Canelo – nigeladamsbookworm

The Ambassador. Tom Fletcher

The type of book I don’t come across much these days, the type of book which was my staple reading for years. A book which fits in nicely with books by some of my favourite authors, like Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.

Taking inspiration from some modern day events and weaving a great narrative Tom Fletcher has created a great, believable, story.

A young woman is taking refuge in the British Embassy in Paris, she’s managed to annoy most, if not all, of the Governments of the world.

But she has sought asylum in the embassy and it’s been granted. Her idea is to get a global government formed to make the world better prepared for any future pandemics.

Meanwhile a Scandinavian hacker is releasing leaked papers which have profound effects on Politicians, Public Figures, Business Leaders and many others. His idea to ruin lives.

She dies live on camera, locked in her room as the embassy hosts a gala.

Her death triggers other suicides in her name but seemingly controlled by the Scandinavian Hacker.

Ed Barnes, the Ambassador is instantly convinced her death is suspicious, the French Police say it’s suicide, without carrying out a proper investigation.

Barnes is isolated. His own Government insist the French investigation is correct. He wants to run his own but is told to stand down.

How can he. The same people he thinks are involved in the murder are threatening his daughter.

There’s only one thing he can do. Defy his Government, go on the run, and carry out his own investigation.

A brilliant story.

Pages: 320. Publisher: Canelo. Available now.

The Line. Rachel Lynch

A cracker of a book that I had no idea was the second in a series, but I’ve now downloaded the first.

The holiday island of Cyprus has series of key military establishments, including a listening station that picks up communications across the Middle East.

So when it becomes apparent that their is a leak, and that somebody is giving an arms dealing, warlord, tip offs that are allowing him to escape being killed by American Drones, an investigation is launched.

Four low ranking soldiers are placed under house arrest and a military investigator is sent to look into the leak.

When the investigator is killed, in an apparent diving accident, Major Helen Scott is sent to the island to continue his investigation, and also to look at how he died.

What follows is a story that examines temptation. The temptation of young soldiers to hit salubrious bars where drinks, drugs and possibly worst of all, prostitution, are all freely available.

The temptation of people to make a quick penny, or get a quick lay, bringing a risk to national security.

But who is responsible. Could four low ranking soldiers really have the ability to gain the information, let alone pass it on in a timely manner.

Why was the original investigator killed, and by who. What was he getting too close to.

Major Helen Scott is a great character but as much as she’s the main one, she’s almost a narrator of the plot. Other characters nearly take up as many pages, and they add to the credibility of the plot.

The setting is great, I actually wish I’d waited to read this book until I was on holiday. So good is Rachel Lynch at taking the reader to Cyprus, that I wanted to be on a beach, or by a pool.

The plot is fast paced and doesn’t let up on the action from page one.

A great story and hopefully, now I know there was a previous book, there will be many more to follow in the series.

Publisher: Canelo. Pages: 328. Publishing date. 28 July 2022.

Death in Summer. Lina Areklew

I like Scandinavian Noir, in fact I’ve started to hunt down new authors, that is how I found this book, and it was worth hunting for.

Fredrik lost his family on the MV Estonia sinking. Him and his brother made it on to a life boat but his parents perished on board.

His brother went missing off the lifeboat and was never seen again. Except Fredrik is convinced he’s alive. He’s seen him several times.

This time he sees him he’s more than convinced it’s him.

Tracking him to a hotel, but losing him again. Fredrik follows a man he saw his brother meet to a remote island. The next day the man is dead.

Sofia Hortencia is a Police Detective who works on the mainland but lives on that remote island. She’s part of the investigation. She also knows one of the main witnesses, suspects, Fredrik. They were in Criminology classes together, and had developed a relationship.

All of that in the first fifty or so pages.

From there the story unfolds. An unthinkable series of murders. An unlikely connection. What is happening and just how long has it been happening for. How many victims have there been, and who is likely to be next.

This is a cracking story with a strangely plausible plot. The twists and turns flow throughout and surprises are always just around the corner, right up till the last page.

Pages: 375. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Publishing Date: 5th May 2022

Death In Kabul. A. Belsham & N. Higgins

The star of the book is its hotch-potch collection of characters that could only be put together in somewhere such as Kabul, a City suffering corruption following years of war and internal conflict.

Mac, the disgraced British Police Officer and his colleague Ginger, a former Para both now working for a private company training local Police Officers.

Major Jananga, an uncorrupted Police Officer who wants to stick to the rules, but those rules include torture and killing.

Baz Khan, and American journalist who is trying to expose a gang smuggling artefacts out of Afghanistan.

When a British soldier is murdered Jananga enlists Mac to help with is investigation.

Meanwhile Baz Khan is on the tail of the smugglers but doesn’t realise how much danger her journalistic enquiries are putting her in.

Gradually both investigations start to point towards a drinking den. The Lucky Star is a drinking den, gambling den, and brothel that could only exist so openly in a city like Kabul.

What a story. It would be wrong to say Kabul is portrayed as lawless, but it is portrayed as being under the Laws of whoever wants to make them up at the time.

