Tag: Must Read

Moscow X David McCloskey

Espionage fiction at its best.

When a high ranking KSB Official sends one of his thugs to steal gold from the bank of one of the new rich it tips the first domino in a long and twisting line.

The gold is allegedly being taken back for the people, but why is it this one family is being targeted above the other newly rich and elite making a fortune since the end of the soviet era.

Anna is the daughter who can see her family fortune being taken and has to do something about it., as her father is arrested and jailed.

Vadim is her husband, from the Russian elite and in reality a husband in name only. The wedding was arranged. He’s riding on the success of Anna’s father and is heavily involved in Rushfarm, a stable in the wilds where Anna’s dad runs his empire. He is a violent, greedy egotistical thug.

When Anna starts to follow the trail of the missing gold she finds a lawyer, working in England is helping create off shore accounts where the gold, which has been converted to cash, ends up.

Sia Fox is the Lawyer, and a low level operative for the CIA who are also keeping tracks on the off shore accounts.

When Artemis Proctor, a CIA Station Chief who is serving time in the “penalty box” posting of Moscow X gets a sniff of what is happening she sees an opening to destabilise the Russian Government, and more importantly its President.

But utilising Sia, and another low level operative, the Mexican Max, to create chaos in Russia is a risky plan.

But risk it she does, and so the dominoes continue to tumble.

This book has one main thread it has been knitted into one hell of a plot.

The second book of four in the series it is equally as good, if not better, than the first, Damascus Station.

The only character shared between the two books is almost a bit part player in both books, Artemis Proctor, so this book could easily be read as a stand alone.

Set in modern day Russia I think Anna may be typical of some of the Russian society. She is used to the freedoms previously not associated with the country. She’s independently wealthy and hard working. She’s aware of the anti Russian feeling following the invasion of Ukraine. But she doesn’t want to destabilise the government, yes she doesn’t like the president but she does want him disposed of.

All she wants is to be treated fairly. She doesn’t seem to mind how her father made his money , she just wants revenge on the man who is targeting him.

What will happen if Proctors plan works. Can the world live with a Russia that is unstable.

Will Sia and Max be able to come out of this in one piece.

The one thing I’m learning about David McCloskey’s writing is rule nothing out. He doesn’t mind hurting his characters, he doesn’t mind things going badly wrong, and just like in real life, no matter how careful you think you’ve been, things never quite go as planned.

Bring on book 3 The Seventh Floor.

Pages: 460. Publisher: Swift Press. Available now. Audiobook length: 14.38 hours. Narrator: Andrew B Wehrlen

Damascus Station. David McCloskey

This is one of the easiest reviews I’ve written. Buy the book.

My formative years of reading were taken up reading great espionage books by the likes of Robert Ludlum, Alistair McLean, Nelson Demille and the likes, and rarely have books that come close to their work.

This one does. Billed as the first of four this book it is set around the end of the Assad regime in Syria, and not only looks at American CIA activities but also the in fighting between different factions in Assad’s security and militia, and the rebels seeking to free the country from the Assad regime.

CIA agent Sam specialises in developing assets in foreign countries. So when a woman working at the heart of the Assad regime is thought to be a viable target to turn into an American agent it’s him they send.

Miriam works as an assistant to a high level officer in Assad’s security forces.

Miriam herself is tasked with silencing a rebel who is spreading the anti Assad message throughout Europe.

Unknown to her boss she is also having doubts about the regime, even though her father and uncle are high ranking officers in the Army she sees the tyranny and misjustices that comes with it. Her own cousin is caught at anti government rallies and is beaten badly before her uncle arranges her release.

The story of Sam making contact and attempting to lure Miriam is the main story, but the infighting and politics of the different factions in Syria make this complex and fascinating.

Family members on different sides of the political, and moralistic fences. Fanatics who thrive on violence, and people with more empathy and sympathy, clash within the same factions.

There are those who want war, and those who are not against it, but not at any cost, working for the same people.

How can Sam and Miriam navigate their way through this. Do they both want the same thing, and who is playing who, and to what end.

Not everybody comes out of this book in one piece. The happy-ever-after is not guaranteed. Just like real life the scenarios in this book are messy, and inevitably mistakes are made on both sides as all interested parties look to gain advantage.

This is a great read. At times I sat holding my breath, at others I found myself reading at a frantic speed to find out what happened next.

Brilliantly written, very realistic, great characters and a cracking story.

Pages: 433. Publisher: Swift Press Audiobook length: 12 hours 48. Narrator: Andrew B Wehrlen

The Devil’s Code. Michael Wood

The second in the Dr Olivia Winter series.

