Crime Series – Page 16 – nigeladamsbookworm

See Them Run Marion Todd

A new author and the start of a new series.

After years of mainly American Crime books on the shelves in bookshops and supermarkets there has been a resurgence of good British Crime over the Last few years. Series by people such as Angela Marsons, Graham Smith, Carol Wyer are best sellers, and are flying of the physical and e-shelves.

Marion Todd is going to be right at home with this crowd.

This book introduces us to DI Clare Mackay, who is working out of a Police Station in the golfing and tourist town of St Andrews. It’s a bit quieter than her old posting in Glasgow, as part of the Armed Response Team, but she’s settling in nicely.

Called out to an early morning hit-and-run should be a tragic, but routine incident, until it’s found that the man was hit by a car which then reversed back over him to finish the job.

During the scene examination a card with the number 4 written on it.

The next day the same again, this time with a card with the number 3.

There’s obviously a killer out there working their way through a list with at least two other victims out there, but how does Mackay and her small team identify them. First, they have to find the thing that links the first two victims, and they couldn’t be two more different people.

As the new-comer from the “Big City” Mackay is watched closely by her boss to see if she’s up to carrying out this high profile investigation, whilst at the same time having the full backing of her team.

Mackay has another thing niggling at her mind throughout the investigation. As a Fire Arms Officer she had shot and killed a man. Although it was cleared, by the Police, as a justifiable act the family of the man are looking to take out a private prosecution.

This is where Marion Todd has me hooked with her main character. The effect, on a Police Officer after they have been involved in a shooting, is often brushed over. The macho “it’s part of the job” attitude employed, by both sexes, is not real. Todd has done a really good job of looking at the effect it has on an Mackay.

I’m hoping this is going to be the beginning of a really good series, it’s definitely got off to a cracking start.

Pages: 292

Publisher: Canelo

Available now

The Blossom Twins Carol Wyer

When DI Natalie Ward is told of a missing persons case involving two girls her mind is immediately taken back to one of the first cases she worked as a detective, the Blossom Twins murder. Then a man had been put away but her mind will always go back to the case.

Is she subconsciously thinking about how the case was solved?

When the similarities in the missing girls case, and the Blossom Twins case start to pile up Nat becomes more than a little concerned.

She hadn’t been convinced the right person was put away years ago, now the uncertainty is creeping back as similarities between the new, and old case start to mount up

To make matters worse a face from the past proves to be an unwelcome annoyance during her investigation.

Carol Wyer’s books are nothing short of brilliant. Over the series she has led the reader to develop a relationship with her characters, often with side stories that are equally as good as the main investigation thread of the plot.

This book is no exception.

I often wonder if writers plot story lines books in advance, or whether they just let the story flow in its own direction whilst they write it.

Either way the end of this story is a real bolt from the blue. If it was planned, and it was done to make the reader sit slack jawed, it worked. If it just flowed to the point that had me gasping, it was a brave decision to include it in the final draft. What an ending.

Am I looking forward to the next instalment. Oh my god yes!!!!!

Pages: 399

Publisher: Bookouture

Available now

COLD HEART CREEK. Lisa Regan

There is no two ways about it. I look forward to these books. When the publishers place them on a reviewing website, and say they are available to read, I always have difficulty finishing what I’m reading at the time quick enough so that I can find out what Josie Quinn has been up to this time.

Cold Heart Creek did not disappoint.

From the very beginning the booked had me hooked, Josie has a back story that includes a horrific child hood and upbringing, and she’s having flashbacks in her nightmares.

Meanwhile, a ranger finds two bodies at a campsite, then a third sleeping bag is discovered. Who is missing?

There are clues. Clues which lead Josie and her team on a hunt for the third person but what they find is even more disturbing, than they could have anticipated.

From the beginning of the book the story is addictive. Josie is suffering mentally. Her Boyfriend, and work Partner, Noah knows she is but she won’t let him in to help.

The murder investigation, and the hunt for the third person takes a nasty twist and Josie, Noah and the rest of the team are hampered by the terrain surrounding the small city of Denton, and the weather that nature unleashes on them.

