Police Procedural – nigeladamsbookworm

No Safe Place. Hannah Brennan

Book one in the Detective Chief Inspector Liz Field series, and if this is the standard to come it’s going to be one hell of a series.

What starts out as a single attempted murder quickly escalates.

DCI Field is close to the attack when the call comes in. A man has been stabbed multiple times and left to die in the street.

Her and one of her DS’s are the first on the scene and the description of the chaos they encounter, and the way the next few minutes is described sets the cadence for the story.

The victim is a Mental Health Doctor who published a paper about his observations of 5 teenagers who had undiagnosed OCD. The study took place fifteen years ago and the front page of the paper is found beneath his body when paramedics move him to hospital.

The next day a second victim is savagely stabbed, in a similar manner, but she dies. She was one of the teenagers in the study carried out by the Doctor, and she is found on the steps of another of the cohort included in the study.

The study only contains an identifying letter for each of the teenagers. The police now know the identity of two of them, but they need to identify the other three to either rule them out and protect them, or arrest one of them for murder.

All of the subjects of the study had previously been diagnosed with other mental health issues, but by identifying the underlying issue was severe OCD the Doctor had been able to offer them all help before they were discharged from his care.

Each of them has made a recovery, to differing degrees of success, but some still suffer, and when the investigating team start to identify them it’s only the start of the process. Interviewing people with hidden, or in some cases not so hidden, OCD issues is difficult. But it makes for a great story plot.

The characters are really well written in particular the Police Officer at the head of the story.

DCI Liz Field is the female version of a lot of the fictional Police Officers you find in some established series, but with Brennans writing she is elevated to another level.

As well as dealing with the investigation she is also dealing with two Detective Sergeants on her team.

DS Wilson is a traditional Police Officer. She joined as a uniform Constable and did her time on response, dealing with all the rubbish and violence that that job brings.

DS Riley has a degree in Criminology and joined the force on a Direct-to-Detective scheme. Who Wilson sees as an inexperienced underling.

Wilson an Riley often but heads, most SIOs would do something to stop this but Field almost encourages it, and sees the competition between the pair as a good way of getting the best out of them.

This story moves with pace. For a story with, at most, eight main characters, three of which are Police Officers, it’s amazing how well hidden the perpetrator is hidden.

I did’t have a clue who was carrying out the attacks until the reveal, and thats not a bad thing.

A great start to a new series.

Pages: 414. Publisher: Avon. Audiobook length: 9 hours 34 minutes. Narrator: Rachel Atkins

The Distant Echo. Val McDermid

Val McDermid was one of the first U.K. Crime writers I got hooked on, with her Tony Hill series, and for some reason she went off my radar.

I don’t usually buy books based on having watched a TV series, but when Karen Pirie appeared on our screens, even though I was late to the game, I decided to read the first book in the series, Distant Echo.

Why oh why did I stop reading this woman’s books.

Distant Echo

1978. What starts out as an innocent night out at University, for four friends, has an impact on the rest of their lives.

Walking home they find a young woman, Rosie Duff, who has been viciously attacked, bleeding in the snow. They try to help but she dies.

They instantly become the focus of the police investigation, and although only ever “considered” witness by the police, they are damned by public opinion.

When nobody is ever charged with the murder they are always considered the murderers who got away with it.

The four have been friends from childhood and each has their idiosyncrasies, and secrets.

The police become even more suspicious of the boys when they get caught trying to hide the fact that they’d borrowed a fellow students Land Rover, without his permission, on the night of the crime.

The story of the murder, and subsequent investigation takes up much of the first half of the book, and it’s an intriguing read.

The effects of one lie, the car. The test of the relationships between the boys as each begins to doubt one of the others story. They’d been to a house party on the night of the murder, and none of them can account for what they did for the entirety of the time they were there. Could one of them have sneaked out and attacked the girl, who they all knew, from the local pub.

2003. A cold case review team has been set up by the Police. The murder of Rosie Duff is one of the first investigations.

Science has moved forward, so examination of the evidence should help, but it’s gone missing.

The men, now in their forties are still considered by many as the chief suspects and have struggled to escape the rumours that they got away with murder.

Rosies brothers were free with their fists back in the 70’s and one of them hasn’t changed much.

But there’s somebody else out there holding a grudge, and the identity of the killer has never been established.

So when, around the 25th anniversary of the murder approaches, and the four find themselves under threat, and worse, is it somebody out for revenge, or is the real killer trying to stop any reinvestigation by getting rid of the main witnesses.

The second half of the book is addictive as the first.

I changed my opinion three or four times as to who the real killer of Rosie Duff was, but when it was finally revealed it was a real “doh” moment.

That person was on my radar but dismissed, but the reveal made real sense.

As always the book is so much better than the TV adaptation, but I’m glad I watched it to trigger my interest.

Val McDermid is firmly back on my reading list, and right up there with my favourite authors.

Pages: 577. Publisher: Hemlock Press

Cop Hater. Ed McBain

I’ve recently been in a bit of a reading slump.

Modern crime fiction seems to be following an all too familiar formula with many of the stories being very samey.

I recently resorted to rereading one of James Elroy’s books, classic crime fiction set in the 1960s, and having enjoyed it and looked for inspiration on Amazon.

