Tag: Crime Fiction

Her Deadly Game. Robert Dugoni

It’s inevitable that every American, legal, courtroom, thriller , I read gets measured against John Grisham. Few get an equal billing but this book is right up there with any of his.

Keera Duggan is an attorney in Seattle. Formerly she worked for the state prosecutor’s office, which she left after a short but ill advised affair with her boss.

Now she’s back working in the family law firm trying to salvage its reputation. Her father, Patsy, was once a fearsome defence attorney, but over the years he has became more dependent on booze and is ruining his own fearsome reputation as well as his firms.

When Vince LaRussa, a rich investment fund manager returns home to find his disabled wife shot dead in their kitchen, the Police do what Police do and instantly suspect the husband.

He is aware of Patsy’s reputation off old, and hires his firm. He doesn’t get Patsy who is recovering from his latest bender, he gets Keera, who is yet to defend at a murder trial.

The case is a strange one. It’s a locked room mystery that LaRussa seems to have an airtight alibi for. But Keera’s ex-boss and lover, wants to get it to trial quick, he wants to use the case to humiliate her.

What follows is an excellent courtroom drama.

As is usual in American courts Keera’s defence is that somebody else, unknown, killed LaRussa’s wife.

There are at least two suspects but why would either of them want Anne LaRussa dead.

There are twists in this story that leaves the final verdict in question all the way up till the end, and even then there is a vicious sting in the tail.

I like books which are fast paced, with a bit of grit, and that are totally realistic. This story ticks all of those boxes.

There is no spurious writing. Every page holds meaning to the story.

Although Keera’s relationship with her father is an important part of the story it doesn’t get over relied on in the plot, a mistake I’m finding more and more writers make these days.

This is book one in a three book series.

I have a big to-be-read pile, and it speaks volumes that they have all gone on hold whilst I download and read the other two in this series first.

Pages: 396. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer. Audiobook length 11 hours Saskia Maarleveld

A Random Kill. Andrew Barrett

Billed as the start of a new series, I can only hope it turns out to be a long one

I like my main characters to have a bit of grit. Detective Sergeant Regan Carter has a whole quarry.

A fiery red head, who has just been transferred to her nightmare job by the husband she’s just divorced, Regan hates dead bodies. She hates the smells, the body fluids, the injuries, the fact that they fart and belch when the trapped gases get released, in fact there is nothing about them she can get along with.

So as a piece of revenge, the worst thing that her nearly ex-husband could do, would be to get her transferred to one of the busiest murder teams in the country.

Just to put the icing on the cake she is replacing a woman that was dearly loved by her team and who died in a freak accident, with everybody presuming that one of the existing DCs on the team would get her post.

Regan Carter, yes she is named after the two main characters in the 1970s TV series The Sweeney, has a mouth that would match Gene Hunt, from another famous series and has an attitude to match, so making friends is not at the top of her list when she arrives at the new team.

Neither is getting involved with a complicated murder based around the drug scene in Leeds.

What follows is one of the best introductions to a new series I’ve read in a very long time.

A seemingly random shooting of a woman, her child taken in his pram, is Carters introduction to her new job.

But is it as random as it seems. Carter is the epitome of a “Dog with a Bone” and in her brash manner manages to annoy both her bosses, her peers, and the local villains.

In the real world she would undoubtedly be sacked, but in the none woke world of crime fiction, she is a breath of fresh air.

A bit like real world policing there are times in this book when a wry grin cannot be avoided. It’s the only way to deal with the horrors the detectives, and the readers, encounter, and in this book there is one very imaginative, and gory, way of killing.

I really hope this series is a long runner, because there is some entertaining mileage in Regan Carter.

Publisher: The Ink Foundry. Pages: 415. Available now

Her Last Walk Home. Patricia Gibney

Every time I read a book in this series I know it’s going to be frighteningly realistic. The crimes, the characters, the lot, all add up to stories that have me hooked, and this one is no exception.

Walking home at night you should be safe, but everyone knows it’s increasingly risky. So when one young woman doesn’t complete the journey and is found dead, on a bit of grass, a murder investigation is got underway.

As a mother, with children about the same age, Detective Lottie Parker is always going to give the investigation her all, she always does.

The team soon identify the girl and find that she had been on an innocent date the night she disappeared.

Or at least on the face of it she had.