It’s hard to say much about the story without introducing massive spoilers but that doesn’t mean the book has an obvious ending, in fact it’s far from obvious. That’s the beauty about Lisa Regan’s writing. She gives you enough information to let you build your own hypothesis and then, without introducing any “shark infested custard” type scenarios, she delivers the perfect end that sneaks up on you without warning; and definitely leaves you wanting to read the next book.

Pages: 377

Publishers: Bookouture

Available: Now

The Body In The Snow. Nick Louth

The Body In The Snow Nick Louth

When a young, newly qualified, Forensic Scene Investigator goes out jogging in the snow the day before her first day on duty she didn’t expect to be a witness to a murder.

First on the scene she attempts to protect it from being destroyed by the victims dog, and preserve tacks that are being lost as the snow melts.

Her knight in shining armour arrives in the form of Senior Investigating Officer Craig Gillllard, one of Surreys Murder Investigation Team.

The victim is Tanvi Roy, the owner of a large Indian Cuisine Company and the matriarch of the dysfunctional Roy Family.

The family are Hindus and run their business, and their family affairs, in a traditional manner.

Mrs Roy’s husband had died before the story starts but his influences run right through the book. The multi-million pound fortune is tied up in a Codicil which sees unequal sharing of equities, with Sons, Grandsons, and even Son-in-Laws, being given much more value than, wives, daughters and granddaughters.

The unequal distribution of share holding’s means that it’s nearly impossible to get a group decision, and one rival company has been trying to buy the Roy’s business for years

This gives just about everybody in the family a reason to see Mrs Roy dead.

Throughout the investigation Gillard uncovers years of resent within the family.

I love a book that gives me new knowledge as well as entertains me. This book has done just that. I fell into a Google worm-hole that lasted for hours looking at Hindu family traditions, including Codicil Wills, arranged marriages and Castes.

Nick Louth has written a wonderful book. Some people will do as I did and research the Hindu faith, and I’m sure will learn they did not know as much as they thought.

I think this was a brave book to write. It looks at a religion and bases a family murder firmly in the way that people of that faith act. It looks at the differences between generations, and the conflicts between the older, first generation of immigrants, and their more westernised younger generations, and the problems that it can.

A wonderful book that kept me reading when I should have been doing other things.

Publishing Date. 31st January 2020

Publishers. Canelo

THEIR LAST BREATH Sibel Hodge

There are three main strands in this book. The investigation into a crime, and the life of the Officer who investigates it, and the life story of a victim.

The Crime, is one of the most hideous there can be, people trafficking. But this is only discovered after a fire in a building, a fire that leaves six women dead.

The fire was accidental but the circumstances the women are found in is anything but accidental. They are all chained up, in different rooms, they are all unidentifiable because there is no record of them, they are illegal immigrants, but why have they been brought to the country.

The Officer, Detective Carter, recently retired and suffering the death of his wife, he responds to a call for help from his old colleague. Staffing is short due to the cut backs and the Police are running short of experienced detectives.

Carter is lured back and starts to investigate the death of the women in the fire, what he discovers will shock the core of the Force.

The victim, a strong woman, a refugee, a woman so desperate she allows herself to be conned into being smuggled to Britain in the back of a Lorry. From escaping her own horrors in her own country to being trapped in a burning building, this could have been a book on its own.

This is a great story. It is the latest in a series. I haven’t read any of the previous books featuring Detective Carter, but I’m going to track them down and read them.

Books that make me think, as well as entertain me, are always my favourite. Without giving the plot away there was a couple of things that sent me to the internet, and my knowledge is better for it.

Pages: 376

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Available now on Amazon

Where The Silence Calls M.J Lee

DI Ridpath is not your usual cop-character. Recovering from cancer he had been living a single life when his wife and daughter moved out in frustration of his lack of self-care.

Now they are back at home, Ridpath is in remission, and he’s back at work, but on restricted duties. In short life is good.

Working as a DI in the roll of Coroners Officer Ridpath is out of the day-to-day life of a Police Officer, it’s not his job to investigate crimes, it’s his job to gather evidence for the Coroner, to help identify bodies, to pass on the unwelcome news to relatives, but he does miss being at the coal front of an investigation

So when two men are found dead, in a short space of time, in different Police districts, their bodies badly burned, Ridpath’s detective antenna starts to nag at him.

