Police Procedural – nigeladamsbookworm

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

Jack’s Back and Unlawfully At Large Mark Romain

Books 2 and 3 of the DCI Jack Tyler series set in London at the turn of the 21st century

By setting the books around the millennium Mark Romain has given himself the ideal era for for a great Police Procedural series

Technology is moving forward at a pace, Forensic use of DNA is well advanced and in use.

The use of Mobile Phone technology for tracking criminals is in its infancy, as is the forensic recovery of data from mobiles.

CCTV is starting to cover more of the City but is nowhere near as all-encompassing as it is now, and the quality isn’t great.

The Police have recently been criticised over their handling of the Stephen Lawrence case and the ramifications ripple through officers day to day investigations.

The woke society is not yet in full swing and officers, rightly or wrongly, get away with stereotyping and, in some cases, forming unfounded opinions of people.

All of this allows Romain to write books about what many people class as “proper policing”. Using the skills of a detective, actually carrying out an investigation into a crime, doing the boot work.

But it also allows Tyler and his team to use the incoming technology. CCTV, ANPR, mobile phone tacking, in its earliest of forms.

Jack’s Back.

A sadistic killer is using Jack The Ripper for inspiration.

Killing prostitutes in the same area of Whitechapel as the Victorian killer, using the original Jack as a template, but he is also out for revenge, could this be his Achilles Heal

As good as Romain is in writing from the police point of view it is the insight into the mind of the perpetrator.

The parts written from the point of view of the killer is chilling enough, but there are some peripheral characters that brought goosebumps.

Prostitutes and pimps feature heavily in this story and are written in a way that brings them to life as well as the Police characters.

The violence and deprivation of the seedy side of life is portrayed graphically, but without being gratuitous.

In telling the story Romain takes the reader inside the mind of minor players, and some nasty gangsters. He shows us the vulnerability of the girls working the streets and introduces us to the desperation for drugs that sees most of these women selling themselves to strangers.

Most shockingly it also shows us the dangers they face.

Unlawfully at Large.

When a vicious gangster is helped to escape police custody Tyler’s team is assigned to the team hunting him, whilst Tyler takes a back seat to that teams DCI. That is until an unfortunate case of food poisoning see Tyler take over as the SIO.

The vicious gangster escapes from custody whilst he’s in hospital. Aided by a family member and an assortment of small time gang members, and a drug dependant prostitute the group leave a trail of destruction during their getaway.

The case is personal for Tyler and his team and they stretch the limits to try to arrest the group before the main man can make the ultimate escape across the channel.

Again this is a gritty story that doesn’t hold back on the shock factor. But what really impressed me in this book is the feelings and emotion described within some of the main characters.

The pure desperation and unhinged logic of the escaping gangster. The realisation by some of the group that he has become unhinged and that they are involved in something way over their heads.

The pure blissful ignorance of one of the gang as he seems to want a normal life, but doesn’t really seem to realise just how much trouble, and danger he’s in.

On the Police side Tyler and his team are pushing the hours to a ridiculous rate. What Romain doesn’t shy away from is the fact that bad decisions can be made when somebody is exhausted.

The Series so far.

I can’t praise this series highly enough. Reading is subjective and everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I know this series won’t be for everyone but for me it ticks all of my boxes.

It’s realistic, it’s set in an era when policing was coming to terms with new technology and the investigations were not over reliant on CCTV or DNA.

Each of these books can be read as a standalone but I’d really suggest reading the whole series in order.

Turf War. Mark Romain

A new author to me, and the start of a five book series.

Before I did a bit of research on the author I already knew I was going to find he had served as a Police Officer, and was not surprised to find he was an experienced Met Officer who had done two stints on Homicide.

You really can’t write a book that catches the essence of an investigation this well without having “earned the t-shirt”

When the leader of one of three gangs, struggling to take overall control of an area of London, decides to hire outsiders to hit a rivals operation, he only has one thing in mind.

