Crime Fiction Lover – nigeladamsbookworm

City On Fire. Don Winslow

Set in the mid to late 1980’s in and around Providence, Rhode Island this is an epic mafia story.

Mainly looked at from Danny Ryans prospective the story looks at the relationships within families and factions of gangs.

The Murphy family are Irish, they run the docks and they are old school.

Danny has married into the family, marrying the daughter of the top man John, but he’s never had a proper seat at the table. He’s never really been part of the decision making process. He’s has responsibilities within the “firm” but they are minor in comparison to Johns sons.

There has been a peace amongst the main family’s who run Providence for years.

The Italians and the Irish had been at war for years until the two heads of the families had decided to divide the area equally and live in peace, and it was working until one of Johns sons, Liam, let his dick get in the way of his brain.

A summer cook out, on the beach, members of all the leading families having a party.

Then a hot, beautiful woman appears on the sand. Danny instantly thinks shes going to cause problems, and he’s right.

Pam, the hot woman, is with Paul Moretti, one of the sons of the main man in the Italian mafia in the area.

Liam touches her inappropriately and gets a beating from the Italians, and those are the sparks that lead to a bloody battle which will last for years.

The book looks at the battle from all sides, the tit-for-tat attacks that escalate with beatings moving on to murders and full on executions.

It looks at the ways former friends are pitted against each other, but although some of them want to bring peace back to the streets, there are others who are hell bent on full on war.

The Italians have other mafia families from across New York to bring into the fray, The Irish have the ”Boys” back home to bring over.

The conflict gets bloody, really bloody.

The corrupt cops try to keep the peace but are so far in the pocket of the gangs they only add to the problem.

The politics of the gangs is fascinating. The leader, the elders, having old school attitudes which almost makes them look like gentlemen compared to their younger siblings.

Danny is one of those trying to keep the peace at first. But as the casualties mount, and as Liam spirals deeper into drugs and alcohol abuse he finds himself close to the leadership of the Irish.

Does he continue trying to find a way to peace, or has it gone too far now. Does he need to use the full force of the Irish gangs to finish off the Italians.

This is the first book in a trilogy. It isn’t often I will read a book and go straight to the next, but I am this time.

There is no cliffhanger ending, but I am desperate to see what happens next.

Trigger warnings for this book include violence, it’s not gratuitous, and it is very much in context, in fact the book would not be as good without it, but it’s there.

There’s also a bit of spice but again it’s in context and adds to the story.

So not only is Don Winslow a new author to me, but having read one book he has me hooked into at least another two.

Pages: 356. Publisher: Harper Collins

The Serial Killer Gene. Alice Hunter

I have to admit I had to look it up, and yes there is a “Serial Killer Gene”

Or actually to be more precise, there isn’t a specific Gene by that name, but it is thought that a combination of genes may make a person more susceptible to being violent, extremely violent when external triggers are brought in to play.

Lily Chapel can’t remember her father, or so she thinks. As long as she can remember it has just been her and her mother.

Although shes now living with her boyfriend something is not right. She needs to prove herself to him and his family, and to help with that she takes a DNA Geniality test. It doesn’t give her much information apart from one bonus section which looks like click bait, but she clicks it out of curiosity.

That is when she discovers she has the Serial Killer Gene, and that is when her dreams, and occasional flashbacks start to make sense.

In her troubled state she leaves her boyfriend and moves back in with mom, only to fall in lust with Margo, a slightly assertive, lesbian, Journalist who she begins a lustful relationship with.

The more adventurous and heated their relationship becomes the more Dreams and Flashbacks Lily has, and the more lucid they become.

Did her Dad simply disappear, or was there something more sinister at play.

Who passed the gene down to Lily, was it Mom or Dad.

What do the dreams mean, or are they really just memories which have been deeply buried.

The book examines relationships as much as anything else. Is Mother really the supportive single parent doing her best to raise her only child, or is she protecting her from a truth Lily couldn’t bare.

And Margo. Is he too good to be true. Turning up on her first night out after breaking up with her boyfriend. She is gentlewoman and looks after Lily. The sex with her is great, but Lily can’t shake the feeling there is something else. Is she just Margo’s next story.

The story unfolds quickly with the clever use of Past and Present sections. The back story is cleverly disguised and although I thought I knew what was happening to Lily, I really couldn’t be sure until the last few chapters.

This book is the epitome of a psychological thriller. It had me from page one and provided a rollercoaster of suspense.

Alice Hunter is now another name on my must read list.