Both Police departments are running at their limits due to cut backs, and when Ridpath tries to show that they may have linked cases, neither are interested. Why would they be, there is no post mortem results yet, and both look like accidental fires, except for one thing, and that’s what gets Ridpath hooked.

As Ridpath struggles to get the Police to take him serious he runs the risk of upsetting the Coroner, and with both Police and the Coroner, looking to cut manpower he could be backing himself into a sticky corner.

Then another burnt body is found.

This is another cracking novel in a great series.

M.J Lee uses the metropolis of Manchester as a great canvas to paint his crime stories. In Ridpath he has given us a character that is different enough from the usual troubled cop to engage in. Ridpath’s personal circumstances run through the series like a vein taking blood to all the important parts. In short Lee went out on a limb with this character, but its paid off, boy has it paid off.

Pages: 351

Publisher: Canelo

Publishing date: 23^rdSeptember 2019

The Sleepover Carol Wyer

I love this series. Carol Wyer has a way of hooking the reader from the very first page. Her continuing characters have their own story going, on which will have new readers engaging with them straight away, and will have those of us who have been reading from the beginning wondering how some things are going to be resolved. Twice I made out-loud exclamations at the antics of two of the characters. Yes it can be read as a stand-alone, but it’s much better to read the series.

Carol also has a way of keeping it real. The crimes she uses in her books are realistic, but so is the investigation. She uses the incestuous nature of those involved in the criminal world, and those on the fringes, to keep the character count down and to ensure that the reader is not trying to remember spurious names. There is always only a handful of characters outside of the main group of her colleagues and their families.

The time frame is always right, cases don’t get solved over-night, forensic results aren’t instant, and the investigation is always factually correct.

I know she does her research, I’ve been one of the people she spoke to about this book and I know how much emphasis she puts on getting even the smallest detail right.

This book starts with a teenage girl arguing with her mother. All of us, who have been parents will know that feeling, but thankfully what most of us don’t experience is that teenager storming out and never coming home again.

Following a fire, in a large detached house on the outskirts of a Staffordshire town, a body is found and DI Natalie Ward and her team are tasked with investigating who it is, and how they died.

The house belongs to two brothers that run a nightclub in the town, which is popular with customers but a pain to the local residents.

The fire was started deliberately so who was the target, the fire victim or the Brothers? And what is the connection between the brothers and the victim.

When a woman is found dead near the house Natalie and her team can’t help but connect it to their investigation.

As the investigation continues there are more questions than answers, and on top of that some of Natalie’s team haven’t got their eye on the ball.

The end of this book just makes me want to reach for the next in the series. Time to be patient again.

There are only two or three authors whose books will make me drop what I’m reading and start theirs when they are available, and Carol Wyer is right at the top of that list.

With each book this series gets better, and I know there are more on the way.

For now I have to wait for the next instalment, but thanks to little teases on twitter those of us that follow Carol know that something special is on the way. How it can be any better than what has gone already I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.

Oh, and the fire scenes, brilliant, and my mate Kia, says hi, he’s in the book that’s him below.

Pages: 411

Publishers: Bookouture

Available now

Her Silent Cry, Lisa Regan, Blog Tour

Her Silent Cry is the 6^thBook in the Josie Quinn series written by Lisa Regan.

I have been lucky enough to have been on board with this series from the start, and I’ve loved every book. So could this one live up to my expectations. Definitely.

The main character Josie Quinn has had a rough ride, from childhood to Detective, and that story alone would be worthy of its own book, but you won’t be left behind if you read this as a stand-alone.

Lisa Regan has a way of writing that I rarely come across. She manages to make the read comfortable, whilst covering the most horrific of crimes. This is never “cosy-crime”, but the stories always slide by really quickly.

Her characters are amazing, Quinn is feisty, pretty, stubborn, and a hell of a good cop.

Her partner Noah is a bit of a mystery to those that don’t know him, and there’s a good reason for that, but Quinn knows him, and they spark together brilliantly

The victims suffer, and boy do some of them suffer, at the hands of some of the best criminals in fiction at the moment.

