Crime novel – Page 27 – nigeladamsbookworm

The Silent Dead. Graham Smith

Every now and again something stunning comes along, and now is that time.

In The Silent Dead I found a gem of a book.

Not only is the story original, and compelling, but the main character is one of the best fictional Police Detectives I’ve had the pleasure to be introduced to.

I’ll start with the detective. Detective Constable Beth Young is only 23 years old, but she’s already lived a full life. She had been a model, her boyfriend dumped her when she became a cop at the earliest age she could. He wanted a model girlfriend on his arm, not a Police Officer.

Her stunning good looks have been robbed from her by an errant broken bottle in a pub during a night out, and she now carries vicious scars on one side of her face. Does it hold her back? No. In fact she uses the way people react to the scars to help her gauge the type of person they are.

She is a puzzle solver, and has complicated puzzle books on her shelves next to the books on her other interest, serial killers.

She has a strange way of thinking, and uses logic to help her think outside the box. She emphasises with victims, and she understands perpetrators.

Her only problem is she has no filters, her scars redden when she’s angry, and at times there is no filter between her brain and her mouth.

I like this girl a lot.

Beth has just started in Cumbria’s Force Major Investigation Team. A small close knit team she is having trouble integrating into. The first case she works on is grim.

A bride spots a corpse in the grounds of the ruined mansion in which she is having her wedding.

The corpse has been posed and has suffered a horrific death. The investigation leads to the discovery of more bodies posed in the same manner. But the killer is not only escalating they are experimenting, until they have created their perfect murder.

Beth quickly has to find her feet in the investigation and uses her logic to start to piece together information from the different murder scenes. But as the young new detective, will the old hands take her seriously.

This is book has shot right into my top three of this year, and would be pretty close to one of my favourite books of the last 5 or 6 years.

I love the character Beth Young, and hopefully there is a lot of scope for Graham Smith to create a long series with her.

The manner of killing in this book is well written and without being overly graphic, is very gruesome. In fact it will live with me for a while.

A great book, just stunning.

Pages: 362

Publisher: Bookouture

Publishing Date: 30^thNovember 2018.

Fatal Promise Angela Marsons

If I wasn’t already a massive fan of this series I would have been hooked in the first few pages.

DI Kim Stone is back at work, freshly out of the plaster that protected the leg she broke in the previous book. Her leg may be healing but her emotions, and that of her tight knit team, are still in tatters.

When a body is found in a park, not 2 miles from Kim’s Police she is stunned to find that it is that of a man that was so closely linked to her last investigation.

As more bodies pile there seems to be a link to Russell’s Hall Hospital, but what has this hospital and Heathcrest School got in common?

Is it just a coincidence that the team are investigating a crime that is linked to the place where none of them really want to be, back where one of their friends, a colleague died so recently.

The story looks at the secrets kept by groups and families, and how loyalties can forged on the most ridiculous of assumptions or beliefs.

It looks at how feelings can fester and cause hidden harm.

But as good as the plot of the crimes and the investigations of them are, this book is about much more.

This book is a rollercoaster of a ride through the investigation of some startlingly believable crimes, which is being carried out by a team that is struggling with the loss of a close friend.

If you have read the other books in this series, you will know the cast of characters well. You will understand what they are going through, and you will empathise that they each do it in their own particular ways. Just like in real life this team is trying to pull together in a time of grief, whilst almost self-destructing in their self-imposed isolation.

Then there was always going to be the question of how Angela Marsons would replace one of her main characters that has been an integral part of the previous 8 books.

Well she found a very interesting character that had appeared a couple of times in the previous stories and dropped him into the team.

It was never going to be easy for the team to accept him and the awkwardness in the office is captured beautifully.

Will the team ever accept a replacement, is this the right guy.

Will his eccentricity help him, or hinder his integration?

When book 8 was published social media was full of reviews saying they were in tears at the end, I might have had a bit of dust in my eyes myself.

For me the end of this book is even more emotional. A conversation between 2 of the main characters wrung so many bells for me it left me with a handful of dust in my eyes.

Every time a new book in this series becomes available I review it and say that it’s the best one yet.

Well its happened again, this is the best one yet.

If you are new to the series this book could be read as a stand-alone, but I would suggest reading the previous book , The Dying Truth, first.

In fact if you are new to the series I would suggest reading them all in order. I can’t think of a better way of recommending 8 fantastic Crime Thriller books.

Pages: 409

Published by: Bookouture

Available now on Amazon

Tell Nobody, Patricia Gibney, Blog Tour

Tell Nobody- Blog Tour

Today it’s my turn on the blog tour celebrating the publication of Patricia Gibney’s TELL NOBODY. Book 5 in the DI Lottie Parker series.

I’ve been a big fan of this series since the first book was published.