Publisher: Avon. Release Date: 7th May 2026

Her Cold Justice. Robert Dugoni

Dugoni is at leat the equal of Grisham in the world of courtroom and legal thrillers.
For me this is the best American Courtroom Thriller series on the bookshelves at the moment.

As I’ve said in a previous review about a book in this series, every legal thriller coming out of America is always going to be compared to John Grisham, and just like the previous two books in this series, this book more than holds its own in the company of Grisham books.

Defence Attorney Keera Duggan has stepped out from her father’s shadow and is building a fierce reputation as a Defence Attorney.

But shes not cheap. So when a relative of her chief investigator is arrested for murder there’s no way he can afford her services.

Keera, her father, and her sisters run their own law firm and decide to register as a pro bono firm to take on his case, and in doing so take on the most formidable public prosecutor in Seattle.

Anh Tran, whose nickname is Batwoman because shes trying to clean up the city, is a power house both in, and out, of the courtroom.

As a child she hid under a bed and watched as her parents were executed in a robbery in their small shop. Since then she has sworn to bring justice and has dedicated her life to convicting murderers.

Michael is accused of murdering his work colleague and his colleagues girlfriend. The colleague was shot in his garage and his girlfriend was battered to death in her bed.

The only thing that brings Michael into the frame is the fact that the work colleague gave him a lift home shortly before the murder.

Tran is quickly on the scene and starts to issue search warrants instantly targeting Michael, on very little evidence.

But more incriminating evidence is found during the search of his home. Although all of the evidence is circumstantial, and there is no solid evidence to suggest his involvement, Tan arrests Michael and fast tracks him trough court.

Keera quickly becomes suspicious of how Michael was arrested but the problem is she is very friendly with one of the lead detectives. Could Detective Frank Rossi and his partner really be part of a bad arrest.

Meanwhile Rossi and his partner are feeling railroaded and although they think they have the right man for the murders, they don’t like how the investigation, arrest, and trial were conducted.

As with the other two books in this series the crime takes part early on in the book with a good 2/3s of the book being about the pre-trial work and the actual trial itself.

Robert Dugoni is really good at building up the tension.

The court room scenes are brilliantly written. The examination and cross examination of the witnesses is so well written it’s like actually being in court.

Keera is a top class chess player, and she uses all of her tactical skills in the court room, but in this case she’s up against a woman who is willing to push the boundaries right up to the breaking point.

That, plus the fact that there is no love lost between the Judge and Keera’s father, who was also a formidable defence attorney, make for a very tense trial.

If you haven’t read the previous books in the series, Her Deadly Game and Beyond Reasonable Doubt, I would recommend that you do. Not because this book can’t be read as a standalone, it can, but because they are brilliant stories and will only enhance your enjoyment of this one.

Bring on book 4, I can’t wait.

Pages: 369. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer. Available now. Audiobook Length: 10 hours 28 minutes. Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld.

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

Deadly Waters. Dot Hutchison

Is it murder if as young woman picks up man to takes him back to her place. But on the way pulls into a rest stop, to let him pee, before tricking him into a nearby waterway and watching him get attacked by an alligator. Something she knew would happen, something she was banking on happening.

That is the way this book starts, and it’s absolutely gripping.

Set in a University in Florida the book looks at how some young men in Frat Houses take advantage of women as if it’s their right.

Not only do they seem to get away with it but they don’t even bother trying to hide their activities, in fact just the opposite they boast about it.

So when some of these men become the victim of alligator attacks is it a coincidence, or is it just bad luck.

Some Police Officers think it’s just bad luck, but some think that there is somebody getting revenge for the countless women abused by these men.

Rebecca is a criminology and journalist student and shares a University suite with a group of other girls.

Rebecca is the sensible one, the one who doesn’t drink, the one who thinks study is more important than partying.

Ellie is the polar opposite. A party girl who thinks studying just gets in the way of her nightlife life style.

Ellie has other problems, she likes to fight, she especially likes to fight the type of men who take advantage of the girls on campus. To exasperate the problem she’s also very vocal about her feelings, in particular she’s loud and proud about the fact that the men that are killed deserve what they got, and shes glad they got it.

Rebecca, and the other suite mates, try to keep Ellie out of trouble with the boys on campus and the Police investigating the deaths, but they are not always successful and Ellie manages to put herself clearly in the frame as the number one suspect.

This book is a brilliant look at crimes and victimology.

The girls who are abused are done so in the worst way, not only do they suffer the physical abuse but they then have to face the mental and emotional abuse as the men brag about their conquests and activities.

The usual defence of “they were asking for it” because of the way they were dressed, or because of the state they got into is at the heart of the story, and unfortunately it rings all to realistic.

