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The Girl Who…. What a Series of Books

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I don’t usually blog about a series of books but today is different.

18 months ago I had never heard of Marnie Riches. Now I wait for the publication of her books like a child looking forward to Christmas. But what has got me so engrossed.

For years I read books on spies and espionage, books by people like Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, and Tom Clancy. Then I got into legal thrillers and Police Procedurals by the likes of John Grisham, Colin Dexter, Greg Isles and Patricia Cornwell.

Looking forward to each of these authors, and a few others meant that every weekend trip to a bookshop was filled with anticipation.

Pre the internet one of the highlights of any holiday abroad was going into a WH Smiths at the airport and picking up a paperback version of a book that was only available in hardback outside off duty free.

These days I’m lucky enough to get some books pre-publication so I can review them on this blog and one of the authors I look forward to reading the most is Marnie Riches.

What makes her books so special, and why do they standout in the crowded market of the crime thriller section of the bookshelves.

A few years ago the Millennium Trilogy by, Stieg Larsson took off and developed a huge following. Larsson Died in 2004 leaving a bit of a hole in popular fiction. Filled at times by other writers in the Scandinavian Noir genre, but nobody ever replaced his character Lisbeth Salander. Until George McKenzie came out of the computer of Marnie Riche.

The first book in the series, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die came out in spring 2015 and introduced us to George McKenzie.

George is a rough character. From a broken family, and with a bit of a history on the streets of London, we first meet her in the streets of Amsterdam. She is now a Cambridge University student carrying out research in Amsterdam. Living in a flat above a marijuana café her neighbours and friends are either students or prostitutes, and suffering from OCD to a point where things need to be almost surgically clean

This alone allows Riches to put George into some great situations.

The story starts with an explosion at the University and a chance meeting between George and a middle aged Police Investigator, Paul van den Bergen. What can a small mixed race young woman from England and a Middle aged Dutch cop have in common. Not a lot at first but a relationship and trust starts to build as more incidents occur. Whilst van den Bergen carries out the official investigation George becomes more embroiled in her own helped by her closest friend and fellow student Ad.

The story includes more murders as the case expands, and I have to say Riches has found some new, and realistic, ways of murdering people. But are the incidents connected and if so how. Could they be related to the parts of the story that take place 5 years’ prior in London. Don’t try and second-guess the writer there are twists and turns all the way to the end.

In the second book. The Girl Who Broke The Rules George has returned home and is working to make ends meet as she researches for her PHD. Meanwhile Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen is still working in the serious crime department in Amsterdam.

As George interviews a convicted violent sex offender in prison in the UK the dismembered bodies of sex workers start to be discovered in Amsterdam. Van der Bergen has not forgotten George since she left, in fact far from it, and the discoveries are an ideal opportunity to become involved with her again.

Van der Bergen is suffering his own demons and his ill health is not helped by his hypochondria. He needs to have George in his life not just to help him with the crimes that are taking place but also to get his life together.

George’s personal life is also a mess; her PhD mentor is over bearing in her control, her family is a dysfunctional group who skate along the edges of legality, and she is in a failing relationship with her boyfriend who still lives in Holland.

As the bodies pile up and George begins to work with Van der Bergen they find themselves conflicted with van der Bergen’s superior officer and a detective on his team. Who is making the right decisions George and Paul, or his boss and the detective?

The book rattles along a fast pace and every time I thought I had a handle on who was the culprit, and why they were doing it, I realized I hadn’t.

The third book is published today. The Girl Who Walked In The Shadows.

Georgina McKenzie is back, or should I say the now Dr Georgina McKenzie is back. About two years on from the end of The Girl Who Broke the Rules Dr George, a professional Criminologist is back in the UK interviewing prisoners who have a history of abuse and being abused.

Her mismatched lover, Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen is still working in Amsterdam but has been moved to a department hunting for missing persons.

The Dr and the Chief Inspector are hitting a rough patch and their will-they-wont -they relationship, which had become a they-did, is back to will-they-wont-they.

Meanwhile a bitter chill hits Europe with deep snow and ice covering the continent and the UK. But the chill isn’t just in the weather, somebody is killing people in England and Holland. The killer, “Jack Frost”, uses the the elements to their advantage, which makes the investigation even harder.

With George in the UK, carrying out research into abused people being trafficked around Europe, Van den Bergen stumbles into a murder investigation in Amsterdam.

George notices a similarity between the drug dealer’s death in Amsterdam and a death in the UK.

Before long the two are working together, but is it going to be a harmonious or destructive relationship???

George’s family have been in the background of the previous two books and make an appearance in this one. George is staying with them but somebody else is watching. Is it something to do with Dr Georges research or something more sinister?