Her father is still alive and in prison but has no big part to play in this book, except that a TV series based on his killings is about to be aired on prime time television. Bringing Olivia back into the unwelcome spotlight.

The main story in this book centres on the investigation into a series of murders. Isaac McFadden is in prison for one murder. He was stopped by the police for a faulty light on his car, but they discovered a dismembered body in the boot.

Throughout his arrest and questioning he replied no comment to all questions. In court he was found guilty of one murder. But when his daughter started to clear out his house she found a note book with some coded entries, and an eclectic mix of items she’d never seen before, hidden in the bedroom.

The police now think there may have been more than one murder and turn to Olivia to help her crack the code in the book, and McFaddens code of silence.

Moving to Newcastle to help the police she has to interview the daughter, a woman that is going through what Olivia went through, finding out the father she loved is actually a killer. She tries to help her emotionally, but the spotlight from the TV series has an adverse effect.

I have to say the plot in this book is brilliant. I love the characters, the way it’s written, the story, the cadence, everything.

I think the code in the notebook is clever, and most of it I’d never have got, but the two parts the team really struggle with, for me, were the most obvious. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment, but I think most people will suss it quite quickly.

The fears at the end of my review of the first book didn’t transpire. Olivia Winter is a brilliant Forensic Psychologist, who was the only survivor when her father killed her family, the latest in a series of his killings.

My fear was that it would be another of those series where the incarcerated father would be the go too expert relied on by the law abiding daughter. Apart from the TV series he has little part to play and is hardly mentioned, but when he is ……..

The second book in a series can often be “the difficult second book” but if anything this one is even better than the first, and now I can’t wait for number three.

Pages: 477. Publisher: One More Chapter. Audiobook length: 13.48 hours. Narrator: Olivia Mace

The Chemist A.A Dhand

A massive heads up to give about a book that I think is the best crime thriller I’ve read this year.

Not set with a cop as the main character, but with a pharmacist who is just trying to do the right thing.

Idris Khan is the “Chemist” a pharmacist on a tough council estate in Leeds. His chemist shop is where the locals go for their medicine, it’s also where the local drug addicts get their daily methadone treatment.

Khan is also the only pharmacist who the local drug lord allows into the Mews, a council estate of high rise flats.

Jahangir Hosseini is the drug lord. He runs the five flats and the houses around them. Nobody gets past his gatekeepers, nobody sells drugs unless they are his. But most importantly nobody ever leaves the estate to live elsewhere, because once he has you hooked on his drugs, he doesn’t want you to taking your trade anywhere else.

The rest of Leeds underworld is run by Thomas Mead and he has always wanted to run the Mews but can’t afford the damage a gang war would do.

Meanwhile a small time pimp is running prostitutes in Heaton, one of them, a fresh face is sent out on her first night. Her client attacks her but Liam says if he wants it rough, get him to pay extra. In desperation she turns to Rebecca, a councillor who works with street girls.

In a crazy turn of events Rebecca kills the client by stabbing him in the back. The client just happens to be Thomas Meads brother who has only just been released from prison.

In a panic Rebecca calls he ex husband, Idris Khan, for help.

And that is where the story really starts.

The more Khan helps the deeper the hole he is digging himself, Rebecca, and Amy the young prostitute

This is a compelling story of a man who is trying to help people. Drug addicts, prostitutes, people generally down on their luck, living in a terrible part of the country.

When that help takes him into the mews he is protected by the drug lord, but only their terms.

He has free range to move around in places the police daren’t go.

And in the words of some actor in a film I can’t remember the name of, he has skills. Not physical, he has a brain, and he has a pharmacy in a world where drugs are a daily necessity for most people.

This is the story of bad decisions and loyalties. The story of a man just trying to get along in life by helping others. When that help leads to trouble it comes from all directions. Two drug lords, the police and the community.

A cracking read from and unusual point of view, and I loved it.

Pages: 432. Publisher: HQ. Publishing date: 22/05/2025. Audiobook length 10 hours 14, Narrator TBC

What The Dead Want. M.J Lee

DI Ridpath #10

This series is constantly one of my top two British crime thriller, police procedural, reads

M.J Lee has created a unique character. DI Tom Ridpath has two jobs. His main job is in the Major Investigation Team of Greater Manchester Police. But following treatment for cancer he was seconded to the Corner as her investigator, a job he is still doing four years later, although he is increasingly back in the fold of the police.