But when the abusers become the victims, then things change.

Girls who should be seen as victims suddenly become the target of police inquires.

But as the male victims start to stack up, and as the police investigation is getting nowhere, the killer becomes a mythical street vigilante that the girls on the campus are cheering on, and even celebrating.

Things are changing. The Police need to find the killer but the students are making it difficult.

Rebecca and the other suite mates suspect Ellie is the killer, but shes their friend, and whoever is doing the killing is helping to keep the female students safe, so why should they report her.

In fact they find it hard to talk about it amongst themselves, they all have suspicions, but they all feel guilty sharing them.

Moralistically what would most people do in these circumstances. With no hard proof, just suspicions, would anybody accuse their friend of being a killer, who just also happens to be gaining local hero status, and in the process ridding the world of some scum.

Pages: 303. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

The Distant Echo. Val McDermid

Val McDermid was one of the first U.K. Crime writers I got hooked on, with her Tony Hill series, and for some reason she went off my radar.

I don’t usually buy books based on having watched a TV series, but when Karen Pirie appeared on our screens, even though I was late to the game, I decided to read the first book in the series, Distant Echo.

Why oh why did I stop reading this woman’s books.

Distant Echo

1978. What starts out as an innocent night out at University, for four friends, has an impact on the rest of their lives.

Walking home they find a young woman, Rosie Duff, who has been viciously attacked, bleeding in the snow. They try to help but she dies.

They instantly become the focus of the police investigation, and although only ever “considered” witness by the police, they are damned by public opinion.

When nobody is ever charged with the murder they are always considered the murderers who got away with it.

The four have been friends from childhood and each has their idiosyncrasies, and secrets.

The police become even more suspicious of the boys when they get caught trying to hide the fact that they’d borrowed a fellow students Land Rover, without his permission, on the night of the crime.

The story of the murder, and subsequent investigation takes up much of the first half of the book, and it’s an intriguing read.

The effects of one lie, the car. The test of the relationships between the boys as each begins to doubt one of the others story. They’d been to a house party on the night of the murder, and none of them can account for what they did for the entirety of the time they were there. Could one of them have sneaked out and attacked the girl, who they all knew, from the local pub.

2003. A cold case review team has been set up by the Police. The murder of Rosie Duff is one of the first investigations.

Science has moved forward, so examination of the evidence should help, but it’s gone missing.

The men, now in their forties are still considered by many as the chief suspects and have struggled to escape the rumours that they got away with murder.

Rosies brothers were free with their fists back in the 70’s and one of them hasn’t changed much.

But there’s somebody else out there holding a grudge, and the identity of the killer has never been established.

So when, around the 25th anniversary of the murder approaches, and the four find themselves under threat, and worse, is it somebody out for revenge, or is the real killer trying to stop any reinvestigation by getting rid of the main witnesses.

The second half of the book is addictive as the first.

I changed my opinion three or four times as to who the real killer of Rosie Duff was, but when it was finally revealed it was a real “doh” moment.

That person was on my radar but dismissed, but the reveal made real sense.

As always the book is so much better than the TV adaptation, but I’m glad I watched it to trigger my interest.

Val McDermid is firmly back on my reading list, and right up there with my favourite authors.

Pages: 577. Publisher: Hemlock Press

The 12th Cleansing. N. Joseph Glass

I may have left on of the best reads of 2025 to one of the last reads of 2025.

N. Joseph Glass is a new name to me but one I will be watching out for.

The story is that of the investigation into the murder of Sandra Rawlings, an innocent 17 year old, church going girl.

A girl who it appears has been murdered by a serial killer who had previously killed eleven young girls, of a similar age, but having not been caught has laid dormant for four years. Is Sandra really the 12th victim of a man who killed girls who had either just lost their virginity, or are just about to.

The story is cleverly told via six main characters, all of which have equal billing. Each chapter has one of these characters at its centre but is not written in the first person.

Walker Michaels is the veteran senior detective who was the lead on the first series of murders. A middle age man with virtues and an ethos that are typical of his age and experience.

Brandon Jones, the junior detective on his first murder case. His youth and enthusiasm, along with his misplaced confidence and machismo getting him into trouble with his more experienced partner.

The other main characters are the immediate family of the dead girl.

Allen Rawlings, a hard working man who is a pastor in the local church. An oxymoron of a man he rules his own house with a sullen harsh hand. At the same time he is having an affair with a foxy single mother in his congregation.

His wife Sonya, the down trodden and at heal wife who outwardly defends her husband attitudes and actions, whilst secretly harbouring more liberal thoughts.

