Crime Fiction Blog – nigeladamsbookworm

Connie. Charlotte Duckworth

A simple cast of characters, a relatively simple plot, but a brilliant and absorbing story.

The characters, and there’s only really two, Connie and Olivia. Connie the serial killer and Olivia the middle aged mother of two twins.

But there’s much more to both characters.

From the start there is no doubt that Connie is a killer, in fact shes in prison serving a life sentence for killing seven people. She shows no remorse, and throughout the investigation, and still whilst in prison, she has never given any reason as to why she killed those seven random people.

Olivia is an ex detective. She took maternity leave when she had her twin boys, and never went back. Now, 18 years later, they have gone to university and she is bored. There is an emptiness in her life she tries putting down to empty nesting, or rather her husband puts does.

He’s a successful business man who earns enough for her to stay at home. But she has a bee in her bonnet, and it’s Connie Cross, the infamous killer.

Why?

Not only is she intrigued by the fact that Connie has never given a reason for the killings, but she also had dealings with her when Connie was a very young girl.

Olivia was the Family Liaison Officer assigned to Connie when her baby sister died suddenly at home.

The police would be involved in any sudden death but when Connie let it slip to a neighbour that she thought her Dad dad killed her the Police arrest him.

What had always been a bad relationship between father and daughter, as well as his abusive behaviour towards Connie’s Mom, make him an ideal suspect. But he is innocent and the relationships get even worse.

Olivia meets with an ex colleague, who is now a Detective Inspector and was part of the team that arrested Connie when her crimes came to light, and tells him shes thinking of writing a book about Connie. He tries to convince her to return to policing but helps her get access, as a visitor, to Connie.

What follows is Then-and-Now chapters as Connie’s story is told.

How she became a killer, why she killed the people she killed.

All the time Olivia is realising that her home life is not what she wants anymore.

But is that her choice, or is Connie manipulating her.

Because at the end of the day Connie just like to mete out justice in her own way.

You always hear the phrase on TV talent and reality shows. If you are going to do “simple” it has to be perfect.

This is the epitome of that.

It’s a simple story but it is written so well it is stunning.

It unfolds slowly, without being boring.

There are no shocks or twists that make it unlikely.

It is simply one of the best books I’ve read for some time.

Pages: 464. Publisher: Quercus. Audiobook length: 10h 7m Narrator: Susie Riddell

Dissection of a Murder. Jo Murray

I want to start this review with two quotes, of quotes, from the book.

Are we just to accept you’re either the victim or the killer, and there’s nothing in between

And

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer

Two paragraphs from early in the book that sum up this story.

There are twist and turns, there are hidden clues, some of which were so obvious, but only with the benefit of hindsight, and there is one hell of an ending

Leila is a Barrister and she is about to defend her client, Jack Millman.

There are a few things that make this a tense situation.

It’s Leila’s first murder trial.

The Victim was a well loved Judge

Perhaps the worst, her Husband is the prosecution Barrister.

Oh, and there’s one other thing. Millman pleads innocent but he won’t give any information to help build his defence.

He was arrested at the scene and has gone given no comment as his answer to every question the police has asked him.

A tactic he continues when he has his first meeting with Leila.

She has defended him before, on an assault case. He was innocent but found guilty.

Why?

Because he gave the police information about the girl he was protecting during the alleged assault. She was going to be his key witness, but she was got at by some powerful people and never gave her evidence in court. Worse still he was labelled a grass for accusing a gang member of assaulting the girl.

This time he’s giving nobody a chance to interfere with what he hopes will be a fair trial.

That is the main thread of the story, but there is also the nice in house soap opera that is the Chambers Laila and her husband work out of.

It’s a hard working law chambers where politics and “relationships” drive the narrative.

I like legs thrillers. The American ones are usually top of the best sellers but the British Legal system is so full of traditions and history; nepotism and old school ties, sex and scandal, that it makes for fascinating reading.

This is one of the best, in this genre, that I’ve read for a long time.

Pages: 416. Publisher: Macmillian. Audiobook Length 11 hours 40 mins. Narrator Joanne Froggart

The Family Secret. Patricia Gibney

This series is a must read for all crime fiction fans, and The Family Secret, book 16, is no exception.