Blaming another gang and a tarting a turf war between his rivals.

DCI Jack Tyler’s team are in the middle of the investigation, into the killing of three Turkish Gangsters when he becomes aware that the incident may be linked to an operation being run by his friend, Tony Dillon, in the Organised Crime Group.

To cap Tyler’s day off his ex-wife is caught in a Violent Steaming incident on a train.

The incidents are all linked by different gangs, and the individuals in the gangs.

The way Mark aroma in has written this makes it a real page turner.

The plot of the crimes, and the characters for each, overlap like a well planned Venn Diagram.

Tyler is undoubtedly the main character but Dillon, and several of the gang members are given almost equal time in the book, and the story unfolds with the reader getting an almost 360 degree insight into what is happening.

The politics, and democratic, of each gang is really well portrayed.

The thoughts, observations, and concerns of Tyler from the policing side, and the Meeks brothers from the gang side, are really well written and take the reader right into the heart of the story.

I loved the story, the characters and ten way it was written, the next book, Jacks Back, is already on my Kindle and has gone straight to the top of my to-be-read list

Print length: 674 pages.

The Alter Girls. Patricia Gibney

I can’t believe we’re already at book 13 in this series.

Don’t worry if you haven’t read the others because this can be read as a standalone and is still a fantastic read.

The ongoing stories involving Detective Lottie Park, her team, and her family add to the series massively, but the main story in each book is the real star.

In this book two young girls go missing on a snowy day. The only problem is nobody really notices they’re missing for a good few hours.

Both girls are connected to the church through the choir and serve as alter girls, both are very young, still in primary school.

When the first girl turns up dead in the Cathedral grounds people naturally start suspect the involvement of somebody in the clergy. A bias that has riddled the church for years.

When the second girl is found in similar circumstances the Catholic Fathers come under even more suspicion.

Lottie can’t afford any type of bias as her team start the investigation.

The families of both girls also have their secrets, but the main person Lottie would suspect, one of the girls fathers, is in prison

Nobody writes crime fiction better than Patricia Gibney.

She relates the frustrations of the investigation team with unerring realism.

When instinct is telling you there is something wrong, but there is no evidence. When old biases rear their head, but you daren’t act on them because people will think you’re going for the obvious, easy hit.

Gibney never shies away from putting her characters through the mill. She never avoids a difficult subject. In the Alter Girls she addresses some of the concerns people have around the clergy. She looks at the secrets kept behind closed doors in, what should be the sanctuary, of the family home.

And all the way through she shows the minefield that is building hypothesis during an investigation. It is absolutely compelling.

The book is just over 500 pages long but every word is used well and is relevant to the current story, or the ongoing stories of the main characters.

As close as it could be this was a “pick it up and read from start to finish” for me. In fact if I hadn’t have to go to work, it would have been.

Pages 504. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook 13 h 35m. Narrator Michele Moran

The Scorned. Alex Khan

A good Police Procedural novel with strong characters.

At times this book is a tough read and contains triggers for anybody who has suffered domestic abuse.

A tough Asian Lady who has run away from her own “arranged” , and abusive marriage is now a Detective Sergeant working on serious crimes. Moomy Ali is a great character.

When two women, with no apparently link are brutally murdered, within hours of each other Moomy and her team are tasked to investigate.

Why have the Home Office sent an observer in to watch over the team, even before the first victim is identified.

The teams fears that they are being used as some form of political pawn doesn’t stop them carrying out an investigation that uncovers a disturbing scenario.

There appears to be a group of people being manipulated to kill, born on their hatred of women.

During the investigation they uncover bigoted hate in various forms, which are unfortunately very realistic and believable.

But which group, and which leader are responsible for the killings.

As much as this book is a great story it’s also a sad reflection on elements of today’s society.

Frighteningly realistic, and at times hard to read, it’s a great book.