The setting is perfect Denton, a small town in the US surrounded by forests and mountains means Regan can set just about any crime she wants in a realistic surrounding, but the best part is the isolation she finds in scenes set in the wilds. If it was a film I’d be watching from behind the sofa

So here’s my review of Her Silent Cry, book six in my favourite American Crime series

Her Silent Cry Lisa Regan

For once Detective Josie Quinn is having some time off and has taken a friends young son to the park for a day out. The piece is soon shattered when a 7 year old girl goes missing, right from under her parents noses, in the same park.

Off duty or not Josie is soon directing operations to try to find the girl. Joined by her team, and a good proportion of the local community the search proves fruitless.

Against her boss’s best wishes Quinn calls in a specialist FBI team that specialise in investigating the abduction of children.

The FBI and Quinn’s team are at a loss to identify the abductor, until a phone call to the parents strikes fear to everybody’s hearts. Their demand, or lack of it, is chilling, and would be every parent’s nightmare.

Quinn has formed a good relationship with the family and the FBI begin to rely on this, but is she getting all the information she needs from them.

This is a cracking story.

One simple crime, an abduction, strikes fear into the community, but things start to get worse.

Lisa Regan has built a strong community of characters in this series. She uses their emotions and feelings to permutate through the story and build up the suspense.

Unlike most series any of these books can be read as a stand-alone. The reader will learn bits of the back stories of the main characters, without being left wondering what is going on.

The setting is perfect. A small City with plenty of isolated rural areas, which allows Regan to set parts of the book in a built up area, whilst having all the suspense of settings in remote country areas.

This book, and this series, ideal for fans of crime series written by the likes of Angela Marsons, Patricia Gibney, Carol Wyer and Graham Smith.

Publishing Date: 14^thAugust

Publishers: Bookouture

TAKEN TO THE GRAVE M.M Chouinard

Jo Fournier has relinquished her Lieutenants role and reverted back to Detective. She didn’t like the politics of the role and hated not being on the streets.

Back with her partner Detective Bob Arnett she is sent to investigate the killing of a professor at the local university.

And so, it begins, Professor Michael Whorton is universally hated, students, peers, his wife, and a long list of women who he’s had adulterous affairs with, all seem to have just reason to want this man dead.

The list may be long but realistically who would murder a man, in his own office, in the middle of a busy university.

Jo and Arnett start to unravel the professor’s life, then another body connected to the university is found, and another.

This book is about University Politics, and relationships, and how the unchecked behaviour of one person can send ripples that ruin a lot of people’s lives.

Once the university starts to receive adverse publicity, they start to put pressure on the Police Department, and once again Jo is caught up in Department politics as she is put under pressure to make an arrest.

I liked this book. Just like the first one in the series it’s a good mix between a full on crime thriller and a cosy-crime mystery.

The characters are good, and I really engage with both Jo and Arnett. It is written in a way that it is never fanciful, everything that happens is logical, and there is no “shark-infested-custard” type scenarios or revelations.

The best recommendation I can give this book is it enthralled me to the point where I could have been reading a true-crime story.

Pages: 330

Publisher: Bookouture

Publishing Date: 19^thSeptember 2019

HER SILENT CRY Lisa Regan

Off duty or not Josie is soon directing operations to try to find the girl. Joined by her team, and a good proportion of the local community the search proves fruitless.

Against her boss’s best wishes Quinn calls in a specialist FBI team that specialise in investigating the abduction of children.

Quinn has formed a good relationship with the family and the FBI begin to rely on this, but is she getting all the information she needs from them.

This is a cracking story.

One simple crime, an abduction, strikes fear into the community, but things start to get worse.

Lisa Regan has built a strong community of characters in this series. She uses their emotions and feelings to permutate through the story and build up the suspense.

Unlike most series any of these books can be read as a stand-alone. The reader will learn bits of the back stories of the main characters, without being left wondering what is going on.

This book, and this series, ideal for fans of crime series written by the likes of Angela Marsons, Patricia Gibney, Carol Wyer and Graham Smith.

Publishing Date: 14^thAugust

Publishers: Bookouture