The title gives the plot away, you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. The family showing a happy face to the public can be hugely different in the isolation of their own home.

It’s not the only isolation in the story. Detective Inspector Lottie Parker is newly single following a break up with one of her team, Boyd, and her mother’s dementia is getting worse, and her children and grandchild are always giving her worries.

One of the endearing things about this series is the soap opera that is Lottie’s life, and it plays a major part in this book.

As well as investigating murders and a potential kidnapping, she is being drained physically, and mentally, by things in her private life.

But the main focus is the crime.

A family murdered following a child’s Birthday party.

Twelve year old Freya is dead in her home, the day after her birthday party, and so are her mother and father. It’s a gruesome scene and all of the attending police officers are affected by what they see.

Kneeling at Freya’s side Lottie promises her that she will find the killer.

One key witness is Lily, Freya’s best friend who was supposed to sleep over after the party but changed her mind.

A luck escape, or an insight by somebody.

Before Lily can be interviewed properly she goes missing with her mother saying she had been “stolen” from her own home.

And so it begins. The hunt for a person who has murdered a family, and in all likelihood has kidnapped a child.

What are the secrets hidden behind the closed doors of both girls homes.

Are the parents really as they present themselves, or are there some dark secrets.

Patricia Gibney writes one of the most realistic crime fiction series there is on the shelves right now.

There will be people who have worked crime scenes that will make links to what she has written. In this book she tapped into the one thing that always plagued me.

The normality after the crime.

When she describes the first murder scene, following the birthday party, it was like she was inside my head.

Devastation in one part of the house and total normality in the rest of the premises. The detritus of the party, waiting to be cleaned up. A party dress that should never be part of this type of scene.

I know a few people that hated that normality as much as me, and in a few paragraphs Gibney captures it perfectly.

This story has real pace and is emotionally charged.

As far as fiction goes, it’s as good as it gets, and better than most.

Pages: 503. Publisher: Bookouture. Available now. Audiobook length: 13 hours 24 minutes. Narrator: Michele Moran

The Quiet Kill. Robert Bryndza

London 1987 and Detective Constable Jamie Day arrives in London as a transferee from a uniform post in rural Norfolk.

On his way into the station, the day before he is supposed to start, he is sent to a murder scene. A young cop from the sticks he isn’t expecting his first incident to be a body chopped up and dumped in bags, but that’s what he gets.

Unfortunately for him this is just the first in a line of gruesome discoveries that lead Jamie, and his new team, to start investigating the gay scene where it is becoming obvious that a serial killer is active.

Jamie is keen to impress and his boss DCI Harry Dean is impressed, as is one of his colleges, WPC Tracy Steel.

But there’s always that one person in a team that has his nose put out by the newcomer, and in this case its ex vice copper DC Liam Cole, who takes an instant dislike to Jamie.

The serial killer investigation overlaps an internal police investigation which is looking at a senior officer who is deeply involved in the seedier, and more violent side of the gay sex scene, and police politics soon starts to make things awkward, especially for Jamie who is as naive to the politics as he is to the types of crime he is now investigating.

This is not a complex story. There is no “shark infested Custard” scenarios. Everything just slowly unwinds. In a very captivating manner.

Set in London, in the mid 1980s, it is set in the time when being gay was just about becoming acceptable, people were acknowledging that a gay life style existed, and that not all gay men were perverts. But it was also when AIDs was at its height as an incurable death sentence.

The police investigation in this story highlights the fear that was present both in the gay community, and also a largely ignorant general population.

It makes the investigation more sensitive and difficult.

It also shows the Met Police at a turning point. Female Constables were common place but they were still in uniform, which included a bowler type hat, a skirt, a woolly tights.

It amazed me that in the book, and in real life, even the female constables working with the plain clothes CID officers were still in uniform.

I was in the Fire Service during these times and I clearly remember female police officers turning up at incidents in these uniforms.

I also remember how scary the AIDs disease was, and the precautions we had to take when dealing with casualties at scenes.

Because I was there in those days I can vouch for how realistic the background in this book is. It brought back many memories of the way we dealt with incidents, and how the gay community was treated by the rest of us so called straight people.