Pages 377. Publisher: Hera Release Date: 5th October 2023

Vengeance. J.K Flynn

I recently read and reviewed The Art Merchant by J.K Flynn and raved about it. I said then I couldn’t wait for the next instalment and I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy this week.

It didn’t disappoint.

Flynn has taken DS. Esther Penman to the next level.

Now a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for over fifty days things are going well.

But her reputation is still there like a dark shadow. Everybody knows she’s the best Detective on the force, but her past erratic behaviour, and tendency to wake up in strange bedrooms, is tarnishing her, and her DCI is making her life difficult.

Thankfully her DI, Jared Wilcox, is on her side but how much can he protect her.

When they start to investigate a murder Esther uncovers a link to a missing person that the Met are dealing with.

From there spurious links start to surface to other crimes and strange occurrences.

Jared is a good DI but he knows Esther is the brains of the team, and is happy to run with her instincts, even when she has a bit of a wobble.

The title of the book gives away the motive of the crimes but the way the plot develops kept me totally enthralled.

Esther Penman has established herself of one of my favourite characters in the Crime Thriller World.

What the publishers say

A MURDERED EXECUTIVE.

A MISSING STOCKBROKER.

A DRUG WORTH BILLIONS.

When a body turns up in a Belfield alleyway, Detective Sergeant Esther Penman quickly realises there’s more to it than simple homicide. With links to a missing London stockbroker, and the dead man’s firm on the brink of launching a new medicine worth billions, there’s plenty of motive for murder.

Meanwhile, Esther has trouble of her own to deal with. Having recently made an enemy of one of the city’s most ruthless criminals, she knows she has to watch her back. But as she begins to unravel the web of intrigue surrounding the alleyway murder, she can’t shake the unsettling sense that she herself is becoming a target…

Can Esther stay one step ahead of her enemies in her hunt for the killer?

Find out in Vengeance, the thrilling sequel to The Art Merchant.

What I think.

A no brainier recommendation. A cracking book.

Brilliant characters, especially Esther.

A realistic crime set against a realistic background.

And best of all, it was every bit as good as the first in the series, if not better.

The Body In Nightingale Park. Nick Louth

Billed as the final instalment of the DCI Craig Gillard series I read this book with some trepidation. I’ve really enjoyed this series and didn’t really want it to end but Nick Louth has dealt with the ending brilliantly.

The frustrations of being a Police Officer and maintaining a personal life is depicted really well

As the SIO of some very high profile investigations Gillard has always put his family slightly behind his job whilst always being a loving and caring husband.

Now it’s different. Sam, Gillard’s wife is heavily pregnant, and even though he has been given reassurances that he can have leave to support her through the birth Gillard is called in again, and again.

The end of the series? I’m still not 100% sure we’ve heard the end of Gillard and his team. There is scope to have some of the characters move forward in their own series. But by the end of the book I was thinking how Gillard should really be left alone to enjoy faintly time as best as he can.

Publishers Gumpth

The final instalment of the DCI Gillard Crime Thrillers,

Another impossible case for DCI Gillard, but this time the answers are very close to home…

With a baby on the way, a pregnant wife to take care of and a new home to settle into, DCI Craig Gillard seems to have found a life of domestic bliss.

But when retired police sergeant Ken Stapleford is found stabbed to death in front of his own TV while watching Saturday afternoon football, Gillard’s peace is once again disturbed.

Only a day later, just a short walk from his new home, Gillard is himself witness to the killing of a jogger in Nightingale Park. A strange forensic connection emerges between the two killings, something that seems impossible. As he digs into the evidence, Gillard uncovers two more attacks, and any chance of taking time off for the birth of his child disappears.

And all the time the killer is circling closer and closer…

Perfect for fans of Stuart Macbride, Mark Billingham and Robert Bryndza.

What I thought

As always Nick Louth has written a brilliant Police Procedural Crime Thriller.