When another girl is found dead in similar circumstances the victims begin to look a little less “innocent”

Two things you are Guaranteed with Patricia Gibney books. Firstly they are written from the heart. Every emotion, of every character is carefully crafted and plays out wonderfully on the pages. Secondly the plot is always original, surprising, and most importantly realistic.

I can’t write too much about the plot, the victims, and the person, or persons responsible for the crimes without including huge spoilers.

In a vague way I will say that the young women that are killed are just being young women, and that nobody deserves to be murdered.

But in modern society what is innocent.

It’s a question this book ponders. When does moralistically wrong become illegally wrong.

When does a person cross the line from having fun, to needing the fruits of having fun.

At what point does the empathy of the reader, or the bystander, become negatively judgmental, a luxury a Police Investigator cannot afford to let cloud their investigation.

All of these things Patricia Gibney handles better than most writers.

Lottie Parker has had it rough, her family have put her through the wringer, but no matter what she is still a supportive mother, grandmother, and daughter, faced with all the trials and tribulations of being the “responsible adult” to all of the generations.

The Parker family story is central to these books and although this, and the others, could be read as a standalone, I would highly recommend reading the series to get the full impact.

Print length: 500 pages. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook length: 13 hours. Narrator: Michele Moran

Body Language, Life Sentence, Case Sensitive and Dead Fall by A.K Turner

I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a new series this much.

One of the best things about reading is finding a new author with an established series, and binge reading it.

That’s exactly what happened to me with this series. I picked up Body Language just over a week ago and have just put down Dead Fall having read all four books.

There are two main characters in these books Cassie Raven and Phyllida Flyte, and they couldn’t be more at opposite ends of the social scale.

Cassie is a runaway school drop out who once lived, and took class A drugs, in squats around Camden Town, whilst embracing the Goth life style. Now she’s still a Goth, but she’s got herself together, and in her mid twenties she’s working as a Senior Morgue Technician, still in Camden Town.

Phyllida is a very prim-and-proper, Police Detective, who is suffering the culture shock of moving from a relatively safe shire constabulary to a high pressure, machismo fuelled , Major Crimes department in Londons Met.

Cassie doesn’t look the part, with her Goth haircut, tattoos and piercings but she’s good at her job.

She thinks the dead sometimes talk to her, but what is actually happening is her intuition is kicking in. She’s seen something on the body that isn’t right, or contradicts the initial findings, or the Police’s hypothesis of how a person has died.

She knows that instinct has highlighted something, and she is like a dog with a bone until she’s worked out what it is.

Meanwhile Phyllida battles the male dominated rough talking London Officers, she is not just there to make their tea, and although often given the menial tasks, her detective work soon gets to be seen for what it is, brilliant.

When Phyllida first encounters Cassie it’s fair to say she doesn’t like her, and it’s also fair to say the feeling is mutual. These two are everything the other doesn’t like in a person.

But inevitably the trust starts to build, they both recognise each others strengths and intuitions on a professional basis, but find each other immensely irritating on a personal level.

The series follows both of their personal lives, and as both of them have great back stories, and become reluctant friends , it makes great reading.

Each book contains one main crime, starting with a sudden or suspicious death. As in real life the investigation can be complex and convoluted, but it always stays well within the realms of possibilities.

Body Language.

When somebody Cassie knows ends up in her morgue she’s not happy with the initial findings. The Police say Accidental Death, a hypothesis the pathologist is, at first happy to support.

But Cassie’s intuition says different and she goes to great lengths to prove the death was anything but an accident.

The one person who listens to her is the “stuck-up, posh” new Police woman.

Life Sentence

Having learned something about her family, that she was blissfully unaware of ( It’s difficult to go deeper without spoiling book 1) Cassie tries to make right a wrong which has affected her family for as long as she can remember. Her unlikely ally, as this will also bring the police into disrepute is Phyllida, can Miss Strait-Laced be convinced to break the rules with the reputation of her colleagues on the line.

Case Sensitive

This time it’s Phyllida’s turn to trust her instincts. When a body turns up floating in a canal she is sure she recognises him. It’s her that doesn’t like the initial Post Mortem, and asks Cassie if her intuition had kicked in.

This time what they uncover will test both of their resolves, physically and moralistically, but will both of them come out unscathed.

Dead Fall

When a promising young singer ends up on Cassie’s slab everybody thinks it’s a tragic suicide.

Cassie knew her before she became famous and had gone to school with her.