The story also contains scenes which include gay sexual assault. The scenes are not gratuitous, and are completely within context of the story, but some readers should be aware that they are graphic enough to be triggering if you are affected by that type of thing.

Would I recommend this book. Yes I would, and as a bonus there’s a short story at the end.

I hope this isn’t a standalone story. I would really like to read more of Jamie and his career in the Met getting on for 40 years ago.

It wasn’t that long ago but reading this book it reminds me of what a completely different world we were living in back then.

Pages: 337. Publisher: Raven Street Publishing. UK Publishing date: 9th July 2026

Rough Justice & Unlikely Saviour. Biba Pearce

The first two books in the Shrap Nelson series set in current day London.

There are going to be the inevitable comparisons with Lee Childs and Jack Reacher made by people who read these books.

For me, they are much better, but that may be because I’m not a fan of the Reacher series.

The main character, Shrap Nelson, is an ex-military police officer suffering PTSD, and in the first book she is living rough on the streets of London.

In Rough Justice the closest thing she has to a best friend, a fellow vet living on the streets, is being sought by the police who believe he has killed a woman.

Shrap doesn’t believe it, but before she can talk to him he is found dead in the street, a burning corpse.

Again Shrap doesn’t believe he either died by accidentally setting himself on fire, or committing suicide, which appears to be the way the police investigation is going.

One Officer is also doubtful of the veterans involvement in the murder of a young woman, and of his accidental death.

Detective Gareth Trevelyan is a recent transferee into the Criminal Investigation Team and is a bit weary of raising his concerns.

But when he starts to bump into Shrap during his own investigations he sees the benefit of having her as a very unofficial part of the investigation.

Living the homeless lifestyle makes Shrap almost invisible, she can get close to places and remain invisible by just sleeping in a doorway. Who ever takes any notice of anybody sleeping rough.

The murdered girl was a sex worker, only she wasn’t. The Police are happy that she’s just another street walking prostitute, so are happy to close the case quickly.

The girl worked as an erotic dancer at a club run by and Eastern European but that was all she did.

The investigation opens up a real can of worms. The Eastern European is running drugs and most of the girls working at his club are on the game.

He has small time local hoodies running the drugs for him and they present as big a danger as the boss himself.

The story in this book is really fast paced and makes an excellent read. Shrap and Trevelyan make a great partnership.

The plot is very realistic and brings the dangers of living on the street to every chapter, what it also brings to the fore is the community amongst the homeless and how they look out for their own.

Book 2, Unlikely Saviour, follows on quickly from the first book but now finds Shrap living in a hostel.

The son of one of the hostel workers is a graffiti artist and when he and a friend witness a body being dumped in the Thames they make a run for it. Unfortunately his friend doesn’t make it home.

The police are again reluctant to take the disappearance seriously.

But when a body turns up, just where the youth said he’d seen a body being dumped it starts a race to find the missing teenager.

The dumped body turns out to be another ex military veteran who runs his own investigations agency.

He has three current cases on the go and any of them may have thrown up somebody who wanted him dead.

But which one is most likely to have killed at least one person, and whats happened to the missing teenager.

Shrap uses her investigative skill and the skills she has learnt living on the street to help Trevelyan carry out the investigations.

Other police officers are beginning to appreciate Shraps skills and the value she can bring to an investigation, including Trevelyan’s boss, and she is given a bit more access and a lot more leeway.

This is another cracking story, and this time its got a surprisingly different ending I didn’t see coming.

The clues were there all the way through the book but they were cleverly disguised.

Two brilliant books in what I hope is going to be a long series.

Pages: Rough Justice, 360. Unlikely Saviour, 310. Publisher Mortlake Press. Audiobook length, Rough Justice, 9 hours Narrator Caroline Fantozzi. Unlikely Saviour not available.

Both books available on Kindleunlimited in the U.K.

The Gold Coast Quartet books 1-3. Iain Ryan

The Strip, The Dream, The Casino

A review of the first three books because the fourth is yet to be published.

I recently reviewed a book series set in the Ganglands of London over several decades, and Amazon being Amazon decided to show me books that I might like having read them.