Their son, Connor, a typical moody teenage boy who spends most of his time on his computer shielded from the outside world by his headphones. His sisters death brings him closer to his mom and he starts to rebel against his dad.

There are peripheral characters that add to the investigation. The mysterious M, who it quickly become obvious is a killer.

Pete, one of the other Pastors and Charlotte, the single mother Allen Rawlings is having an affair with.

The plot is nicely written with a fast pace.

I like to think I’ve usually got an idea of who the killer is relatively early in a book, not this one.

And the reveal when it came, although surprising, wasn’t one of those unlikely or unrealistic reveals. It was perfectly in context, just really well hidden.

Pages: 404. Publishers: Monocle Books. Available on Kindle unlimited.

Mimik. Sebastian Fitzek

Adverts for this book kept appearing on my timelines, and after reading the gumph, and some reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a go.

I wasn’t disappointed, at first.

I read on a kindle so page numbers don’t really mean anything but at 85% into the book things started to go rapidly downhill.

The pretext of the book is that a woman, Hannah Herbst, has confessed to killing her family; her husband and their son, and her step daughter.

She is a consultant that works for the Police examining facial expressions and reading lie tells.

The problem is she cannot look at her own face in the mirror, scared of what she might see in her own personality.

It is a real problem when she wakes up with short term memory loss having suffered a self inflicted knife injury following the attack.

She’s been arrested and has made a full confession, on video.

The man showing her the video of her confession is also a serial killer, and he has taken Hannah hostage when he escaped.

All this might sound very confusing but it’s actually the backdrop to a really good story, up until that last 15% of the book.

It becomes evident quite early on that Hannah probably didn’t carry out the attack that left her husband and step daughter dead and her son missing presumed taken and killed.

But that last 15% basically shifts through every character named in the book being identified as the killer only for each hypothesis to be wiped out by the next.

Each is more fanciful than the previous and as a reader I was left giddy by the amount of twist and turns the last few chapters took.

I don’t do star rating but if I did, the first 85% would be a 5 star rating, the last 15% a generous two star.

Pages: 341. Publisher: Head of Zeus

Black Dog. Stephen Booth

Every now and then a TV series will hit the screens stating it’s based on the books of a best selling author.

If the series looks good I’ll try to read the book before watching the program, especially if I’ve never heard of the book series.

This was the case with the Copper and Fry series that recently started on Channel 5 (UK November 2025). The previews looked really good so I looked up the books. I was surprised I’d never heard of Stephen Booths books, there’s 18 in the series, and it’s my favourite genre.

Black Dog introduces DCs Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. Who police the Peak District.

Cooper is a local man. He is well respected and thought highly of by his peers and bosses, and is favourite to be promoted into the upcoming vacancy for a DS.

Fry is a fast track graduate who has just transferred from the West Midlands Police.

They are polar opposites in their professional approach, private lives, and attitudes.

Cooper is very much the local lad cop, he knows everybody and everybody knows him, the problem is many civilians only know him as his father’s son, a well respected Police Officer who died on duty.

And that really annoys him.

He has problems at home, his mother is suffering severe mental illness, and it’s taking its toll on him and his extended family, all of who live on the family farm.

Fry is battling her own problems, her and her sister had been in care since she was very young, her sister, already a drug addict, hasn’t been seen since she was sixteen.

Then there’s the reason she left the WMP, a dark secret she is desperate to keep from her new colleagues.

Set in 1999 the police are still plagued by old attitudes, especially towards fast tracked graduates, who have come from a Met force, and just happen to be young attractive females.

The story of the murder which is investigated in the book almost seems secondary to the setting the scenes of the two main characters and preparing the reader for what is to come.

For what it’s worth the murder is that of a young girl. The daughter of a couple that moved into a large house in the peaks. Rumours abound that orgies and sex parties are regular occurrences at the house.

Three old men, World War Two veterans are at the centre of the investigation. Arrogant doesn’t begin to describe these characters and they quickly become frustrations to the police, and the reader.

Fry and Cooper work together as DCs and in a way there is a begrudging respect beneath a simmering contempt. Expected a will they, won’t they, thread in the series.

I enjoyed the story and the characters, but, and for me it’s a big but, there is way too much spurious writing. As an example Fry leaves the Police Station after one of her first shifts, and goes straight home to her flat. That journey takes eight pages and contributes nothing to the story, and there are a lot of examples of that throughout the book.

There were times I found myself speed reading through five or six pages that held no relevant content.

Will I read more of the series. Yes, it will be one of those I dip into occasionally but it won’t be one I binge read.

Pages: 537. Publisher: Harper Collins

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