The crimes in this series have all been original, well conceived, and realistic, and this one is no exception.

Effectively Gillard is investigations two unrelated crimes, a series of rapes carried out in a park near his house, and a prominent influencer killed in the same park.

But the connections between these crimes soon become obvious, as does a more tenuous thread to the murder of a retired Police Officer being investigated by one of Gillard’s colleagues.

As more crimes get linked it looks almost impossible for one person to have carried out the attacks, over such a vast area, in such a relatively short time.

Gillard’s thinking, and the logic in which he applies his thoughts are really well written and just like the rest of the series I was hooked before the end of the first chapter.

As I said earlier I can see spin offs from this series.

Whatever Nick Louth decides, I’ll be at the front of the queue for his next book.

Pages: 323. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Publishing date: 17 August 2023

The Girl’s Last Cry. Alison Belsham

Detective Lexi Bennett book 2.

Its early in the series but I’m already really engaged with Lexi Bennett. As far as Detective Inspectors go in modern fiction Lexi is relatively “normal”, and for me that’s a refreshing change.

When she almost stumbles across a crime scene its the start of an investigation that takes us into an area that is becoming increasingly more concerning.

A young girl falls from a tower, but is it suicide or was she pushed?

The girl is a student at a school where she sings in the choir. It’s also a school where Lexi’s nephew is a student, and when he hears about the death he is insistent that Lexi finds out what really happened.

With her boss telling her that this investigation should be carried out by local officers, not Lexi’s major crime team, she asks to be let carry on until it can be established why the girl killed herself.

But then a second death, another musically talented child is found dead.

A coincidence? No

But who is responsible.

That is when the story goes into a world that is becoming a daily reality.

Influnencers.

Puppeteers working online to bend peoples thoughts and emotions, and in this case its not fashion trends they are pushing, or the latest music videos, it’s pushing vulnerable people to a place where they want to end their own lives. And then being there to make sure they don’t back out at the last second.

Lexi and her team work quickly to identify what is going on, and why these young people have taken their own lives.

The big question is, has a crime even been committed.

I really enjoyed this story. Yes, we as readers know straight away that somebody is leading these students, praying on their vulnerability, and is ultimately responsible for their deaths, but the Police don’t.

The tenacity of Lexi, and her team, does eventually lead to a proper investigation being carried out, but it takes time, and they take a lot of pressure from above to write the deaths off as not being suspicious.

The story plays on the fact that there are introverted vulnerable people that seek solace online, instead of turning to their family.

It shows the way people can hide behind pseudonyms and groom vulnerable people.

In my youth bullies were a physical presence. People that could not hide behind a keyboard or computer screen. They got away with being abusive by hiding their behaviour from those strong enough to stand up for the people who were suffering.

Today they can remain anonymous. Even the victim doesn’t know who they are being abused, or groomed by.

How is that a fair fight.

And if the victim isn’t ever physically touched, just coerced, from a distance, how can the police ever find a perpetrator.

There have been a few books covering this subject recently, including Robert Galbraith’s (Yes, I know who it is really) The Ink Black Heart, but this is the best one I’ve read.

A great story in a series that has quickly made it on to my must-reads-as-soon- as-available list.

Pages: 401. Publisher: Bookouture. Publishing Date. 11th July 2023

Out Of The Ashes. Louisa Scarr

As a retired Fire Officer, and current Fire Investigation Consultant and Fire Procedures and Science Lecturer, I always open books which contain fire scenes with trepidation. However, I have to say that this book has got everything spot on. The Fire Scenes, along with the interaction between the Police team and the Fire Investigation Officer, is stunningly accurate.

This is the fifth outing for Detectives West and Butler and just like the four before it it is a great read.

Now working in two separate forces it takes a cross boarder crime to bring the two together as a team, which is not to everybody’s liking.

At first they are kept apart, West investigating a stalker, and Butler investigating an arsonist that has set fires in both force areas.