Well Amazon hit the spot with this series, it is an addictive read from the first chapter of the first book, The Strip, into the second The Dream and right up to the last chapter of the third The Casino.

The series is set on the Gold Coast of Australia in the 1980s its a real old school crime noir.

Back then The Gold Coast was an up and coming place which bore more than a passing resemblance to Londons Soho of the 60s and 70s.

Run by corrupt politicians and small time gangsters who are gaining notoriety and strength.

The Police are corrupt beyond belief and a racket they nearly all take part in, known colloquially as “The Joke” , is making them very comfortable.

What makes it worse still is that most of the police are not only on the take, but they are lazy and unambitious when it comes to solving crime. Why would they want to lock people up who are lining their pockets.

The Queen of crime in the area is Colleen Vinson. A Madam extraordinaire and an extortionist. She has used her brothels to take pictures and films of all of her more powerful clients and she basically has everyone of any importance in her pocket. From street cops to judges, from local business men to the highest politicians, she has something on all of them.

Anybody who steps out of line with Colleen can expect to be the victim of, at best, some very physical violence, at worse they just disappear.

But there are some people trying to make their way legitimately. Trying desperately to clean up the area from within the Police, and elsewhere.

The Strip

The scene setting book that contains a cracking story and introduces most of the main players in the series, but don’t get to engaged with any of them, because nobody is safe and not all of them will make it to book two.

Initially there are six murders, which the local police are desperate to lump into one case blaming a serial killer.

Detective Lana Cohen has been leant to the task force looking for the killer. Her boss in Brisbane also wants her to keep an eye on the local cops because the rumours of their inefficiency and corrupt practices have reached the leaders of the state.

She’s convinced that there is more than one killer, why would one killer strangle their first victims then completely switch methods and start shooting the later victims.

She’s teamed up with Henry Loch an Officer whose career is already in tatters and has no real interest in solving the case.

She does find a cop who is willing to help and wants to get the Gold Coast clean. Detective Bruno Karras is as close to a clean Officer as she can find, but can she trust him, and what is the secret he is harbouring.

The story climaxes in the last few chapters and as with all of these books it can be read as a standalone but it sets the scene for book two.

The Dream

The Gold Coast has its very own version of Disney World, or it will have if its owner ever finishes the build. And that is the problem there are a lot of powerful people that want the project finished, and some that don’t There is a lot of money invested in and around the project. Clean and dirty money.

Mark Nichols is a fixer who works for politicians and he’s sent to make sure that Fantasy Land is opened on the latest deadline. What he finds is a dysfunctional family business being worked by corrupt officials.

Far from solving the issues Nichols becomes part of the problem, getting entwined in the drugs and prostitution surrounding the project and inevitably becoming one of Colleen Vinson’s victims.

Bruno Karras is still on the force and he is on the hunt for a missing family, but he’s not the only one. Private Investigator Amy Owens is also carrying out an investigation that brings her close to Karras. They might want the same outcome but it’s for completely different reasons.

How does the missing family tie in with Fantasy Land. Well on the Gold Coast everything seems to revolve around drugs and prostitution. Surprisingly that means that Colleen Vinson is involved.

Karras and Owen both need to be on their guard.

The Casino

This story is like the splintered glass of a broken window, every crack leads to a single point. There is not one word in this book that is wasted in the weaving of a brilliant story.

The last few chapters bring it all together in a perfectly understandable conclusion.

A severed hand found on a beach brings Detective Lana Cohen back to the fore of the ongoing story.

She’s back on the Gold Coast in a dead end job, punishment for her involvement in solving the crimes in the first book.

She is still trying desperately to compile enough information on the corruption in the police force to bring the Joke down and clean up the force, but she has to do that in her own time, between mundane police tasks.

She starts to work with Vince Walter’s, and Internal Investigations Officer once known as Miami Vince because of his wild life style he claimed was all part of bringing under cover. But he’s an addict and his addictions are not as under control as he tries to make out.

Ewan Hayes is a private investigator who is hired to find a missing person. This person is also part of Cohen and Walter’s investigation.

Everything leads to, and revolves around the newly completed super Casino Complex, the first on the Gold Coast and Colleen Vinsons Dream, but is it hers, no spoilers allowed and it would spoil the previous book.

