Police Thriller – nigeladamsbookworm

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

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.

Turf War. Mark Romain

A new author to me, and the start of a five book series.

Before I did a bit of research on the author I already knew I was going to find he had served as a Police Officer, and was not surprised to find he was an experienced Met Officer who had done two stints on Homicide.

You really can’t write a book that catches the essence of an investigation this well without having “earned the t-shirt”

When the leader of one of three gangs, struggling to take overall control of an area of London, decides to hire outsiders to hit a rivals operation, he only has one thing in mind.

Blaming another gang and a tarting a turf war between his rivals.

DCI Jack Tyler’s team are in the middle of the investigation, into the killing of three Turkish Gangsters when he becomes aware that the incident may be linked to an operation being run by his friend, Tony Dillon, in the Organised Crime Group.

To cap Tyler’s day off his ex-wife is caught in a Violent Steaming incident on a train.

The incidents are all linked by different gangs, and the individuals in the gangs.

The way Mark aroma in has written this makes it a real page turner.

The plot of the crimes, and the characters for each, overlap like a well planned Venn Diagram.

Tyler is undoubtedly the main character but Dillon, and several of the gang members are given almost equal time in the book, and the story unfolds with the reader getting an almost 360 degree insight into what is happening.

The politics, and democratic, of each gang is really well portrayed.

The thoughts, observations, and concerns of Tyler from the policing side, and the Meeks brothers from the gang side, are really well written and take the reader right into the heart of the story.

I loved the story, the characters and ten way it was written, the next book, Jacks Back, is already on my Kindle and has gone straight to the top of my to-be-read list

Print length: 674 pages.

The Scorned. Alex Khan

A good Police Procedural novel with strong characters.

At times this book is a tough read and contains triggers for anybody who has suffered domestic abuse.

A tough Asian Lady who has run away from her own “arranged” , and abusive marriage is now a Detective Sergeant working on serious crimes. Moomy Ali is a great character.

When two women, with no apparently link are brutally murdered, within hours of each other Moomy and her team are tasked to investigate.

Why have the Home Office sent an observer in to watch over the team, even before the first victim is identified.

The teams fears that they are being used as some form of political pawn doesn’t stop them carrying out an investigation that uncovers a disturbing scenario.

There appears to be a group of people being manipulated to kill, born on their hatred of women.

During the investigation they uncover bigoted hate in various forms, which are unfortunately very realistic and believable.

But which group, and which leader are responsible for the killings.

As much as this book is a great story it’s also a sad reflection on elements of today’s society.

Frighteningly realistic, and at times hard to read, it’s a great book.

Pages 377. Publisher: Hera Release Date: 5th October 2023

Out Of The Ashes. Louisa Scarr

As a retired Fire Officer, and current Fire Investigation Consultant and Fire Procedures and Science Lecturer, I always open books which contain fire scenes with trepidation. However, I have to say that this book has got everything spot on. The Fire Scenes, along with the interaction between the Police team and the Fire Investigation Officer, is stunningly accurate.

This is the fifth outing for Detectives West and Butler and just like the four before it it is a great read.

Now working in two separate forces it takes a cross boarder crime to bring the two together as a team, which is not to everybody’s liking.

At first they are kept apart, West investigating a stalker, and Butler investigating an arsonist that has set fires in both force areas.

When the teams realise that they may be dealing with the same person committing both crimes it is inevitable that they start to work closely together again, and the old spark is rekindled, in more ways than one.

As with real fire setters the crime of setting the fire begins to escalate. And when the frequency of when they are set isn’t enough, the severity and dangers to others start t increase.

But when two people die in different fires are they randomly unlucky or is there a connection to the fire starter.

If the stalker is responsible is the target of his attentions in danger from an arson attack.

The tension mounts as the investigation continues, who is the fire setting stalker, and why are they not leaving any evidence that might identify them.

Meanwhile the relationship between West and Butler is also smouldering. The year working in different forces, and the fact that they are both in relationships hasn’t done anything to dampen that fire.