As more children go missing it becomes apparent that Dr George has an academic rival who is also researching child abuse and its relationship to organised paedophile rings and trafficking. A hassle that she could do without.

As in the two previous book there are no wasted words. Every paragraph of every chapter has a meaning and a direction. And that direction hurtles the reader to the end of the book, and I really do mean the end of the book.

Marnie Riches writes with a style that never makes the reader think anything is unrealistic. It might be uncomfortable for some people to think that the crimes, and criminals, in this book are real, but they are and Riches has them nailed in the characters and scenes in her books.

With children going missing, murders to investigate, personal problems with her family and her mismatched lover could things get anymore hectic for Dr McKenzie.

You’ll have to read The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows to find out. I promise you, its well worth it.

For me this is the best “The Girl Who….” Yet.

So what makes these books so good.

Well they are perfectly written. The characters, the locations, the scenarios all work brilliantly.

The situations McKenzie finds herself in are all too realistic. Riches plays on the readers fears of modern crimes. Some people will not want to admit are happening, but they are and we all know it.

George McKenzie is a character we would all probably cross the streets to avoid if we saw her walking down the road; but she’s also the person most of us would want to be. Tough, intelligent, moralistic, streetwise and sexy.

The perfect foil to her character is the Dutch Detective, Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen, middle aged, grumpy, unfit, unfashionable, and a bit by-the-book. There really should not any common ground between the two but the chemistry is great through the whole series.

So three great books in about a year. I know its way too much to hope for this speed of writing and publishing to continue but I can’t wait for the next instalment.

Learn more about Marnie Riches at her own website

http://marnieriches.com/

or on twitter @Marnie_Riches

Maestra L.S. Hilton

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Maestra L.S. Hilton.

The protagonist for this book is Judith Rashleigh.

Judith’s story starts with a glimpse further into the book with the first chapter ending with her asking the question, how did this all begin. The first half of the book is retro that point, but still narrated in the present first person tense. The rest of the book remains in the first person and advances the story.

The story is good. Judith a young woman with a passion for fine art, and qualifications to back it up, is working in one of the big auction houses in London. However, her lot there is not a good one. Working as an intern but treated like a dogs-body Judith watches on as a young pretty air-headed girl arrives at the house and is positioned into her place.

A chance meeting with a woman she used to go to school with leads Judith to a part time job as a Hostess in a London club. There’s a no touch rule but the underlying atmosphere is that of an establishment that sits just on the right side of legal. That’s OK with Judith because she has a secret.

Judith likes stranger-sex, in fact she likes rough stranger sex. L.S Hilton uses this as a tool to allow Judith to get into the situations that allows the story to advance.

Whilst still working at the Auction House she uncovers some elicit dealings but is sacked when she tries to expose the crime.

Judith’s moral is low and she allows herself to manipulate a client at the club into taking her on holiday. From then on her life changes.

As she tries to re-establish herself she manipulates, uses, men to make money. Drifting around the top upper-class resorts of the Mediterranean her moralistic code slips deeper and deeper allowing her to make choices and take actions that the Judith at the start of the story never would have.

Dealing in art, and the underworld leads her commit the most hideous of crimes, all the time seemingly justifying her own actions. Each crime gets worse but Judith’s morals seem to allow her to commit each one without conscience. As her crimes get worse so does the depravity of her actions in her sex life.

The book races through the story but the end is very open. Hilton uses the phrase “To be continued” at the end of the last chapter. I have to say it doesn’t feel so much of a cliff hanger as an anti-climax.

I have some issues with this book.

It is a great story, but, why do we need such graphic descriptions of the sex. I’m no prude and I enjoy a bit of sex in a book, but this is full on hard-core. I understand that the reader needs to understand that Judith’s behaviour is either escalating or spiralling downwards, depending on your point of view, but personally I would have been more comfortable with a little less eyes-on, and a little more insinuation.

For me the sex scenes distract from the story. It felt like they were deliberately there to shock, and that may be Hilton’s intention, but they were out of place with the rest of the writing.

The book is set in some of the nicest places in Europe, amongst people wearing fashionable and expensive clothing, all beautifully described. As is the art, Hilton obviously has a passion for the art world and has found a nice outlet for a good tale. It is almost as if two people wrote this book, or is it just a really good author showing the split personality of her main character. If it is, she has done a very good job of it.

Who would I recommend this book to. Anybody with an open mind, male or female, there’s something in this for everybody.

If you’re easily offended steer clear.

The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows Marnie Riches

Her mismatched lover, Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen is still working in Amsterdam but has been moved to a department hunting for missing persons.