When the teams realise that they may be dealing with the same person committing both crimes it is inevitable that they start to work closely together again, and the old spark is rekindled, in more ways than one.

As with real fire setters the crime of setting the fire begins to escalate. And when the frequency of when they are set isn’t enough, the severity and dangers to others start t increase.

But when two people die in different fires are they randomly unlucky or is there a connection to the fire starter.

If the stalker is responsible is the target of his attentions in danger from an arson attack.

The tension mounts as the investigation continues, who is the fire setting stalker, and why are they not leaving any evidence that might identify them.

Meanwhile the relationship between West and Butler is also smouldering. The year working in different forces, and the fact that they are both in relationships hasn’t done anything to dampen that fire.

Can they both concentrate on the case, and keep each other at arms length.

The want the case over quickly. One of them will take unnecessary risks. This story might not have the happy ever after ending.

What a book. Without other commitments it would have been a one sitting read, what it was was a distraction when I should have been doing other things. Brilliant.

I was convinced I knew who the stalking fire setter was, and I’m sure that was because of some canny writing, but it wasn’t until they were revealed that I realised I was wrong.

A clever plot, completely realistic, and a brilliant balance of crime investigation and personal battles amongst the main characters.

Pages: 411. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Publishing date: 6 July 2023

Deadly Fate. Angela Marsons

Book 18 of my favourite series is yet another one which raises the bar.

I have been with this series since book one, and the way Angela Marsons keeps the series fresh and relevant has amazed me.

It can’t be easy to be original in such a crowded genre, but somehow she manages to do it.

On top of that she has me reaching for Google on more than one occasion. This time it was to delve into the world of Psychics and Mediums, and not in a fanciful way.

The use of Barnum Phrases made so much sense when I found out what they are.

Murders happen in all sorts of communities and effect all sorts of people.

People who say they can contact the dead will always be controversial. But it’s not just sceptics, there’s a snobbery amongst the people with the “gift”

Mix religious beliefs in with that and there are numerous reasons to Murder.

The publishers blurb

The woman’s bright blonde hair floats in the breeze. She almost looks like she could be resting on the soft green grass. But her brown eyes stare unblinking up at the sky, and the final cut across her mouth is dark with blood. Her words silenced forever…

Late one evening, as the final church bell rings out, Sandra Deakin’s cold and lifeless body is found in the overgrown graveyard with multiple stab wounds. When Detective Kim Stone rushes to the scene, the violence of the attack convinces her that this murder was deeply personal. What could have caused such hate?

As the team dig into Sandra’s life, they discover she believed she could communicate with the dead. Was that why she was targeted? The last people to see her alive were a group of women who had a session with her the night before she was killed, and as Kim and her team pay them a visit, they soon learn each of the women is lying about why they wanted Sandra’s help…

Kim realises she must dig deep and open her mind to every avenue if she’s going to stand a chance at solving this case. And when she learns that Sandra was banned from the church grounds and had been receiving death threats too, she’s ever more certain that Sandra’s gifts are at the heart of everything.

But just when she thinks she’s found a lead, the broken body of a nineteen-year-old boy is found outside a call centre – a single slash across his mouth just like Sandra’s. Kim knows they are now racing against time to understand what triggered these attacks, and to stop a twisted killer.

But they might be too late. Just as Kim sits down at a local psychic show she discovers something that makes her blood run cold. Both Sandra and the call centre were named in an article about frauds. And this show stars the next name on the list. She looks around the audience with a feeling of utter dread, certain the killer is among them…

What I thought

I’ve run out of words to use in praise of the books in this series, brilliant, fantastic, excellent and any other word I could find in a thesaurus to match, and yes this book is at least as good as all of the rest.

Would I recommend it to friends. I think they’re all fed up of me saying “you need to read the latest Angela Marsons” but they’re all going to hear it again about Deadly Fate.

Another brilliant addition to the best crime fiction series on the shelves

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