There are moralistic angles incorporated into the plot that adds a different twist to a crime mystery set in Europe or America can realistically offer.

It’s also another of those books that had me hitting Google on numerous occasions. I love learning new things and this book certainly gave me the opportunity to do that.

A great read and one that is firmly on my Recommended List

Publisher: Canelo Action. Print Length: 413 Pages. Available now

After Everything You Did. Stephanie Sowden

Another new writer to me, but one I will definitely be looking for in the future.

A young woman, Reeta, wakes up shackled to a bed in hospital.

Two Federal Agents tell her she is the killer of at least four women, two of which are still missing.

The problem is Reeta has suffered serious injuries and has no memories pre-waking up in hospital.

The Agents want to keep her in the blind about her past, unconvinced she has no memory.

They try to deal with her to get back the two missing bodies, but she is adamant she can’t remember a thing.

Set in 1966 in America, with the lack of todays science, two Agents try to bully and cajole a confession from Reeta.

Nobody will tell Reeta who she is, she wants to know where her family are. Latching on to one news report she approaches the reporter to find out about her past life.

Carol, the reporter initially hates Reeta, but soon realises she really does have no memory, and starts to be suspect of the Federal Agents methods. Surely they should tell Reeta about her past.

Her past involves been born into a religious colt, led by the mysterious Jeb.

I was convinced I knew how this plot was going to culminate. I was wrong.

There are little red herrings all leading in one direction, but I couldn’t call it misleading, more intriguing.

The characters are brilliantly engaging, and the plot is compelling. This book had me in a bear hug from page 1 and kept me there until the last full stop.

Print length: 327 pages. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Publishing date : 7th April 2022

The Body Beneath The Willows. Nick Louth

The fourth book in the DCI Craig Gillard series, but just in case you’re put off by that, this book can easily be read as a standalone without losing any of its impact.

For crime fiction fans I’d describe Gillard as a character similar to Lewis from the Morse spin-off series. Nothing is unusual about him. He’s an honest cop, a family man who is happily married, even if he has a mad aunty who occasionally gives him hassle on the domestic front. He just gets on with the job, and that make really comfortable read.

The Publishers Gumph

On the tree-lined banks of Surrey’s River Wey, a decaying corpse is dug up by workmen in the middle of an Anglo-Saxon burial site. His modern dental fillings show that this is no Dark Age corpse…

DCI Craig Gillard is called in, but the body’s condition makes identification difficult. One man, however, seems to fit the bill: Ozzy Blanchard, a contractor employed by the same water firm doing the digging who disappeared six months ago, his crashed company car found nearby.

But then an X-ray of the corpse throws the investigation into turmoil. A shard of metal lodged in his neck turns out to be part of an Anglo-Saxon dagger unknown to archaeologists. Who wielded this mystery weapon and why? Does the answer lie in a murderous feud between two local families?

The deeper Gillard digs, the more shocking truths he will uncover.

A totally original crime mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Body Amongst the Willows is an absolute thrill-ride, perfect for fans of Michael Connelly, Ann Cleeves and Mark Billingham

What I thought

Nick Louth has created a great character in Gillard. The story clatters along at a great pace, and takes enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, without stepping into the realm of the improbable, or impossible. It’s very realistic.

There’s a clever thread running through the book that had me convinced I’d spotted who the murderer was, but no, I was wrong.

Gillard is written in such a way that you can feel his frustrations as the investigation seems to hit brick walls.

This is made even more realistic by the fact that Louth has fully embraced the way of the world today. He is the first author, that I’ve read, who has taken on the way the pandemic is affecting the country, the reduced number of Police Officers available, working from home, the mental effect of lockdown.

Nick Louth books are very much of the now, and I suspect in years to come people will read them and remember the period we’re going through. Hopefully as a distant memory.

Print Length 306 pages. Publisher Canelo Crime. Published 27th January 2022

Project Icarus. R.D. Shah

In the week the bond franchise announced they were appointing an author to develop stories involving new Double 0 agents, I can’t help thinking they should have looked no further than R.D Shah.

I never read any Fleming books but I used to love books by Robert Ludlum, and sadly haven’t really found an author who matched up, but I think that may have changed.

Project Icarus is one of those action books that sees the main character moving from one explosive situation to another, but unlike many it’s not over the top. It’s credible and makes the plot tick along nicely.

Icarus is a serial killer, but two of his kills have the security agencies seriously worried, they were agents of an agency that sees the Americans, British, and French security forces joined in hunt a specific world threat. The team is called DS5

British Police get lucky Icarus is cornered, but surprisingly he will only talk with Police Negotiator Ethan Munroe.

When Icarus escapes custody during a gun battle on a London Bridge it triggers a man hunt that starts in Europe, and in true Bond style, turns international.

Throughout the book, as Munro hunts down Icarus, there is a slow drip of information which opens up a clever, and believable plot.

Why is Icarus so determined to string Munroe along in his wake.

What is he trying to reveal to him, because it soon becomes apparent that Icarus’s agenda is not much different to Munroe’s but for very different reasons.