The Dr and the Chief Inspector are hitting a rough patch and their will-they-wont -they relationship, which had become a they-did, is back to will-they-wont-they.

With George in the UK, carrying out research into abused people being trafficked around Europe, Van den Bergen stumbles into a murder investigation in Amsterdam.

George notices a similarity between the drug dealer’s death in Amsterdam and a death in the UK.

Before long the two are working together, but is it going to be a harmonious or destructive relationship???

With children going missing, murders to investigate, personal problems with her family and her mismatched lover could things get anymore hectic for Dr McKenzie.

You’ll have to read The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows to find out. I promise you, its well worth it.

For me this is the best “The Girl Who….” Yet.

Well done Marnie Riches 3 brilliant books in a fantastic series

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Ghosts of the Past Harry McCillion

Ghosts Of The Pasts Harry McCallion.

I’m going to start this review with a quote from one of the characters in the book.

“A mysterious Russian Countess – a sinister killer – and two dead diplomats – It sounds like something out of a novel”

Well it is something out of a novel. It’s out of this one, and being as this is said within the first couple of chapters it’s not even a spoiler.

This book is great. McCallion has used the mid-nineties era to set a book in a very unstable world.

Different factions of the Irish terrorist organisation of the PIRA are at war, some in favour of peace with England others definitely not.

The Soviet empire has crumbled since the knocking down of the Berlin Wall and the coming of independence of some of the soviet states.

In England the mysterious Countess Natasha Romanov is in a bitter battle with Ukrainian Mafioso in an attempt to capture the lucrative drug trade in Europe.

In Ireland the IRA are fighting amongst themselves and all the time a lone assassin ties the factions together but whose side is he on.

London Met Police officers, aided by DI Nevin Brown of the Royal Ulster Constabulary are investigating murders across the capital. Are they all connected to the feuds being played out between the groups from the ex-soviet nations and the feuds between the warring factions of the Irish Terrorists.

Whose side should the Police take, is there any friendly faces amongst the different factions.

MI5 seem to be standing back and letting things play out, much to the detriment of the investigating officers and their safety.

This book starts of like a sprinter coming out of the blocks and doesn’t slow down all the way to the end.

One of my favourite authors of all time is Robert Ludlum. Well for me Harry McCallion is every bit as good.

I will be looking out for more of his books in the future.

Hold Still Tim Adler

A fascinating fast paced thriller.

Kate Julia is in Tirana with her husband, Paul, for the funeral of one of his family.

Back in their hotel room Paul receives a text. At the same time Kate takes a picture of him on her phone. Seconds later he is lying dead on the ground, a long way below their penthouse balcony.

In a foreign country, where she doesn’t speak the language Kate, is left to answer the local police’s questions. Looking at the photograph she took of Paul just before his death Kate thinks she can see somebody on their balcony looking through the curtains, but will the police believe her.

Returning home to England with her husband’s ashes Kate becomes even more convinced that her husbands death is suspicious especially when she see’s the picture message that he received immediately before his death.Tirana is run by Mafioso type gangs involved in drugs, gun running and human trafficking. Was Paul involved with the gangs. If he was, was his death related to them and is Kate safe.

There is no doubt that the gang has members in England but who are they, where are they, what are they involved in, and how was Paul involved?

The story follows Kate’s quest for the truth.

Who can she trust, is anybody who they say they are?

This book is a great psychological thriller. Tim Adler has managed to find a country, Albania, in which he can realistically set a great story.

A country that is run on corruption and fear, a country who’s gangs are beginning to surface in the UK.

Kate’s plight is so believable, that at it makes the book fly by.

It would be a bit cliché to say there are twists-and-turns on every page but there are in every chapter. This book full of them, but the plot still flows at a pace that makes it almost impossible to put down.

Tim Adler has a great talent of ending a chapter in such a way that it makes you want to start the next. Which is probably why I was still reading it a 2.30 in the morning.

A great read I would highly recommend. Just make sure you have nothing pressing to do when you start, because this one is nigh-on impossible to put down.

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Nations Divided Steve P Vincent

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I came across this book by accident. So imagine my shock when I found out that this is the third in a series. A series I have been looking for, for years. Those of you that have read my reading history will know that I loved Robert Ludlum’s cold war books and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series.

I have been on the lookout for a new author to bring to life the same style of writing for the world as it is today.

That is exactly what I found in this book.

Jack Emery is a Special Advisor to the President of the United States and the main character of the book. The story starts with a massacre at a Hospital in Gaza and quickly moves into peace talks between Israel and Palestine.

With a peace agreement in place and a Palestinian State agreed all looks well in the world but a secretive group of Zionists plan to wreck the agreement.