The uniqueness of the situation sees Ridpath investigating deaths for the Coroner that sometimes haven’t raised suspicions of the police.

In this case a high death rate at a Residential Care Home for the elderly.

At the same time Ridpath is tasked, by the police, to look at the case of a fourteen year old boy who went missing during the Covid lockdown, and was never found.

Why was the case so badly handled in the first place?

It’s a hot chalice for Ridpath, often seen as an outsider, and an ideal scapegoat, could this be somebody engineering his failure.

Covid took its toll on the police and they were slow to respond, officers went sick and the continuity of the investigation was shattered. So what can the new investigation find, without highlighting just how badly the police had messed up, without Ridpath taking the blame.

Meanwhile a serial killer is lounging in a high security hospital plotting his escape. Ex medical examiner Harold Lardner wants revenge on the people that put him in jail. That includes everybody at Greater Manchester Coroners Office.

The residential care home starts to crop up in Ridpaths missing persons case, and his inquiries for the Coroner are being thwarted by the care home management.

Surely the two cases can’t be related.

Lardner is plotting and pulling strings like a master puppeteer, but surely he can’t have been playing the long game and somehow be responsible for the disappearance of the boy four years ago.

This is a great story in a great series.

The main character, Ridpath, struggles with his work life balance. A a widowed father with a fourteen year old daughter his home life is fractious. As a cop with two jobs, which comes with often conflicting loyalties, work is also fractious.

Ridpath and the recurring characters, the background storyline running through the series, and the story within each book makes these books unmissable.

Pages:394. Publisher Canelo Crime

Zodiac. Conrad Jones

It’s a common name in serial killers, one factual and many fictional but this Zodiac story is a real standout. One of the fastest paced psychological thrillers I’ve read for a while, and what a story.

With a time line that dances back and forward between previous kills and the current investigation the tension is built quite quickly.

The first murder, four years ago is brilliantly written without being gratuitous, the tension of a girl walking through the woods to her death, alluding to the horrors she’s been through since she was kidnapped, and the way she is about to die, without going into the gore of a complete description.

Today, a young brother and sister leave home with no breakfast, their mom and dad still in bed sleeping of last nights alcohol and drugs excesses, witness a gang fight on a bus. Two teenagers are killed one stabbed, the other hit by a car as he runs from the scene.

Another day on the streets of Liverpool. They live in a low socioeconomic area where kids hang out around a row of shops at night, where rumours are rife that the owners of the shop are grooming young girls, but those girls don’t care because they are actually getting the attention they should be getting at home, but it comes at a cost.

One of the boys killed on the bus is the son of one of Liverpools biggest organised crime groups. A violent man who leads a violent gang.

He wants the killer of his son.

More girls go missing and eventually bodies start to turn up.

It is when all of these seemingly isolated strands start to knit together that things really start to get dangerous on the streets.

The Police are running investigations into missing persons, murders, grooming, and organised crime gangs. Some of these are linked, some are just distractions that throw red herrings in their direction, but ultimately they realise they are after one person. The Zodiac.

The problem is the head of the Gang is also running an investigation, and his interrogation techniques are not as friendly as the police’s, his crew don’t have to stay within the niceties of the law, they can use things like pliers, drills and blowtorch’s.

Who will untangle the threads of the investigation first. Will the Gangs attempts to find their bosses sons killer get in the way of the police’s attempts to find Zodiac, or is it really one person they are both after.

I loved this book, well nearly. The cadence of the story telling is wonderful. The plot is fantastically woven right up to the last page it provides shocks and twist. But……there is a but.

Why do authors go to so much trouble getting the crime and policing side of a story right and then do such a poor job of other aspects.

There are two major scenes where the Fire Service is involved in this book, and the inaccuracies and naivety of these sections of the book was in stark contrast to the rest of the story.

I know not many people would pick up on this but I’m sure a few will.

For me, if I was writing reviews with ratings, this would have dropped an easy five star to a four. If those scenes had have been at the start of the book I would have put it down, but thankfully I was fully hooked by then.

Would I recommend it yes. It does get a bit gory in places, but it’s well placed, essential to the story, and not overly graphic.

The sections where the author talks about grooming are well written and I wouldn’t really say there’s any section I would warn about for triggering.

It is one of the best UK based psychological thrillers I’ve read for a very long time.

Pages: 402. Publisher: Red Dragon Books.

The Unravelling Vi Keeland

A dark psychological thriller with some well disguised twists that keep coming right up to the last page.

Written in the first person from Dr Meredith McCalls point of view.