What links these two people that are so similar yet so different.

This is a cracker of a book. Which has opened up endless posters for future stories.

Pages: 323. Publisher: Canelo. Published Date: 18 November 2021

In Dark Water. Lynne McEwan

I hope this is the start of a long series.

The main character DI Shona Oliver, known as Wee Shona but never to her face, is brilliantly fierce, tenacious, loyal, and has her own ethical compass to steer by.

So when, as a volunteer Lifeboat crew member, she helps recover a body from the Solway Firth, it’s no surprise that she wants to be involved in the investigation of how the young woman ended up in the sea on the border of England and Scotland.

Because the body is landed in England it shouldn’t have anything to do with her team, CID in Dumfriesshire, but they soon get involved in a cross border investigation.

Her boss has promotion ambitions, his wife has political ambitions, and he is leading a high profile, Scotland wide, drugs bust. The last thing he needs is Wee Shona and her small team mucking it, and his potential promotion, up. But is there more to it than just his professional integrity.

Another body.

Shona doing her best dog-with-a-bone act.

The boss getting fractious.

Something has to give

This is a great story to start what promises to be a great series. Shona is a strong character, and she needs to be. Her previous life as a DI in The City of London Police, gives her far more experience than most.

Her childhood in the roughest part of Glasgow, with a drug addict mother, gives her a hard edge.

Her family adjusting to moving from London to the Scottish Borders, and bringing their own secrets with them.

Her small but efficient team, with their own personalities and egos, needs managing.

All of which, along with a seriously impressive crime plot, make this a fantastic book.

Publisher: Canelo Crime. Pages: 274. Publishing Date: June 24 2021

Bonds of Blood. Rob Sinclair

DI Dani Carter book #4, and they just keep getting better

Two people, a husband and wife, the husband is dreaming about another woman, when he wakes he is being viciously attacked, his dead wife lying next to him. Quickly they’re both dead.

The start of an investigation for Carter and her team, and what a route it’s going to take them on.

The dead man Terry Eccles is a property developer. Him, and his partners are hugely successful and on the surface all seem perfect.

But as the investigation begins the team start to find out what the family dynamics are really like.

Dani is also involved in the investigation of a second case. A slam dunk murder following a fatal RTC.

With this distracting her will she manage to stay focused on the murder of the Eccles family .

Then, of course, their’s her personal life. Things couldn’t really be more stressful

Rob Sinclair is a skilful writer who has chosen Birmingham to set this crime series. Clever, every book is set in just the right district. In this case the story revolves around the more wealthy areas of Sutton Coldfield and Little Aston.

Is not just the setting that’s right, the characters are spot on for the story. The almost incestuous relationship between the business partners and their families. The privileged offspring of successful businesses men, and it’s all so believable.

A great addition to a great series

Publisher: Canelo. Pages: 296. Publication date: 20 May 2021

Last Place You Look. Louisa Scarr

Wow. Well this one had me hooked from start to finish.

A young single woman having an affair with a married man. A boringly normal man, but a lovely man, who is about to leave his with.

The young woman is Detective Constable Freya West. She has just been attached to work with Grumpy Sergeant, Robin Butler

Her first job is to meet Butler at an address where they have to tell a wife that her husband has died in a hotel room, the victim of an erotic auto-asphyxiation that went wrong.

But during the visit Freya realises that the dead man is the man she was having an affair with, Jonathan, and she’s convinced that there is no way he would have died like that.

Her first mistake is she doesn’t tell Butler, even when it becomes evident that he was having an affair and the Sergeant is actively looking for his mistress.

Her second mistake is stealing a vital bit of evidence before it’s found by her colleagues.

But she’s not the only one with problems. Butlers sister and twin sons were killed in a car crash years ago, and soon after his release, so was the driver of the car which killed them, in another crash. Now the second “accident” is being looked at again, and Freya has been asked to go behind Butlers back to re-examine the case.

Butler is already coming apart at the seams as he struggles with memories of his sister and the twins. He is perpetually grumpy, perpetually single, with the occasional one night stand or friend with benefits relationships. He’s scruffy and just the wrong side of unhygienic, and although it’s not affecting his work, it’s affecting the people he works with.

Meanwhile Jonathan’s death is highlighted as suspicious after all. People involved as witnesses are finding their story unravel. Freya’s tenacity means Butler becomes increasingly more concerned that he was murdered, but his main suspect is the missing girlfriend.

This is a cracking story. If we were allowed to fly long haul this year, this would be the book I’d recommend for a long flight, the time would pass in the blink of an eye.

The story has everything, great characters, a marvellous plot, and an intrigue that kept me second guessing all the way to the reveal.

That one innocent lie, Freya telling Butler she knows the victim, but only as a distant acquaintance, is the first roll of a small snowball in the snow. But as the story continues the snowball keeps getting rolled and it’s getting big. Meanwhile Butler has his own snowball rolling and the two are about to come together.

I loved this book and would recommend it to any crime fiction fan

Pages: 306. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Release date: 8th April 2021