The Crime Vault – Page 2 – nigeladamsbookworm

X Sue Grafton

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X Sue Grafton

Before I go any further I have to admit I have not read all of the other books in this series, and those I did read were very early in the series.

That may be the reason this book failed to grip me. It was an easy read but I found myself drifting away from some sections as the story was overtaken by the descriptions of people and places that didn’t seem to add anything to the plot line.

I gather from reading other reviews that there are some regular readers that are beginning to think that the author is running out of ideas. I can’t agree with that I found the story itself to be good and original, which is quite a feat these days.

The request by a rich woman to find her ex-con son, that she gave up at birth, was never going to be what it seemed when Kinsey Millhone is first retained.

The request from the widow of a fellow PI, and friend, to help with her tax returns, is also a clever ploy to open up a story line, which sees Millhone plunged into danger as she opens her own investigation into a mysterious man that the dead PI left coded notes about.

There are gentle subplots which I did not get, but judging by other reviews are continuations of similar threads in previous books from the series.

This is a short review because, to be honest, I can’t think of much to say about the book.

Will it make me rush to catch up on the series? No

Will it make me want to read the next book? No

Is it a bad book? No, I just think you need to be a Sue Grafton fan to appreciate it.

Baby Doll Hollie Overton

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Fast paced from beginning to end, this story starts where most finish and rushes towards the end at a cracking pace.

The story starts with Lily escaping from a basement she has been held captive in for ten years. During that time, she has been physically and mentally abused by the man that took her.

Whilst in captivity Lily has had a child Sky, and when she escapes Sky is released into a world she’s never seen.

Once she has gained her freedom Lily is reunited with her twin sister Abby, and her mother Eve.

Neither of these relatives have survived the years since Lily went missing intact. Once reunited the process of identifying the kidnapper to the police, and ensuring his arrest, takes even greater tolls on the family.

The story is told in chapters which show the unfolding scenario from different protagonists. Obviously Lily is the main one but Hollie Overton manages to get into the heads of each character including not only Lily’s family but the kidnapper, and his wife.

Whilst Lilly and her family work with the investigating team the kidnapper is still trying to manipulate people with truths half-truths and pure malicious misguidance.

The psychology in this book is brilliant, and by using different characters in each chapter takes the reader on a crazy trip of emotions.

This book is like a box set on TV. I kept thinking to myself I’ll just read one more chapter but then read the next because I couldn’t leave the story where it was.

I look forward to reading more of Hollie Overton’s work in the future

Look Closer Rachel Amphlett

Look Closer Rachel Amphlett

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Rachel Amphlett, not a name I was familiar with until a few months ago, now I’ve read two of her books and wonder why it’s took me so long to discover her work.

Look Closer is a great read. It’s one of those books you want to read in one sitting, and it’s just long enough to let you get away with it.

The book follows Will Fletcher, a worker at one of London’s Museums, as he tries to follow a string of clues left by Amy.

Amy lives with Will, she’s a reporter for one of the big UK newspapers and she’s on the trail of Ian Rossiter, a politician that has been catapulted to the head of his party and looks favourite to be the next Prime Minister.

Will and Amy argue just before she goes to interview Rossiter. Whilst he’s at work Will gets informed that Amy has been hurt when somebody tried kill Rossiter.

With Amy in a serious condition in hospital Will finds a message on a phone that leads him to start making his own inquiries. What was Amy really investigating for her latest article.

The story weaves around London and the home counties, is anybody who they seem to be?Can Will trust anybody? What will he discover?

I found this book when I searched political thrillers on Amazon.

It certainly is that, and more. It has been a long time since I read a book like this.

I can compare it to early Robert Ludlum and Nelson DeMille.

The story is strong and intriguing. There is no reliance on violence. Most importantly of all the plot engages the reader.

I challenge anybody to see the end of this book coming before it arrives. That is not because of a curve ball thrown by the author, it’s because the story is so well written.

I enjoyed this book so much I’ve just downloaded 3 more of Rachel Amphletts novels to my Kindle.

Not to read now, but to save for six weeks time when I’m sat around the pool on holiday, and that is about the best compliment I can give.

A Tapping At My Door

A Tapping At My Door David Jackson

Detective Sergeant Nathan Cody is a troubled man. Working in the Major Investigations Team in Liverpool he has recently finished a spell as an undercover officer that has left him emotionally wrecked.

Cody pours himself into work and, as it becomes obvious that a serial killer is working the streets of Merseyside, Cody finds himself drawn deeper into the investigation. What he doesn’t need is distractions. Distractions like a female Senior Officer taking way too much interest in her new DS; like and old flame turning up as a DC on his team on the same day they discover a serial killer is on the lose; like an over enthusiastic journalist second guessing his every move; and like a killer with a twist. But that’s what he gets.