Can they both concentrate on the case, and keep each other at arms length.

The want the case over quickly. One of them will take unnecessary risks. This story might not have the happy ever after ending.

What a book. Without other commitments it would have been a one sitting read, what it was was a distraction when I should have been doing other things. Brilliant.

I was convinced I knew who the stalking fire setter was, and I’m sure that was because of some canny writing, but it wasn’t until they were revealed that I realised I was wrong.

A clever plot, completely realistic, and a brilliant balance of crime investigation and personal battles amongst the main characters.

Pages: 411. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Publishing date: 6 July 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.

The Body In The Shadows. Nick Louth

The latest in the DCI Craig Gillard series and another great read.

A series of events, including an attack on Gillard’s wife when she tries to intervene in a pick-pocket incident, starts to uncover rumours of a crime about to take place.

The consistencies in the rumours are only the date and the value of the gains £1.5 billion.

With not much else to go on several police forces become involved in the investigation into a crime that has not yet happened.

To say what that crime is would be a bit of a spoiler, as much of the first 3/4 of the book is taken up with the team identifying the players and what crime is about to be committed.

This is not a unique way of telling a story but it is less common these days and I found that I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

Gillard and his colleagues build various hypotheses of what is about to happen, and each one of them is a possibility.

So if they know a crime is about to take place, and they have an idea of some of the people involved, what could go wrong.

Actually quite a bit. The problem is a minor crime, in comparison, is leading the team a bit of a dance.

This is a great story that I find it hard review without letting spoilers slip.

The basis of the story is great, the characters are brilliantly written, and the pace of it is perfect.

All in all, a really good read.

Publisher: Canelo Crime. Pages: 287. Publishing date: 19th January 2023

Their Burning Graves. Helen Phifer

Detective Morgan Brookes is back in the 8th instalment of this series.

One of the things I like about this series is the fact that the lead character is a DC and as such is unburdened by the management of an investigation. She is a cog in a machine that relies on all of the cogs working together towards the same cause, but only managing one line of the investigation.

The isolation of working that single thread, and taking her thoughts and findings back to the regular team meetings is what sets her apart.

Morgan is a huge crime fan, loving true crime documentaries and books, as well as some fictional crime.

She has a way of seeing the hidden meaning, the motivation for a crime, before most of her colleagues. It doesn’t mean she’s always right, but her hypothesis are fascinating, and if they are dispelled still aid the investigation by narrowing down the lines of inquiry.

In this book she’s the first investigator on the scene of a serious house fire. A family of three is dead inside, but not in one of the burned out rooms, in fact there isn’t even any smoke damage in the room in which they are found.

The fact that they are all sitting at the dining table, with plastic bags over their heads, and each with a hand missing, only adds to the intrigue.

Morgan and the rest of the team are soon embroiled in an investigation in a tight knit community within a small town.

Nobody can be ruled out, but he closer the investigation gets to identifying the killer the harder it’s seems to be.

I loved this book. The prologue chapter telegraphs the motive for the killing, but the link, and the identity, of the killer is cleverly hidden right up till the last couple of chapters

Morgan is a great character, as are the main recurring characters. It’s her addiction to crime documentaries and books that originally got me hooked, after all it could have been me that was being written about, but the books and the stories now demand my attention.

This is one of those series I now look out for. As soon as one’s available they go straight to the top of my to-be-read list and become my next read.

They never disappoint.

Pages: 265. Publisher: Bookouture. Publishing Date: 19th December 2022

In the interest of being transparent I must admit to having a vested interest in this book. I gave advice to Helen Phifer on the Fire Scene and the involvement of the Fire Service during the investigation.

I’d like to thank Helen for the generous mention in the acknowledgements section and the choice of name for the Brigade Fire Investigator in the book.

Blood and Money. Rachel McClean

This story is the first in a new crime series by one of my favourite authors. The start of a series of stories set in Scotland with the newly formed Complex Crime Unit.