Reflecting the life and death of one of Camdens other tragic pop stars this girl had a roller coaster life of drugs and fame, even if it was very short lived.

Cassie spots wounds on the body that she doesn’t think are consistent with her jumping from her high rise flat.

Things have moved on in Phyllida’s world ( again I can’t go into that without spoiling book 3) but when Cassie is proven right, and that this is not a suicide, Phyllida is tasked to look at how the initial police investigation got things so wrong

The series needs reading in order. The running story forms the backbone of the series and Cassie and Phyllida’s needs reading in chronological order.

Having read 4 books in 10 days I now have to join the rest of the world in waiting for book 5. And to say I’m excited to see where the series goes next is an understatement.

Stunning.

Southern Man. Greg Iles

The one word I would use for this book is “Epic”

Epic in size, at just short of 1000 pages.

An epic story that draws to an end and epic series.

And ultimately the story takes place over a short time in which some epic events take place.

That is when another word comes to mind “Prophecy”

This story is based now. But could be based just before any American Presidential nomination and election cycle, and it’s very realistic.

It looks at how one man’s manipulation of events, to help him make a third party run for President, could lead the Deep South to civil war.

Set in a small city in around the Mississippi, Louisiana area it looks at the deep seated beliefs of some people. The fact that a significant minority of the white population still look down on the Black people. People who are descended from slaves, people who still feel the effects of being considered a lower demographic.

Bobby White wants to have a run at being President, and he has enough supporters to get on the docket.

But what he really needs is to become Nationally known, and to do that he needs to be seen as some type of hero.

And what better way to do that than to stop another race war, or become the piece maker over another Rodney King type incident.

But to become that piece maker, to become that hero, there needs to be some type of situation for him to pacify.

So when a group of cops over react to a situation at a music festival, and shot before they think, leading to dozens of black revellers being killed, Bobby seizes his opportunity.

Set about 15 years after the Natchez Burning the story finds Penn Cage in ill health, but nobody knows just how ill he is.

However he was visiting the festival and witnessed the shooting and one mans attempts at keeping the piece.

As the situation starts to snowball, with some tit-for-tat attacks, Cage starts to suspect not everything is as it seems.

Some large houses are set alight, houses built on slavery and the cotton industry, ideal targets for retaliation against the white community.

But isn’t it a bit too obvious.

Old money is also in play. The Poker Club is a group families with old money, and a couple with new money earned from “legal” modern enterprises. They see an opportunity to gain even more power.

As is typical in America there are multiple law enforcement agencies, State and City, that sit on either side of the racial divide, that have conflicting interests in maintaining, or not, the piece.

This is a story of power, the lust for it, and the how far some people will go to get it.

It’s about how quickly a situation can spiral out of control.

And it’s about people trying to swim against a tide to put things right.

Most of all it’s about the deep seated beliefs and feelings that some people still labour under in the Deep South of the United States.

I’ve mentioned this book takes place 15 years after Natchez Burning. It is, in fact, the final book in a series of seven which have Penn Cage, and his family, as the main characters.

Do you need to read the other books first?

Yes, and in the right order. I’ve listed them below.

This is Iles at his best. I’ve described his writing as Grisham without filters, well this is Grisham without filters and on steroids.

The best thing about this though, is the fact that it could be a prophetic. This story is scarcely close to reality.

It is no stretch of the imagination to conceive that something like this could happen.

Without a doubt Iles is my favourite American author.

This book, and this series is not for the faint hearted. It’s not for people who are easily offended. It’s definitely not for people who are liable to be offended by WOKE triggering subjects.

It is gritty and hard hitting.

However nothing is gratuitous. It’s is all in perspective. It is very very compulsive.

Here’s the list of the rest of the series.

  • The Quiet Game
  • The Turning Angel
  • The Devils Punchbowl
  • The Death Factory ( novella)
  • Natchez Burning
  • The Bone Tree
  • Mississippi Blood
  • Southern Man

Pages: 977. Publisher: Hemlock Press Audiobook: 45 hours 43 minutes. Narrated by Scott Brick

Áróra Investigation Series

Lilja Sigurdardóttir

I’ve spent the last two weeks reading the first three books in this series, back-back.

Set in Iceland with a main protagonist who is half British, half Icelandic, the story in each book is brilliant, as is the running story which continues in the background of the second two, having being the main story in the first.