At the start of the book McCall is a successful psychiatrist, with her own practice in New York. Her marriage, to a NHL Hockey player is perfect, but then he suffers an injury on the ice.

The first few chapters alternate between McCall now, as she struggles to get over her husbands death, and the incident that killed him, and the lead up to the incident as her husband turns to drink and pain killers.

A young woman and her daughter were also killed in the incident and all the evidence points towards it being her husbands fault.

In the present McCall fixates on Gabriel. The husband and father of the woman and girl that were killed by her husband.

She’s just finishing a years ban from practicing and is completing mandatory counselling herself, but although she knows what she is doing is wrong she struggles to tell her therapist the entire truth.

When she starts back, at her practice, Gabriel turns up as a patient. She should turn him away……….

The story follows the way she starts to unravel, lack of sleep, increased drinking, mood swings brought about by distracting herself with dating apps.

Some of her other patients mirror her own thoughts and actions, she can see it’s wrong in them, and can give them advice. So why can’t she help herself.

Her unraveling is going to ruin her, both professionally, and as a person, but can she put a stop to it.

This book is brilliantly written.

It’s psychologically dark.

The twists in the plot are well hidden until they hit.

There is a bit of “spice” but it’s not gratuitous, it adds to the story, and believe it or not, the suspense.

A big recommendation for this one from me.

Pages: 305. Publisher: Piatkus Audiobook length: 8 hours 45 minutes Narrator: Aidan Snow

The Collector Series. Dot Hutchison

There are four books in this series, I picked the first one up over Christmas and finished the last one on the second of January.

Yes, I was hooked.

This is a remarkable series, not just for the stories, which are superb, but for the structure and the way they are written.

The stories centre around an FBI team in the Crimes Against Children division.

Each book contains a gripping story but is told from a different team members point of view, with that character in each book being written in the first person.

In the case of the first book the first person, present tense is mainly used for one of the victims.

This, almost unique, style of writing over the series gives a great insight into the personality, emotions, and relationships in high profile investigation teams.

#1 The Butterfly Garden

Teenage girls kidnapped from the streets and held inside a secured garden. The man who takes them is only known to them as the gardener. He’s a collector, a collector of butterflies, in this case human butterflies.

Once the girl has been kidnapped the are subdued and their back is tattooed with their own unique, colourful set of butterfly wings. The girls is given a new name and released into the garden where they interact with other girls who are also being held.

The butterflies are treated well, except when the Gardener wants sex. In his mind he’s being gentle and saving them from the outside world. But they have a life span and when they reach 21 he kills them, before putting them into a glass frame in resin to display them.

But he’s not the biggest threat to the girls. His son is a monster and uses, and abuses, the girls in the worst way.

Special Agent Victor Hanoverian, and his partner Brandon Eddison, and their team investigate the latest disappearance and start to piece together a case that surprises even these veterans.

The pace of this story is frantic. Following one of the girls experience from just before she’s taken, until ……..well until the end of the book but that would be a spoiler.

#2 The Roses of May

This time Eddison is the main character with the story being written in the first person tense from his point of view.

Young women are being killed and posed with flowers on, or around the body. The type of flowers are different for each girl and seem to have a relate to her in some way.

One of the victims sisters, Priya, is receiving flowers, specifically the same type of flowers the victims were posed with, in some type of predictive countdown to another killing, but is she the target.

Eddison has a relationship with Priya, he had investigated her sisters murder and had kept in touch.

A running theme throughout the series is that the team form friendships with victims, and in some cases the bond is more like family. Often the victims become unofficial councillors, they understand the team like nobody else can, and from very different positions, share the experiences of the crimes they are involved in.

In this story the relationship, between Eddison and Priya, is the main focus of the story and it works really well.

#3 The Summer Children

Team members are introduced through the series, in this book Special Agent Mercedes Ramirez, a background character in the previous books, takes centre stage.

Blood covered children, clutching teddy bears, are being left on her doorstep.

Each time the child is told to talk to Ramirez and that she’ll look after them. They are told by a woman who’s forced the child to watch her kill their parents, telling them that they would be safe now and that she’s saving them.

Ramirez has always given the child victims of the crimes she investigates a teddy bear to help comfort them. The killer is now using this against her.

Her emotions are fraught as she tries to dig into past investigations in an attempt to find a link. The killer is described as looking like an angel, and in a really unusually spin the children are all sure it’s a woman.

#4 The Vanishing Season

One of the newest members of the team, Eliza Stirling takes the first person point of view for the final book in the series.