What I can say is Colleen’s not happy and she is looking for some missing people herself.

As I said earlier this is a complex story and at times, as enthralling as it is, I wondered how it would all tie in but it does, and out of a brilliant three book series, so far, this is the best of the three.

I can’t wait for book four to be published to see how this is all going to end.

I was interested that in the acknowledgements at the end of the book Iain Ryan thanks authors he has read who have influenced him. One name stands out for me as being really relevant. James Ellroy. The writing style is not the same but the complexity of the stories, the way one book naturally acts as a stepping stone into the next, the way no character is safe, the way that a chapter in book one somehow has relevance in another chapter in later books, all make this series an equal to Ellroy’s trilogies and quartets.

For those with Kindleunlimited the first two books are available free in the U.K.

Pages: The Strip 438, The Dream 448, The Casino 444 Publisher: Lamb House

Wicked Women. Angela Marsons

It must be every Police Officers nightmare case. A completely random murder of a woman who has no enemies. She has done nothing wrong, or has she.

When the first body is discovered that is what Kim Stone is faced with, but everybody has secrets, nobody can have gone through life without upsetting somebody. Can they?

Then a second body, again seemingly random, again no enemies.

But when the teams start digging, are they going to find connections between these two innocent people, is there a link, maybe they are not so squeaky clean as they first seemed.

What I loved about this part of the book is the way Angela Marsons has looked at the way people look at other people. One mans innocent is another mans, or woman’s, villain.

Nobody can go through life without upsetting somebody.

Sometimes just doing your job, or going about your day-to-day business can upset the wrong person, but where is the overlap between the victims.

When a third body is found the team really do end up scratching their heads because this one really does seem totally innocent.

Meanwhile a long standing feud between two neighbouring families in a rural location is providing Kim with a side bar head ache.

Why do two neighbouring families hate each other so much, and what is it that finally trips one of them over the edge.

Angela Marsons has done it again. Without giving too much away she has managed to write a completely compelling and realistic story which has included elements of society that, although we don’t see every day, certainly exist and are probably closer to home than most of us care to admit.

The interaction between Stone and her team is brilliant, and I love the ongoing side stories of their personal lives, but it’s Stone herself I most engage with.

There is something about her personality, the way she thinks, and the actions she decides on, that make these books special for me.

I’ve been with this series from the beginning. In one of my very first blogs, before this series started, I said I didn’t like long books, or authors who published more than one book a year. Well I’m happy to say Angela Marsons has proved me wrong.

This is book 23 in the series, and they are published about every six months, and this is by far my favourite series of crime books, and it just keeps getting stronger.

Pages: 370. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook length: 8 hours 17 minutes. Narrator: Jan Cramer

Evil In The Family Michael Wood

The third book in the Dr Olivia Winter series.

The story starts with a realistic account of two people trapped in a house fire. Every choice they make in trying to escape is thwarted by something blocking a way out.

Whilst they are in the kitchen trying to break a window they see their murderer through the glass. Begging for help they can’t believe he just looks at them and does nothing.

They don’t survive.

Dr Olivia Winter is a Forensic Psychologist, one of three people working in the newly founded Behavioural Science Administration.

She is unequally qualified and experienced as a serial killer hunter, having escaped her father, who she caught in the act of killing her mother and sister.

But she doesn’t work live crime scenes. She is happy to look at scene videos and recordings and the last thing she wants is to see a live scene for herself.

That changes when DI Amyas Foley calls her to the scene of a particularly gruesome murder in London.

The family of a retired Police Officer, her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren have been murdered, had their faces disfigured and posed as a family group in the mother and father’s bedroom. The retired officers son, the husband and father, was in New York on business and escaped the murder.

This family won’t be the last, and each scene, although similar at the core, become more gruesome.

The investigation is going nowhere, each family are seemingly randomly chosen.

This drives the team to the edge, some are finding a tipping point where they suffer mentally and physically.

This is where Michael Wood is a masterful writer. Nobody, in British Crime Fiction, writes as well a he does about the psychological effects attended serious crime scenes has on the investigators.

From the dark humour to the sleepless nights, from flashbacks to nightmares, he covers it all in the most realistic of manners.