The name Ed McBain came up and I remembered people reading his books when I was on the ships in the late 70s. I don’t know why I never picked one up then.

I’m sort of glad I didn’t because now I’ve found a rich vane of new books to make my way through.

Cop Hater is the first in a very long series, of over 50 books in the 97th Precinct series set in the fictional city of Isola, which is very obviously New York.

Written and set in the mid 1950s it’s an excellent study of not only policing in that era, but also of how people lived, their styles and attitudes. The language used, the thoughts and behaviour are very much of that era.

The city is no stranger to serious crime but when the Detectives end up investigating the murder of one of their own no stone is going to be left unturned.

The way they pull in known criminals, and the quick back stories associated with each, are mesmerising.

A second detective is killed and some forensic evidence is left. The Criminologists, Crime Scientist of the day are the early forerunners of today’s Crime Scene Investigators, but have little proven science to help them.

Blood matched only by types, no national shoe database, finger prints sent to the FBI for analysis, and DNA is decades away, as is CCTV, and personal phone data which so much of today’s policing relies on.

So who is killing detectives, and why. There are some nice observations and twists in this plot. There is the still, and ever present, hinderance of the journalist trying to get the “scoop” on the story. The reliance of information from an informer, who I hope has numerous appearances during the series, an early Huggy Bear, type character.

But the big draw is the cast of police officers, their professional and personal lives giving great depth to each character.

One of my favourite tactics that writers employ is to kill of protagonists or main characters in series. It means that the reader is always on the edge of the seat, as no one is safe. McBain sets his stall out early and kept me right on the very edge of the seat.

I won’t be reading all fifty plus books in one binge, but much like Elroy, McBain’s stories are now going to be my default books when I’m looking for a good, no holds barred, original, none woke story to read.

Pages: 226. Publisher: Thomas & Mercer Included in Kindleunlimited

The Dark Arches. Andrew Barrett

This is the second book in the DS Regan Carter series, and as brilliant as it is, it come with a but…….you have to read book 1 A Random Kill first.

It’s not often I say a book can’t be read as a standalone but this really does feel like a continuation of the last, and without reading Random Kill you would be thoroughly confused.

That said, this is a fantastic story. Carter has not only annoyed a deranged gang leader, Bradshaw, she has identified his mole in the Police, or at least one of them.

So with Bradshaw still missing a significant drug package, and a good few thousand pounds, he is really miffed with Carter.

His crew has a loose cannon that’s too unpredictable, unreliable, and utterly violent, who is fixated on Carter. So the best thing Bradshaw can do is set him out to get her and fix his biggest problem.

Meanwhile Bradshaw has come up with a plan to get rich quick, the way he does it is not original, but the scale of the effect it has is massive, and also totally realistic and believable.

Carter is heading-up one avenue of the investigation, whilst her boss starts looking at the person Carter identified as the leak.

What follows is an intriguing story. Carter is out for Bradshaw. Bradshaw knows this and sets psycho Eric after her.

However Eric proves to be a burden and Bradshaw decides he’s too much of a risk and sets him up to fail.

The dance that follows is as good as anything on Strictly.

The suspense contained in the chapters is palpable. At times I had to tell myself to breath

The end of the book, just like the first, leaves the door, not only wide open, but knocked off its hinges, for the continuation in book three.

I really wish I hadn’t found this series until it was complete. I only had a couple of weeks wait between finishing A Random Kill before this one was published. Now I’ll have to wait months for the next instalment.

It would have been a massive book, if it’s only a trilogy, but Galbraith (Rowling) gets away with 1000 page books, so I think this would have been an epic, but brilliant, one book story.

Pages: 328. Publisher: The Ink Foundry

Mercy Killing. Lisa Cutts

A good story but it comes with a warning.

The story centres around victims of child abuse, and although there is no gratuitous scenes, it is alluded to strongly, and may act as triggers to anybody who has been affected by these crimes

DI Harry Powell is newly promoted, in an unhappy marriage, and is the father to two teenage sons.

He has a wondering eye, when it comes to attractive women, but is to afraid of his wife’s r eaction to anything other than looking.

In short, he’s a wonderful character for a series.

In his first major investigation as DI he, and his team, investigate the murder of a man who has been convicted of child abuse.

The man is found in his flat, hands secured with cable ties, and strangled with another.

From the start of the book the reader is led down the line of knowing who the killers are, but as the book moves on it becomes less obvious and there appears to be a handful of people who are in the frame.

As the last few chapters draw the story to a conclusion these suspects spiral around until the murderer is finally identified.

Throughout the book Lisa Cutts does a brilliant job of looking at the long term psychological damage suffered by people who are abused as children.

What she also does really well is examine the effect it has on Police Officers. The difficulty in investigating the murder of a monster who has abused children. The fact that most people, cops included, would probably think he got what he had coming to him. But they still have to identify and arrest the people responsible, ensuring fairness in justice.

Part of the book also looks at the tragic consequences of making accusations of abuse, another trigger warning.

As much as I’ve made this sound like a tough read it’s actually not. It’s a good Police Procedural, but it’s also thought provoking.

Pages: 365. Publisher: Bloodhound . Series number 1/3 so far Audiobook. 11 hours 2 minutes. Narrator Iain Batchelor.

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

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

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.

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 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