Unfortunately for me there are just too many clichés in this book.

The troubled protagonist, the unrequainted love interest from an older woman, the love he can never have with the ex from the past, and the haunting memories.

The story travels down a predictable path ticking all the boxes with an easily anticipated ending.

The only thing that I found original was the motive of the killer.

This book took me nearly 2 weeks to read, that in itself speaks volumes.

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Maestra L.S. Hilton

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Maestra L.S. Hilton.

The protagonist for this book is Judith Rashleigh.

Judith’s story starts with a glimpse further into the book with the first chapter ending with her asking the question, how did this all begin. The first half of the book is retro that point, but still narrated in the present first person tense. The rest of the book remains in the first person and advances the story.

The story is good. Judith a young woman with a passion for fine art, and qualifications to back it up, is working in one of the big auction houses in London. However, her lot there is not a good one. Working as an intern but treated like a dogs-body Judith watches on as a young pretty air-headed girl arrives at the house and is positioned into her place.

A chance meeting with a woman she used to go to school with leads Judith to a part time job as a Hostess in a London club. There’s a no touch rule but the underlying atmosphere is that of an establishment that sits just on the right side of legal. That’s OK with Judith because she has a secret.

Judith likes stranger-sex, in fact she likes rough stranger sex. L.S Hilton uses this as a tool to allow Judith to get into the situations that allows the story to advance.

Whilst still working at the Auction House she uncovers some elicit dealings but is sacked when she tries to expose the crime.

Judith’s moral is low and she allows herself to manipulate a client at the club into taking her on holiday. From then on her life changes.

As she tries to re-establish herself she manipulates, uses, men to make money. Drifting around the top upper-class resorts of the Mediterranean her moralistic code slips deeper and deeper allowing her to make choices and take actions that the Judith at the start of the story never would have.

Dealing in art, and the underworld leads her commit the most hideous of crimes, all the time seemingly justifying her own actions. Each crime gets worse but Judith’s morals seem to allow her to commit each one without conscience. As her crimes get worse so does the depravity of her actions in her sex life.

The book races through the story but the end is very open. Hilton uses the phrase “To be continued” at the end of the last chapter. I have to say it doesn’t feel so much of a cliff hanger as an anti-climax.

I have some issues with this book.

It is a great story, but, why do we need such graphic descriptions of the sex. I’m no prude and I enjoy a bit of sex in a book, but this is full on hard-core. I understand that the reader needs to understand that Judith’s behaviour is either escalating or spiralling downwards, depending on your point of view, but personally I would have been more comfortable with a little less eyes-on, and a little more insinuation.

For me the sex scenes distract from the story. It felt like they were deliberately there to shock, and that may be Hilton’s intention, but they were out of place with the rest of the writing.

The book is set in some of the nicest places in Europe, amongst people wearing fashionable and expensive clothing, all beautifully described. As is the art, Hilton obviously has a passion for the art world and has found a nice outlet for a good tale. It is almost as if two people wrote this book, or is it just a really good author showing the split personality of her main character. If it is, she has done a very good job of it.

Who would I recommend this book to. Anybody with an open mind, male or female, there’s something in this for everybody.

If you’re easily offended steer clear.

The Brief Simon Michael

To use a sporting term this is a book of two halves, and both of them are really good.

The first half of the book is set in 1960 introduces the reader to the main protagonist Charles Holborne, a Barrister in a London Chambers. As the only criminal barrister amongst chambers full of corporate law and civil court barristers he is not the most popular person.

In fact Charles is not the most popular person amongst most of the people in his life. His wife is from English gentry and his marriage is on the line as she increasingly turns to her parent’s circle of friends leaving Charles alone at home or working late.

Whilst he’s at work he is constantly fighting the closure of the criminal work and hence his removal from chambers. Simon Michael, paints a great picture of a law chambers in the early 1960’s and the people that work in it, with Holborne having few friends and many enemies.

Charles is from a strong Jewish family and has changed his name to help him get along in a largely anti-Semitic profession. However it was marrying his wife Henrietta that was the final straw and his family have disowned him since the wedding.

The first half of the book sees’ Holborne representing one of two armed robbers tried with job in London, and is a good story in itself, but is no more than a prelude for the action in the second half.

The second half of the book is set in 1962.

Two years later and Charles and his wife are drifting further apart and the other barristers in Chambers are increasing their attempts to drive him out.

With his life in general reaching a tipping point Holborne becomes the suspect in a vicious crime. One of the characters introduced in the first half of the book is Detective Inspector Ronal Henry Wheatly. Wheatly is not crooked but he does like to make the evidence fit the person he is after. He is known to get results, even if he has the wrong person.