The Zionists acquire weapons and plant them strategically around the world threatening to detonate them if the peace agreement is not overturned.

Emery is in a race against time to find the weapons and the people responsible for planting them.

At the same time a unique and disturbing back up plan is put into place by the terrorists in case the initial plan is disrupted.

The book flies along with plots and sub-plots. As in the real world different countries have different agenda’s. Whilst political moves are made at the highest of levels, Emery works with and against an increasingly complex group of advocates at street level.

It is difficult to say more about the storyline without spoiling the plot for the reader, so I won’t. What I will say is the finale is breathtaking.

This book is great. I feel like I have found what I’ve been looking for since the last Jack Ryan book, and who would have guessed it would be a book with another Jack as the protagonist.

Like Ludlum and Clancy at their best Steve P Vincent uses up to date world politics to paint a background of imminent danger. This book is a must read for fans of those writers.

My only regret is I am late to the party and will have to read the first two in the series out of order, but this book stood alone and it would read easily as a stand-alone novel.

Pretty Dead Anne Frasier

Set in Savannah Georgia the story revolves around a series of murders. What sets this book apart from most others is exactly that, it revolves around the murders, and the main story is that of the characters.

From the start the reader knows the name of the killer, Jeffrey Nightingale. Nightingale is clever, he knows that the Police look for patterns of behaviour when looking for offenders, so every few years he takes on a new persona, changes location, and changes the way he kills.

The main protagonist in the story is Elise Sandburg, Head of Savannah Police Department. As well as investigating a murder she is struggling to put her past behind her, having been kidnapped and violently assaulted on a previous case. Elise’s father makes an unwelcome return during the investigation that only complicates matters. Especially as his return was kept a secret by department partner David Gould

Gould has his own demons in his past, but is the anniversary of his son’s death enough to distract him from the current investigation.

Just to add to the conundrum of characters FBI profiler Victor Lamont is brought in to help with the case. The history between Gould and Lamont is fraught with tension and threatens to divide the investigation team.

Then there is Jay Thomas Paul, “a man with three surnames” as Elise refers to him; a reporter from the New York Times that is given permission to shadow Sandburg and Gould during their investigations into the increasing death count.

And then there is the Crosswords

What have they got to do with the story?

I loved this book. It stands out from others of the same genre because it concentrates more on the characters than it does on the crimes. However the crimes are perfect for the story allowing all of the characters story-lines to move along in a believable way.

I am sorry to admit it but this is the first book of Anne Frasier’s that I’ve read. Having looked her up on the net I now know she’s a New York Times Best Selling Author with many books to her name. In fact Pretty Dead is the third in a series following on from Play Dead and Stay Dead, both of which are now on my have-to-read-soon list.

It might be a geographical problem, I’ve looked in UK bookshops and only found one or two of her books. If you are reading this in the UK get on Amazon and grab yourself a treat.

More information about Anne Frasier and her books can be found on her own website

http://www.annefrasier.com

Who would I recommend this book too. Everybody who likes a good Police Procedural, a good Thriller, or just a good story.

People who like books by the UK authors Mari Hannah and Marnie Riches, and the American writer Greg Isles will love Anne Frasier

The Next to Die Neil White

Next To Die Neil White

I have seen Neil Whites books on bookshelves for a few years now and can’t believe I’ve only just got around to reading one.

The Next To Die is set in Manchester and uses the diversity of the city to its full.

The two central characters in the book are two brothers: Joe Parker a defence lawyer, and Sam Parker a Detective Constable in the Greater Manchester Police.

I’m not giving much away when I say that the brothers have chosen their career paths, for different reasons, following the murder of their sister. They could not be more different in their life; Sam is married with a family, where as Joe is single. Both of them have back-stories, which begin to be told during the book, and it looks like both will make good characters for future books.

Neil White has written a great thriller around these characters. Joe is called to represent a man accused of killing his wife and daughter, but there are no bodies.

Sam is seconded from the Fraud team to work with the Major Investigation Team on the same case.

This inevitably leads to conflict between the brothers which at times tested my moralistic streak; I couldn’t quite decide which brother was right.

As the case continues there is no relaxing for the reader. Unlike some current authors there is no guarantee of the safety of a character. There are some vicious twists and turns in this book, all the way to the last chapter.

If you are looking for a realistic gritty crime book this is for you.

Who would I compare White to. I don’t know but if you are a fan of British Crime Fiction at its best and read people like Mari Hannah, C.L Taylor, and A.D Garrett you will love it.

There are 2 more books based around the same characters The Death Collector and The Domino Killer. I have already started The Death Collector and it is no disappointment so far ………….

Look out for more blogs about this Author. I’m Hooked