Áróra is a financial private investigator who specialises in identifying where people hide money, whether it’s for a messy divorce, or a corporate crime. Her favourite outcome to each case is to take her commission in cash and roll around in it, on her bed.

Cold as Hell

When her sister goes missing in Iceland her mother insists she goes to find her. Explaining to her mother that she is not that type of investigator hold no grounds with her mom, so she catches a FI light to meet a “relative” who is a Police Officer who has volunteered to help.

The Officer, Daniel, is only a distant relative, and that is by a marriage that has long ended in divorce, but they click, and start the hunt for her sister.

They start with the boyfriend. is an abusive bully who has beaten Ísafold on multiple occasions, but she keeps returning. Suspected of not only taking, but also dealing drugs Björn is the obvious suspect, but proving it is going to be difficult.

They are not the only one that has concerns about Björn and his treatment of Ísafold. And he is out for revenge, but does this help or hinder Áróra and Daniel’s investigation

It’s no spoiler to say that Ísafold is never found, and it’s Áróra’s hunt for her that continues through the other two books.

Red as Blood

Áróra is still on the island looking for her sister when an accountant she works for contacts her to tell her he needs help with a client in Iceland.

Entrepreneur Flosi has returned home to find his wife had been kidnapped. Told not to inform the police, but to arrange for a 2 million euro ransom to be paid in cash he has contacted his accountant in England.

The accountant wants Áróra to act as liaison and to fly to the U.K. to courier the cash.

Inevitably the police do get involved and it’s Daniel’s team lead the investigation.

Áróra however finds links to Russian mafia in Flosi’s businesses, he’s not the innocent entrepreneur, and the kidnapping isn’t all that it seems.

White as Snow

The story centres on people smuggling. When a container is found abandoned in Iceland with four dead bodies inside an investigation is launched.

There is one survivor, a Nigerian woman that had been living in France. At first she doesn’t know how she ended up in the container but the book contains her backstory in some of the chapters. As this unfolds so does the investigation in Icleland.

Again the Russian Mafia seems to be at the heart of everything.

Daniel has stepped back from leading the investigation, finding it harrowing, having found the survivor, but continues in a support role.

Áróra starts to follow the money, putting herself in more danger than she appreciates.

I read these books because I read a review of the 4th book which is due out later this year. I’m glad I did but now I find myself having to wait months for the next episode in what I’ve found to be an enthralling series.

Publisher: Orenda Books. Print lengths: 309, 315 and 319 pages.

Father’s Day. Richard Madeley

As good as this book is, and it is really good, I fell I have to start this review with a warning, there are triggers in this story that may affect people who have been affected by eating disorders, self harming, and bullying.

That is part of the reason this book is so good. It’s a story of modern day society that needs telling.

For the young girl, Lucy, suffering from PTSD having witness her mother die in horrific and tragic circumstances, life is a lie.

Lucy was living the perfect life in a small village in Cornwall. On a visit to a harbour that life changes when she and her dad witness a horrific accident that leaves her mother dead.

In an attempt to get away from constant reminders they move to the quiet Cotswold town of Willersey.

Becoming more reclusive, spending lots of time in her room, wearing baggy clothing, long sleeves in the height of the summer, all indications that her father eventually picks up on to identify what she is going through.

But there’s an outside influence that her Dad, Nick, has no idea about, until it’s too late.

When a man is murderer and left displayed in the Cirencester Amphitheater, a close to retiring Detective Chief Superintendent is in charge of the investigation.

It doesn’t take much to connect the dots. The storyline is pretty much established in the first few chapters. There is no who done it, more how he did it.

And more importantly what will the outcome be.

I haven’t read any other books by Richard Madeley, I don’t know why, he just hasn’t come onto my radar as far as authors go.

It was my wife who saw Richard talking about his book on the television, and it was her who recommended it to me.

If she hadn’t I’d have never picked it up. I’m so glad she saw that TV show. My next stop is downloading his back catalogue.

Pages: 373. Publisher. Simon & Schuster. Audiobook: 8 hours 25 minutes. Narrators Jamie Parker and Juliette Burton

Guilty Mothers. Angela Marsons

The series that just keeps on giving. I have led a far from sheltered life, but Angela Marsons has found a topic to base this story on that I was blissfully unaware of, and it’s stunning.

Kim Stone and her team are called to the scene of a murder. One of the worst types of crime, a young woman has apparently murdered her mother.