When Holborne realises Wheatly considers him a suspect he knows he has to take matters into his own hands, go on the run, and try to solve the crime himself.

The story sits nicely in the sixties allowing Simon Michael to weave a tale that wouldn’t sit correctly in the modern day.

It seems right that the world in which he works is full of anti-Semitic upper class snobs; its right that his wife’s family look down on him; we except that policing was “different” in those days. It wouldn’t have been right to set in in this day and age.

Michael has written a tale that is easily believable and very enjoyable. I hope this is the first of many, hopefully in the same era.

A great book I would recommend to anybody who enjoys a good legal who-done-it.

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Too Soon A Death Janet O’Kane

Too Soon A Death

Janet O’Kane has written a second book with Dr Zoe Moreland as the main protagonist, and what a book it is.

Dr Zoe is not your usual main character, she is neither the Police Officer or Private Detective trying to solve a case; nor is she the perpetrator, she is just a woman who happens to be a Doctor in a rural GP surgery in a village where crime occurs. The crime is seen through Zoe’s eyes and via village gossip. In fact the story is told in a way that 99% of us would see it, if it happened close to us.

The story starts with Dr Zoe being called to a riverbank close to her home. The body of a young man has been found. He has suffered injuries to his hands that appear to have been treated and she is only there to see if she recognised him as a recent visitor to her practice.

At the scene she meets Detective Sergeant Trent, a local Police Officer Zoe has become used to seeing, and who she aims to assist identifying the body. As in real life they swap pleasantries but the Sergeant only gives her the basics of the investigation, and continues to during the investigation, but she is never an integral part of it.

When She returns home Zoe is met by her dog Mac and her best friend Kate Mackenzie. As in the first book the deaf Kate is Zoe’s best friend and confidant. As well as being a single mom she is a Genealogist and works from home trying to uncover family histories.

Zoe and Kate’s relationship is more like sisters and Kate’s family have become Zoe’s adopted family.

A series of events in the village start to make it look like Dr Zoe is being stalked. Then another incident affects Kate’s family. Are these events and the body in the river connected?

Janet O’Kane’s narrative, unravelling the story from Zoe’s perspective alone, shows how easy it is to become afraid. How conclusions can be made and how worrying it can be to be either at the centre of a crime, or on the peripheries and not have the full picture.

The suspense is built up naturally as more small incidents happen without any explanation.

Is Zoe being targeted, if so why?

Has Kate dug too deeply into somebody’s family history?

And then there are the dogs. Local farmers are reporting attacks on their livestock. Where have they come from and are they connected?

This book was just like the first, No Stranger To Death; it kept me turning the pages. Unlike a lot of modern fiction Too Soon A Death does not rely on blood, guts, and sex, to keep the story moving along. The suspense that kept me reading was generated by a really well written story. It will work your mind, you will try to make connections, and kick yourself when you don’t get them.

If you like TV programs like Midsummer Murders, and Lewis you will fall in love with Janet’s writing.

If you are more of a Luther fan don’t dismiss this book it will be your loss.

I could happily recommend this book to anybody who likes reading. How would I describe the experience of reading it? Have you ever had that feeling when it’s raining or snowing and you’re sat inside with your feet up, in front of the fire, with a warm drink? That’s how I felt reading this book.

Janet. Thank you for this story and I look forward to reading many more of your books in the future.

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Playing With Fire Tess Gerritsen

Julia is a musician; she has a successful Husband who loves her, and a beautiful three-year-old daughter who she dotes over. Life is pretty much perfect.

The book starts with Julia buying a book of Gypsy Music whilst on a trip to Rome. Within its pages she finds an original piece of music by an unknown composer. Reading the music and playing it in her head Julia finds it complicated but beautiful.

When Julia arrives home she plays the piece for the first time she waits till her three year old daughter Lily is playing quietly by herself, before taking out her violin and playing the piece. As she reaches the end of the piece her daughter comes running into the room covered in blood and holding a gardening fork. From that point on Julia’s life changes; the relationship with her family is affected by her thoughts and at the centre of it all that piece of music: Incendio.

In Julia’s attempts to discover the origins of the music another story unfolds and the reader is transported to 1930’s Italy where a young musician, Lorenzo, is given his grandfathers violin and asked to take part in a duet competition with a young lady he has never met before. They are from different backgrounds and would never have met if it wasn’t for the music, but there blooming relationship has one major problem. Lorenzo and his family are Jewish and the Italian Fascists are beginning to act like their German allies and alienate the Jews. The young lady and her family try to warn Lorenzo’s family of the change in attitudes towards the Jewish community and convince them to escape before they are interned and transported to Poland with the rest of the Jews caught up in the horrors of Hitler and Mussolini’s reign.