But, I don’t know if it is the beginning of a new series, I think Rachel McClean is weaving a set of stories where the characters overlap, and I’m loving the trail it’s taking us along, and I really can’t wait to see where the final destination will be.

We’ve had the Birmingham Crime series. One of the, recurring characters, in that set of books, DCI Lesley Clarke was transferred to Dorset and became the lead character in the Dorset Crime set of books.

Now DS Mo Uddin another side character from the Birmingham books has transferred to Scotland and is now a lead character in the latest set of books.

None of the previous two sets have been finalised, with the latest in the Dorset set due to be published early next year.

Other characters are also brought into this latest set, which gives it a familiar feel, whilst opening up new possibilities.

This story is set around a murder in the wilderness around Loch Lomond. An American Billionaire, who come to his estate on the Loch to have isolated “thinking time” is out on a walk in the early evening.

He’s shot at long range, the bullet hitting just above the knee. It’s not a kill shot but it’s enough to allow him to slowly bleed out, or die of hyperthermia before he’s found. Either way it’s a slow and lonely way to die.

It’s the first case for the newly formed Complex Crime Unit, with its SIO DI Jade Tanner, and her newly acquired DS Mo Uddin, and their small team.

The Units boss Detective Superintendent Fraser Munroe has also insisted on a civilian team member. Criminal Psychologists Petra McBride, another side character from both previous sets of stories, but what is she really there for. To give her insight into the crimes the team investigate, or to analyse the team themselves.

This is a great standalone story, it’s also a great introduction to a new “series”; but for me it’s another thread in an incredible story that started in Birmingham, has threads in Dorset, and has spread to Scotland.

Pages: 348. Available now

The DI Declan Walsh Series Books 1&2 . Jack Gatland

I was browsing book sites looking for a new author when I found the first book in the series, Letter from the Dead being offered as a free book on Amazon.

Not one to turn down a cheaply I loaded it onto my Kindle, and I’m glad I did.

Letter from the Dead introduces DI Delan Walsh, an Officer who is on the brink of leaving the Police following two recent events, one disciplinary, the other the resolution of a case that saw him braking a corruption ring in his force.

The hatred from many other officers he can deal with, the fact that he punched a Priest has resulted in his suspension and possible dismissal.

But he’s approached by DCI Munroe. His team of City of London Officers are made up by people with similar issues to Walsh. His ethos is some problem cops are just to good at their job to be allowed to slip away. They specialise in old or cold cases.

So when new information is received about the apparent accidental death of a Politician’s nearly 20 years earlier the team investigate exactly what happened

What follows is a multilayered plot that takes in the possible murder and introduces recurring characters that will turn up in the series.

Politicians, Police Officers, Gangland criminals, all take major roles as do their friends and families.

The investigation of a historic crime, involving politicians has huge impact. 20 years on some have moved on from politics, and not all in a positive way. Ones homeless, by choice, one’s an internet preacher, and one has changed his political allegiances. But what are they running away from.

This is a story about manipulation and consequences, and it’s a great vehicle to start the series.

The second book, Murder of Angels, is one of the most complex stories I’ve read for a long time, but it’s a cracker of a read.

Parts of two Cities, London and Birmingham, are run by traditional, old school villains, but they are being slowly threatened by the younger gangs, youths that have less respect for people in general. In this case the problem is exacerbated by the fact that it’s the sons of the old gangsters that are trying to take over.

Declan and the team of misfits are spread thin covering crimes in both cities as part of a joint investigation.

The concept of this conflict is again historical. Things that happened 18 years ago having a huge impact on today, and it’s the mysteries of the past that the team need to get to the bottom of, to get to solve todays crimes.

As complex as the book is there is never any doubt of its credibility. The story is brilliant.

The characters in this series are really good. Walsh is totally engaging. His history, and his father’s history are going to have a huge impact on the series.

If you like multi-layered books with a compelling ongoing thread, this is definitely a series not to miss

I really can’t wait to read the next book, but I have commitments to other books, and I’ve got work to do so it will have to wait for a week or so.