions and fantasies.

Drug dealers feeding the addictions.

Families that get caught in the mess made by it all.

This story has it all.

Josie, the single mother of two girls, Georgie, 12 and Marnie 5. Living in a stinking flat with no food or clean clothes the girls hear their mother, “earning” money for her next fix.

Josie used to be a good earner, until her looks were ravished by the substances she was putting in her veins. Her dealer has been given a beating once by her pimp, but he keeps coming back and Josie keeps buying.

Delray Anderton is Josie’s pimp. He started running whores like Josie but has moved up in the world and now runs a high end escort agency, but he still looks after his old girls.

So when Josie disgraces herself with a client Delray comes to sort it out but then cuts Josie free. She can’t work within 20 miles of home, that’s his patch.

In desperation for money Josie gets herself into more trouble which ends with her being convicted of murder.

Her Girls are taken into care and that’s when their troubles really start.

Running away they end up under Delrays wing, but he is only interested in one thing. He has a client who likes young teenage girls, and Georgie is perfect.

The girls must escape, or at least try, but do they? can they?

This is a good story and Casey Kelleher does a great job of describing the world we all know exists but try to ignore. The book can be uncomfortable reading at times, but it’s gritty, so maybe its not supposed to be an easy read.

Born Bad Marnie Riches

Manchester has its own Mario Puzo

This book is stunning.

Say hello to the gangland of Manchester.

The O’Brien family run one half of the City. The Boddlington Gang runs the other.

There has to be conflict and, bloody hell is there conflict, very bloody conflict

The head of the O’Brien family, Paddy, is a ruthless gangster that treats those close to him as badly as he treats his enemies; but his family love him.

His brother Frank runs one of Manchester’s top night clubs, at which his son is a celebrity DJ

His enforcer, or Loss Adjuster, ss he calls himself, is Conky McFadden.

Conky is a fascinating character. A man that thinks nothing of beating people to a pulp or carrying out revenge shootings, yet he is into the classics and thinks deeply. He reminds me of Colin Dexter’s Morse gone rogue.

Then there’s Paddy’s wife Sheila. His punch bag and sex toy, when he’s not using younger versions in Franks club. Sheila runs her own cleaning company, a semi legit business she’s quite proud of.

On the other side of the City Tariq Khan and Jonny Margulies run The Boddlington Gang, an operation every bit as nasty as the O’Briens. They traffic young girls and force them into prostitution, make and distribute drugs, run guns, and destroy everything that comes into their path.

Just like the O’Briens, the Boddlingtons are all about family, but unlike Paddy Tariq and Jonny treat their families like human beings, and keep them in the dark about how they actually earn their money. So somebody’s in for a shock.

Just like the O’Briens, the Boddlingtons have an enforcer, Smolensky, The Fish Man. Why is he called the fish man, because he runs a fish mongers, and also because he guts and displays his victims like a dressed salmon, what a character, he even leaves sliced cucumber along the side of bodies.

After a conflict in Franks club, with a young drug dealer from the Boddlingtons, that leaves Paddy in hospital following a heart attack, the last thing I expected was that Paddy would say enough is enough and decide to retire to Thailand, but he does.

And that’s when the problems start, Paddy decides to sell up and he wants to do business with Jonny and Tariq. It is never going to be easy and somebody really doesn’t want him to sell up.

What ensues is a gangland battle that affects both gangs. Both enforcers are chasing around the city trying to find out who carried out the latest attacks, and carrying out revenge attacks of their own.

Paddy’s family is torn apart, so are the families of Tariq and Jonny.

Meanwhile Sheila is suffering in silence, with an admirer who can’t do anything about his feelings for her. Conky, the misfit of an enforcer hates, the way Paddy treats Sheila but his loyalty is to his boss.

There are subplots in this book that will have the reader loving a character on one page, and hating them the next. There are moralistic twists and turns which will see the reader empathising, and having disdain, with a person all at the same time.

The interwoven lives of the gang members earning illicit money through drugs, prostitution, and violence, should make the reader hate them all. But they are human, they have problems and you just can’t help liking them at times.

The book starts of really well, and right up to the very last page, just keeps getting better and better.

Somebody has to make this book into a film. Guy Ritchie, or Danny Boyle this story should be your next blockbuster, just don’t change anything its perfect as it is.

The Missing Ones Patricia Gibney

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The Missing Ones Patricia Gibney

Every now and then something good comes into your life.

This happened to me the other day. I requested a copy of The Missing Ones, a debut novel by Patricia Gibney.

The book was downloaded to my Kindle and I started reading what has turned out to be an absolutely, brilliant book.

Let me introduce you to the main character.

Detective Inspector Lottie Parker.

She is 43 years old, a widow who is struggling to bring up three teenage children, struggling with the death of her husband, struggling with alcohol, and struggling with the arrogance and ignorance of her Senior Officer Superintendent Corrigan.

I think it’s fair to say life a struggle for Lottie.

But Don’t feel sorry for her, all those things just add to a character you can’t help falling in love with. Whilst she’s battling just to keep her life on track, she is a good Police Officer in the midlands of Ireland, and this book could not have been set anywhere else.

There is a murder to investigate, historic child abuse by the clergy, corruption within the town council, good priests, bad priests, nice cops and functioning cops, all interwoven into one fantastic story.

The story is told with Lottie as the main protagonist. She is called to the murder of a 51-year-old woman in a Cathedral. This is the first of a series off killings which take place over New Year 2014, in the middle of a snowy winter.

Anonymous flashback chapters tell the story of horrific happenings at St Angela’s Children’s Home in 1974. Good luck guessing who is having the flashbacks, it kept me intrigued up to the end.

Are the killings in 2014 connected with the happenings, of 40 years ago, in the now abandoned home?

Can Lottie solve the murders?

She will have to ignore her boss, rely on her team, and hope she can. Why? Because nobody is safe until the killer is caught. Nobody.

I said that every now and then something good comes into your life. Well in this case two things have.

Detective Inspector Lottie Parker and her team; and the author Patricia Gibney who has written a brilliant page turner of a Crime Thriller.

Let’s Hope we hear a lot more from both of them.