Winters can’t handle the scene and is on a downward spiral. Foley is getting pressure not only from his senior officers to solve the case, but also some of his team who think the use of Winters is a bad idea as they see her unravel.

There are some key peripheral characters in this book and Michael Wood does a great job of subversively building a case for two or three of them being the murderer.

I was convinced I knew who it was, more than once, but the reveal at the end caught me out.

This is a great story in a magnificent series. it could be read as a stand-alone but why miss out on the previous books which are just as good.

Pages: 476. Publisher: One More Chapter. Release date: 31/03/2026

Cop Hater. Ed McBain

I’ve recently been in a bit of a reading slump.

Modern crime fiction seems to be following an all too familiar formula with many of the stories being very samey.

I recently resorted to rereading one of James Elroy’s books, classic crime fiction set in the 1960s, and having enjoyed it and looked for inspiration on Amazon.

The name Ed McBain came up and I remembered people reading his books when I was on the ships in the late 70s. I don’t know why I never picked one up then.

I’m sort of glad I didn’t because now I’ve found a rich vane of new books to make my way through.

Cop Hater is the first in a very long series, of over 50 books in the 97th Precinct series set in the fictional city of Isola, which is very obviously New York.

Written and set in the mid 1950s it’s an excellent study of not only policing in that era, but also of how people lived, their styles and attitudes. The language used, the thoughts and behaviour are very much of that era.

The city is no stranger to serious crime but when the Detectives end up investigating the murder of one of their own no stone is going to be left unturned.

The way they pull in known criminals, and the quick back stories associated with each, are mesmerising.

A second detective is killed and some forensic evidence is left. The Criminologists, Crime Scientist of the day are the early forerunners of today’s Crime Scene Investigators, but have little proven science to help them.

Blood matched only by types, no national shoe database, finger prints sent to the FBI for analysis, and DNA is decades away, as is CCTV, and personal phone data which so much of today’s policing relies on.

So who is killing detectives, and why. There are some nice observations and twists in this plot. There is the still, and ever present, hinderance of the journalist trying to get the “scoop” on the story. The reliance of information from an informer, who I hope has numerous appearances during the series, an early Huggy Bear, type character.

But the big draw is the cast of police officers, their professional and personal lives giving great depth to each character.

One of my favourite tactics that writers employ is to kill of protagonists or main characters in series. It means that the reader is always on the edge of the seat, as no one is safe. McBain sets his stall out early and kept me right on the very edge of the seat.

I won’t be reading all fifty plus books in one binge, but much like Elroy, McBain’s stories are now going to be my default books when I’m looking for a good, no holds barred, original, none woke story to read.

Pages: 226. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer Included in Kindleunlimited

Chapter One. Michael Wood

A clever thriller that had me convinced I knew who the killer was, until I didn’t, and then I realised just how dark this story is.

Reclusive author Aiden Cullen hasn’t left his house for years.

The day his first book was published should have been a huge celebration, but it was the day that changed his life for the wrong reason.

Stabbed multiple times and left for dead the previously shy man, who was leading a normal life, turned into a recluse during his rehabilitation. Now he never leaves his home.

Writing from home he has become a successful author writing murder based crime thrillers.

His life is turned upside down when a murder is committed close to the rear of his house. He has to answer the door to the police, he has to let strangers into his house, even if they are Police Officers, and that really freaks him out.

When he becomes aware of other crimes, all of which are frighteningly similar to the murders in his books he has to tell the police.

Then strange things start to happen in his house.

The list of suspects is short and the top of the list is Aidens best friend and occasional lodger, Luke.

Aiden fights the police’s assumption it’s Luke, it can’t be, it’s his best and only friend.

This is a cracking story written by a brilliant story teller.

I’ve struggled with how to describe it, and I don’t think this does it justice but, if Stephen King wrote Cosy Crime, this is what he’d come up with.

The cosy part first, it’s set predominantly in a nice country family home.

The Stephen King bit. The story is a psychological mind twister.

To be honest, as good as the story is from the start, it’s not until the killer is revealed that I realised just how good the whole plot was, and it elevated my enjoyment of the book even further.

What a cracker of a read.

Pages: 380. Publisher: One More Chapter.