The 2 stories play out through the book. Lorenzo experiences in Europe during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Julia’s fight to prove her own sanity in America in the 21^st Century.

Eventually the two stories inevitably come together in a spine tingling conclusion to a story that, at times, made the hair on my arms stand up.

It is very hard to do this book justice without giving away too much of the plot. As a rule I usually am happy to comment on anything that happens in the first half of a book but nothing in the second, to avoid the dreaded spoilers. I could happily write about this book all day but that would just ruin it for everybody else, and everybody should read this.

Whilst I was reading the book I had in my head the haunting violin piece from the film Shindler’s List. My daughter is a good violinist and I have seen her reduce people to tears playing that piece, and there is the obvious connection between the film and this story.

Then I discovered that Tess Gerritsen has composed a piece of music, Incendio, and had it recorded by one of the top violinists in the world. I had it playing whilst I wrote this blog. Just as it is described in the book it is a beautifully haunting waltz with a tumultuous finale.

So I guess this is not only a book review but in a way my first music review.

All I can say is both are 10/10. I loved the book, I loved the music. What a talented woman

Thank You Tess Gerritsen

Heavy Hour Patrick Brown

Is a murder at a wedding related to an incident that happened 10 years before? I’m sure this has been the basis of many books in the past, but not many will have evolved into a story as good as this one.

On Jelly and Dillon’s wedding day Dillon is cruelly murdered. The Police investigation identifies no suspects so the family turn to a friend, local security expert Salem Reid.

As Salem begins his investigation it draws him towards a mysterious man. The man is violent and a sexual predator. What’s worse is he makes and distributes violent pornography.

Can Dillon have been involved, or is it coincidence that joins them.

Patrick Brown is a very descriptive writer. During the scenes of sexual violence he does not hold back and it is rare for me to say a book goes too far but this one came close. However it didn’t cross the line, I didn’t put it down and I have to say I really enjoyed the story.

This story is told from an independent point of view, the main protagonist is a family friend who helps the grieving widow. There is no abundance of the scientific methods used by the police in a modern investigation. Salem Reid uses observations. He follows people, he thinks things through, makes connections and then acts on them.

This is a good book with a good story. Its told from an unusual point of view. It kept me reading from start to finish. That has to be a good sign

Would I recommend this book? Yes but not to anybody feint-hearted

The Silent Room Mari Hannah

You know that feeling? The one when your favourite author diverges from their series to write a stand-alone novel. The feeling when you hope it’s as good as the series but you’re disappointed the usual characters aren’t in the story.

That feeling lasted about 2 pages when I was reading The Silent Room. The book had me hooked so quick I read half of it the first day I had it.

Mari Hannah introduces some fantastic new characters in this book. The main protagonist Detective Sergeant Matthew Ryan is depressed that his ex-boss, and best friend, Jack Fenwick has been charged with a serious crime Ryan does not think he committed. But when a prison transfer van is hijacked and Fenwick is released and disappears, it appears that Fenwick may have been guilty after all.

To make matters worse Detective Superintendent Eloise O’Neil and her sidekick Detective Sergeant Maguire, of Northumbria Professional Standards Department, are tasked with investigating the escape Ryan immediately comes under their scrutiny.

Ryan quickly starts to make his own inquiries whilst the official police investigation carries on.

The two investigations run parallel to each other with the added friction of Ryan and Maguire being in constant conflict.

The end of the book comes quick. As with all of her books Mari Hannah doesn’t give the reader an easy ride on the way, and the twists and turns continue right to the end. I usually read on a Kindle but was lucky enough to have a paperback copy of The Silent Room. With what appeared to be only a few pages left I was beginning to think I was home and dry and that all of the drama was over, I should have known better. All the way to the last paragraph of the last page this book delivers.

This is a great book. Mari Hannah has written a story that quickly draws the reader in. It is set, like all of her books in the stunning countryside of Northumbria, allowing her to use remote destinations with the full attention of “Big City” Policing.

The characters are great. The reader will instantly form an empathy with Matthew Ryan. As with all of her characters there are some great, and believable, back-stories. I have a feeling she must write a complete bio for each character, even the bit part ones, as they all fit together and into the story amazingly.

If you are a Fan of the Kate Daniels series of books you are going to love this book.

If you are a new reader to her books, enjoy this and then read her others.

Mari Hannah has a unique way of getting it right. Her stories are believable. Her procedures are accurate. Her characters come to life on the page.

I recently wrote a blog titled Killer-Lady-Writers, about how lucky we are in the UK to have some women writing fantastic Police Procedural thrillers.

This book cements Mari as being right at the top of the list.