Patricia Gibney spins some serious multi-layered crime thrillers, with a remarkable set of characters living out some very realistic crimes.

Each book has had me hooked from the first pages and this one is no exception.

I recently recommended the series to a friend who was looking for some books to read on holiday. When they got home his wife gave me a hard time because he’d had his head buried in his Kindle for most of the holiday. He like me was hooked.

The fact that he’s a Policeman can only be a testament to just how good the stories are, and just how realistic the crimes and characters are.

Here’s my original blog, written a few weeks ago.

TELL NOBODY Patricia Gibney

Patricia Gibney has a way of hooking me from the very start of each book.

This one starts with an unknown woman running away from something or someone. She is in terrible pain and blacks out.

The story cuts to a boys football match, a final, everybody should be happy, but not everybody has a caring and loving family to support them.

Mikey Driscoll had scored the winning goal in the Cup Final, as he is on his way home he is picked up and given a lift. Two days later his body is found.

What comes next is a story that follows DI Lottie Parker and her team as they investigate Mikey’s murder. Then more bodies start to be found, and the pressure is on to find the killer.

But that is far too simplistic a description of the book.

This book doesn’t just look at the murders. Patricia Gibney looks at family dynamics, and how not everything in the family is how it seems to somebody looking in from the outside.

Latch key kids, bingo moms, single men and women bringing up families, teenage angst, unlikely friendships, all play a big part in the story.

And it’s not just the victims and criminals that are having a hard time.

Lottie, her son, two daughters and grandchild, are all living with her Mom, and its driving her crazy.

Her home had been destroyed in a fire and she is renovating her new house. But even that comes at a cost, to her and somebody close to her.

At work, her boss has it in for her, and would like nothing more than to see her fail.

The chemistry between Lottie and her DS is still bubbling along, but she is terrified to take comfort in his arms.

This series of books is great. The attention to detail that Patricia Gibney gives to the stories make them amongst the most realistic books I’ve read.

As well as the crimes in the books there is the ongoing story of Lottie, her family, and her team, and for me, that’s where she has the edge over most Crime Writers these days.

I love these books, and look forward to each new one that’s published.

This is the 5^thin the DI Lottie Parker series set in the mid-Ireland City of Ragmullin.

Although it can be read as a stand-alone novel to get the best out of it I would recommend reading the series in order. Follow Lottie her family and her team as Patricia develops and grows the characters and their relationships.

Believe me it’s worth it.

Last Night Helen Phifer

Well here’s something you don’t come across very often, a prequel to a series. This is the book that tells the story of Lucy Harwin’s first case as a Detective Inspector, and what a gruesome one it is to cut your teeth on as the Senior Investigating Officer.

When a bunch of 13 year olds decide to go ghost hunting in a derelict church they get more than they bargained for. A woman is hanging upside down, on a crude crucifix made from burnt wood, with her throat cut.

Newley promoted Detective Inspector Lucy Harwin is sent to the scene as the duty SIO and meets up with her, DS Mattie Jackson.

It’s every Police Officers worst scenario, a brutal murder with no clues to work on, and a newly promoted Lucy finds it particularly frustrating. Her team are chasing around trying to identify the body and find any sort of evidence when a second body is found.

This second body brings with it another nightmare for every Police Officer and puts Lucy under even more pressure.

As the body count rises other factors start to lead Lucy and the team down some lines of enquiry that not everybody is comfortable with.

The first time I read one of Helen Phifer’s books I was taken aback by the way she writes, using the correct procedures and terminology, keeping the pace of the book up all the way through. Right up to the very end I was captivated by the pace of the story.

There’s more to her writing than that though. The stories are great, and just like the others this one kept me engrossed from start to finish.

From the first chapter I was sucked into a great scenario. Helen has chosen to use a once prosperous English seaside resort as her setting. I have recently worked in a couple of these towns and didn’t realise how much they had become run down. How they had become great places to set crime stories.

I would usually comment on whether a new book, in an already established series, could be read as a stand-alone.

Well, as this is a prequel the answer is obviously yes.

So, I’ll comment on whether people already reading the series will be disappointed by Helen going back to the start of Lucy Harwin’s career as a DI.

No, they most certainly won’t. What a great tool for giving us more of the back story to some of the key characters in the series, especially Lucy.

And what a tool for getting new readers hooked on a series that is already out there, because if this is the first DI Luck Harwin book you read, I can guarantee you will read the rest of the series and wait for the next instalment as eagerly as me.

Follow the links below for my reviews of the previous DI Lucy Harwin novels

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/category/the-lost-children/

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2017/10/19/dying-breath-helen-phifer/

Last Breath Published by Bookouture on November 16^th2018, available to pre-order on Amazon now

Tell Nobody. Patricia Gibney