With the daughter locked up the team start to dig into their family relationships.

The only thing of note is that the daughter was a Child Beauty Pageant contestant and that mom might have been a bit pushy.

When another mother of a Beauty Pageant Contestant turns up dead it can’t be a coincidence, and as Stone thought she had the killer already locked up it comes as a bit of a surprise.

And so the journey into the world of Beauty Pageant begins.

The world inhabited by the contestants, and their families, comes as a big surprise to the down-to-earth Stone. The comparison of her early life can’t be ignored.

This is book twenty in the series, that’s one hell of a milestone.

You would think that this far into a series the author would be struggling to keep the reader hooked. This book proves just how wrong that would be.

The story is compelling, who knew that Pageants were a thing in the UK.

The fact that they do, and that there are bitchy, bullying, mothers living their life vicariously through their, sometimes unwilling, and often unhappy children, makes a fantastic backdrop to a murder story.

Stone and her team are always engaging and their back stories always have me hooked.

I love these books. The series is still my favourite. Book 20. Let’s hope for books 25, 30 and who knows how many more.

Pages: 362. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook: 8 hours 21 minutes. Narrator: Jan Cramer

The Confession Room. Lia Middleton

When a civilian sticks their nose into an ongoing Police Investigation it is a hinderance.

When that civilian starts to interfere in the investigation, and have an ongoing negative effect on it they become an annoyance.

When they start to withhold information they become a criminal

When that person is a recently retired Police Officer it’s inexcusable.

Or is it.

Emilia Haines is the ex cop. She’s a struggling Private Investigator. She’s also a victim.

Her sister was killed by a stalker. On the night she died she had repeatedly called Emilia who was to busy being a Police Detective to answer her calls. She knows she could have saved her.

The PTSD this brought on has seen her leave the job she loved.

The Confession Room is a website where people can anonymously make life confessions.

But when the site becomes the vehicle through which a killer targets people, before streaming their final confession and murder, things obviously take a serious turn.

Emilia has posted on the site, confessing the fact she thinks she could have saved her sister. But she’s also obsessing that some day, somebody will confess to her murder.

So when people are murdered in the Confession Room she starts nosing around the investigation.

Yes, she is the hinderance who graduates through to become criminally involved by withholding evidence. But that’s only the start.

Things get worse, much worse.

This story is a bit of a stretch. Lia Middleton lets Haines get away with too much. Not only in the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to get away with it in the real world, but also to the point of the reader losing any empathy they may have had with her.

But this isn’t a bad thing. There was no time in this book that I felt I knew what was coming.

And the ending certain wasn’t what I was expecting

That made for a really enjoyable read, full of twists and turns, and fast paced, every chapter captivated me.

Publisher: Penguin. Pages: 352. Audio Book: 9 hours 25 minutes. Narrator Rachael Stirling

The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle

Nick Louth

When one of your favourite authors ends a great series, and you wonder what they are going to come up with next, this is the type of response you really want.

Detective Inspector Jan Talantire and her team work in a Major Investigation Team of Devon and Cornwall Police. What they face in this story is a unique and baffling crime.

Ruth Lyle was a 16 year old girl when she was killed on the alter of a church 50 years ago.

When a woman is killed in the same way, in the now converted church, on the anniversary it is the start of an investigation that will span half a century.

It’s not just the location and manner of death which are identical. The woman killed today has the same name as the original victim, the same date of birth, and her birth certificate.

As far as debuts for a new series goes this is second to none.

The crime is clever and left me intrigued up till the very last page.

Talentire is a great character. Nearly 40, newly single and struggling with trying to establish a life balance that would actually give her a chance on the dating scene.

She is driven as a detective, and doesn’t take any heed of pressures from above, or below, when she is on the right track.

The supporting characters of her team, especially the newly appointed digital expert Primrose, are going to be great to watch develop over the series.

But what really steals the show is the setting. Small town crime on the North Devon coast needs all the skills of those investigated in the big cities. Without overlapping CCTV, with sketchy mobile phone coverage, and with the infrastructure difficulties of rural policing, it is more old school than some of the stories set in the cities, and for me that makes it all the more readable.

Let’s hope this is the start of another brilliant series.

Publisher: Canelo Crime. Pages: 326. Publishing date: 2nd May 2024 Audiobook 10 hours 9 minutes narrated by Mandy Weston