A young girl goes missing around Halloween time. She was walking home from school in a nice safe neighbourhood and nobody saw a thing.

The girl bears a striking resemblance to Stirling, enough for her to be moved to a desk for the investigation because her looks are to emotional for the family.

Her frustrations are shared by her partner Eddison. It’s the anniversary of his sister’s disappearance, and she was about the same age as the latest victim, and had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, and he is also sidelined because of the triggers the similarities might bring.

The detective in charge of looking for Edison’s daughter is long retired but he never stopped looking for her.

When he, and others start to link numerous disappearances over nearly 30 years, it looks like a serial kidnapper has been taking girls for generations.

The story of the investigation, in this book, is a tool to examine the relationship between Stirling and Eddison, and the extended team of FBI agents and past victims.

It’s one of the best finales to a series I’ve ever read.

Emotions run high, friendship and relationships are strained the bonds are tight but not indestructible.

This is a short but brilliant series. I had not heard of Dot Hutchison before but these books have been available for some time. Why she’s flown below my radar I have no idea. But she is firmly on it now.

Publisher Thomas & Mercer

36 Hours. Angela Marsons

Wow. In fact several wows

Wow 1 How is this book 21 of the series. I know time flies but it only seems like yesterday I was enthralled by Silent Scream.

Wow 2 The fact that the series just goes from strength to strength

Wow 3. What a brilliant story.

Kim Stone and her team are back, but at first not officially.

When Stones not so favourite journalist turns up on her doorstep with a half baked story Kim should not be giving it any credence, but there is something about the message that Frost brings her that impacts and makes her take it seriously enough to text her team, on their day off.

So what exactly is it that grips Stone. Frost has been given a deadline. If she doesn’t follow the clues she’s going to be sent, and solve the puzzle within 36 hours, somebody is going to die.

Not everybody, including Stone’s boss take it seriously and the team are given the opportunity to bail out, or help Kim with the investigation on a voluntary basis.

To make matters more complex Stone includes Frost in the team and gives her a seat in the office.

Even those that decide to stay find this a step to far and the tension in the office is palpable.

The first clue leads them to a box, amongst the contents is an audio file in which a person can be heard screaming.

As each clue is discovered the contents get more horrifying.

I’m running out of superlatives to describe Angela Marsons books. Amongst all of the things she’s always good at, characters, plot, settings, this one added a rhythm to story that only the really best authors seem to get right.

Any author can add pace but this story pulses. The anxiety of a new clue and the rush to find it, the lull and anticipation when the team, back in the office, are waiting to hear what Kim and Bryant have found whilst out in the field.

As a Black Country lad I always look forward to seeing where the plot will be set, in this case they race across many locations that are absolutely perfect for hiding clues.

Pace, suspense and a terrific story meant that I read this book in as close to one sitting as it is possible whilst carrying on with a normal life.

Can it be read as a standalone, yes.

Should you read the rest of the series in order, I would, but then again I’m lucky enough to have been in from the start.

Pages. 362. Publisher. Bookouture. Audiobook length. 8 hours 3 minutes. Narrator Jan Cramer

The Silent Watcher. Victor Methos

The crimes, two horrendously bloody murder scenes several years apart, the latest in Las Vegas close to the city.

The detective, Lazarus Holloway. He was part of the first investigation and he never got over the scene, or the fact that he couldn’t catch the killer.

The survivor. Sophie Grace, 15 escaped the latest murder scene, but why was she allowed to survive.

Piper Danes, the Gaurdian, a legal representative who looks after the interest of Sophie during the investigation and any court proceedings. Young and inexperienced but with a moralistic compass that makes her a fearsome advocate and protector.

The investigation into the crimes is a gritty story, but to my surprise an arrest is made just over halfway into the story.

Enter a defence attorney that is one of the most aggravating characters I have come across in a book, but I loved her. Russo Blanchi only cares for one thing, winning. She doesn’t care who she defends, who the victims are, or weather her client is guilty or innocent, she just wants to win.

The first half of the book was really good, but the second half goes up another gear.

Victor Methos is another new author to me, and I’m not sure how widely known he is here in the U.K.

I found this book as an Amazon recommendation after I read a US Courtroom thriller, otherwise I think I’d still be in the dark about Methos’ work.

His writing style is fast paced and easy to read, but to keep me as enthralled, as this book did, it has to have a great story.

What I liked was the realism and the fact that at no time could I predict what was coming next. That meant that none of the characters were, in my mind, safe. This added a real suspense to the story.

For me, this is one of my finds of the year.

Pages: 306. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer.