Psychological Thriller – Page 11

The Perfect Silence. Helen Fields.

Every now and again a book come along and stops me in my tracks. Perfect Silence is one of only a handful to have done this in 40 odd years of reading psychological thrillers.

The book starts with a woman crawling along a country lane. Badly injured having been viciously abused by her kidnapper, who has left her to die slowly, and alone, with no chance of anybody finding her in time to save her.

When she is found the Edinburgh Major Investigation Team is tasked with finding the killer.

DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach make a great team. She is young and ambitious but a great officer, he is the French transferee from Interpol who has adopted Scotland as his homeland, even if it is somewhat reluctantly.

Together with their team they start the investigation into the murder of the woman but quickly realise that another woman has been taken. From then on it becomes a race against time as the kidnapper kills the women before taking the next victim. Every time they take a new victim they leave behind their uniquely grotesque calling card.

But how many women will go missing and be killed before Ava and her team catch the person responsible.

If that’s not bad enough somebody is attacking the drug fuelled vagrants across the City, and Ava is desperately trying to protect them as well as catch their attackers. This investigation leads her into a conflict it doesn’t look like she can win.

Will this distract her and her team from finding the killer of the women.

This book had me hooked from page one. By the end of the book I was breathless.

Helen Fields has a way of writing that keeps the reader turning the page. A lot of authors can do that. But she can do something not very many can. There are chapters in this book where the very last sentence made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in horror. Not the grislily sort of horror, the psychological sort. Wow

Last year I was lucky enough to read Perfect Remains by Helen Fields, but because it was part of a judging system for a literature prize, I wasn’t able to review it on my blog. It was one of the best books I’ve read.

Well I can shout from the roof tops about this one. It’s the best book I’ve read this year, and right up there in the list of the best books I’ve ever read.

Pages: 432

Publisher: Avon

Publishing Date: 23^rd August 2018

Available to pre-order on Amazon

Tell Me A Secret Samantha Hayes

Earlier this year I reviewed The Reunion by Samantha Hayes, and I said “I was figuratively peeping between my fingers when I read parts of it”. Well its happened again.

Samantha really knows how to pick at those parts of the mind that hold the fear factor.

When a young girl catches her dad having sex, with the lodger, it’s bad enough. When her Mother finds out and goes crazy, it’s about as bad as it gets; but when her dad hangs himself and blames her, in his suicide note, because she caught him and the lodger, her life is damaged beyond recovery. That is all in the first few pages. Wow what a start to a book.

In the following chapters we meet Lorna, a Counsellor with an anal routine, who is really trying to forget one of the men in her life. Until she decides to make contact with him through a on line dating service.

That’s when things really start to go to wrong.

Lorna knows it’s impossible, after all the dead can’t talk, but when a dead person starts to message her things take another twist.

I don’t want to say anymore, because I don’t want to give anything away.

If you love psychological thrillers you will love this book.

I wasn’t just peeping through my fingers at this book, I was hiding behind the sofa. What a great read.

The bit below here is an extract from Samantha Hayes biography and it gives a bit of a clue as to why she writes such good books.

“Samantha Hayes grew up in Warwickshire, left school at sixteen, avoided university and took jobs ranging from private detective to barmaid to fruit picker and factory worker. She lived on a kibbutz, and spent time living in Australia and the USA, before finally becoming a crime-writer.”

She’s lived a bit, and it shows.

Pages: 361

Publisher: Bookouture

Available now

Something in the Water Catherine Steadman

Let me say from the beginning, I really enjoyed this book.

But, if it was a car it would have a 0-60 of about 5 minutes. Then however, it accelerates and takes you on one hell of a journey, that will have you gasping for breath.

The start of the book sees Erin Locke, a 30 year old documentary maker, digging a grave. But who is the grave for.

3 months earlier Erin was a young woman who was about to get married. Everything is perfect. She is about to start filming a new documentary about prisoners who are about to be released; her husband to be, banker Mark, is about as perfect as can be.

Then things start to go bad. Mark loses his job. The dream honeymoon turns into a nightmare when they find a bag following a storm.

The decisions that they make together, and those that Erin starts to make on her own, lead them into a steady spiral of danger, which will lead back to the start of the book and Erin digging a grave.

This story is brilliant and original. I have to admit I nearly gave in on it, the first 20% of the book is slow, but wow it was worth hanging in

Erin is one of those characters that you actually like and hate at different times in the book. The story is written in the first person, from her point of view, but I never felt like I actually knew her, or what she was going to do next.

It made for a great read, unpredictable and thrilling.

I got the feeling even Catherine Steadman didn’t know what Erin was going to do next, or how she would react to some of the situations she finds herself in, until she actually wrote them.

Holidays are coming and this would make a great poolside read.

Pages: 400

Publishers: Simon & Schuster UK

Publishing Date: 26^th July 2018

Dying Truth Angela Marsons

What a way to start a book. The prologue see’s DI Kim Stone struggling with a broken leg as she tries to warn people not to enter part of a building where she knows they will be in mortal danger. But who are the people running into the building and what exactly is the danger.

Cut to chapter one, a few days before the prologue. The death of a young girl at a posh, private school.

It’s classical mystery writing technique but, I don’t think I’ve ever read it written in a better way.

As the story builds Kim is supported by all her usual crew, trusty Bryant, laddish Wood, and the quiet Black Country Lass Stacey. Will any of these be charging into danger at the end of the book.

The team are investigating a suspicious death at the private Heathcrest Academy. A private co-ed school, where the elite of midlands society send their children to study alongside sporting, and academic, high achievers.

Not surprisingly amongst the students there are secret societies that have seen generations of the same family pass through them. The societies employ horrific initiation ceremonies and even more horrific discipline methods.

When the body of the first victim is found, after she apparently committed suicide by jumping from one of the highest points in the school, Kim and Bryant are the first Officers on the scene.

Kim is not happy with the circumstances of the death and her suspicions are bourn-out when Keats carries out the autopsy and confirms that the girl was murdered.

The investigation is thwarted at every turn by the family, who are trying to hide their own secrets; by the school, whose principle will only entertain suicide as the cause, as murder would be bad for business; and by the students, who are either in one of the secret societies, or are scared of the pupils that are.

As the story unwinds Kim has to turn to an unlikely ally for advice, which itself holds dangers which I’m sure will hold recriminations.

As the body count begins to rise, and the climax of the book gets ever closer, the tension rises. Right up to the end it’s impossible to find out, or guess, who is running into danger, and how it will play out.

When the end comes it is no anti-climax. I had already read quotes on twitter where people said the they were left “broken” at the end, and that it was an “emotional ending”.

I thought I was ready for it, but no. It is emotional, and I was broken.

This is book 8 in the DI Kim Stone series. It can be read as a stand-alone novel, and it works well as one, but to get full impact read the others.

I was lucky enough to find Angela Marsons when the first Kim Stone novel was released, and have been onboard from the beginning.

I am a prolific reader and I can think of no bigger recommendation than, every time an new book in this series is made available, I put down whatever I’m reading and read what Stone and her team are up to. This one was the best yet.

Roll on Book 9

Pages: 399

Publishers: Bookouture

Publishing Date: 18^th May 2018.

Paper Ghosts Julia Heaberlin

I was hooked on this book after I read two of the first paragraphs in the first chapter.

“Old killers who roam free have to land somewhere”

And

“The Killers who publicly beat the system and the unseen monsters, where do they go”

Have you ever wondered that?

What happens to those serial killers go who don’t get caught?

Where do they go?

Do they just grow tired of what they are doing, get fed up, and just stop?

If it’s a sexually driven crime do they lose the urges?

This is one of the most original stories I have read for many years.

The main character is a woman, she’s in her mid 20’s and her big sister went missing years ago.

Since her sister went missing she has been running an unofficial hunt for whoever took her. As a 12-year-old girl she started building a murder wall on the back of her wardrobe. Building a list of suspects, linking her sister’s disappearance with others, eliminating suspects where she could.

But now, as an adult, she has found the person she thinks is responsible. Carl

Carl is in a home for offenders who have been released and are suffering from dementia. He has been tried and acquitted of one crime, and he claims not to remember anything of the other crimes he is being accused of.

Our girl takes him out of the home, under the false pretence that she is his daughter, and embarks on a road trip to some of the destinations she has identified as places where he took and killed other girls and women.

Will it jog his memory, if he has even lost it.

Is she putting herself in danger, or will she get her answers?

The story of the relationship between the woman and Carl is fascinating. Why do I keep calling her the woman? Because we don’t find out her name for a long time and I don’t want to spoil a cracking story.

Their journey across a map of murder and disappearance is gripping.

There are a lot of questions in this review. There was a lot of questions raised in my head whilst I was reading the book. As far as the story went, all of the questions were answered, and answered in style.

As for the questions the story raised in my mind, well they may never get answered.

In the States who was, or is, the Zodiac Killer and what happened to them.

In the UK Peter Sutcliff was caught purely by chance. Would he have carried on killing, probably. Would he have been caught, maybe. But what if he hadn’t.

I love books that get me thinking, and boy did this book get me thinking.

Pages: 368

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Publish Date: 19^th April 2018

Cross Your Heart. Kierney Scott

Special Agent Jessica Bishop is back, or steal a phrase from my favourite TV show, “Very Special Agent” Jessica Bishop is back. My God is she “Special”

I love quirky characters in books. There is so much similarity out there today amongst fictional crime fighters, and it’s the quirky ones that stand out.

Bishop stands out in a great way. Psychologically she has problems, in this book these problems are confounded as she is still recovering from injuries she sustained during her last investigation. Her mental health is on even more of a knife edge after injuring her friend and FBI partner Jameson during the same investigation.

They are thrown back into work when they are cleared for duty days after each other and re-join their old team.

Bishop thinks she has identified a serial killer who is praying on vulnerable children. At first, she is not taken seriously, but as the body count rises everybody begins to realise she’s onto something.

Partnered with a member of the team that is more interested in hitting on women and avoiding conflict, than actually doing any work, Bishop finds work infuriating. Jameson wants to help but she is keeping him at arms-length.

Her head is completely scrambled and she is fighting inner demons as she tries to find the killer, with an ineffectual partner.

From the very start of this book I was immediately gripped by the story of Bishops internal fights, as much as I was with the story of the crime. Both stories are brilliant but for me it’s the fight Bishop is having with herself that makes this book stand out.

There is no down time in this book. It is full on from page 1 to the full stop on the last sentence. I didn’t see the end coming, partially because I was so engrossed I didn’t realise I was coming to the end. The story is full of twists and turns, none of which are predictable, but all of which make sense.

This book can be read as a stand-alone novel, but I would highly recommend reading Now You See Me the first book in the series.

https://nigeladamsbookworm.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/now-you-see-me-kierney-scott/

Jess Bishop is emerging as one of the great characters of modern crime fiction, and to get the best from her, you need to know her story.

I loved this book, I loved the first one, I really can’t wait for the 3^rd.

Pages: 242

Published by: Bookouture

Publishing date: 25^th April 2018

Dark Lies Nick Hollin

Dark-Lies-Kindle

Nick Hollin has produced two characters which have got me completely and utterly hooked.

DCI Katie Rhodes, once brilliant, smart and reliable; now a promiscuous heavy drinker seemingly bent on self-destruction.

Criminal Psychologist Nathan Radley, a very strange man who has been in self-imposed exile for a year. A man who can get into criminals minds, unfortunately, he also empathises with their dark feelings and lusts for violence.

Why has Rhodes started to self-destruct, and Radley placed himself in exile, because they were both badly affected by the last case they worked together.

When Rhodes is called to the scene of a murder she notices a mark on the body, a mark which is identical to a feature on her own, she starts to worry. Days earlier she had been to another scene where a body also had a mark left on it. A mark that resembled a birthmark that the exiled Radley has on his thigh. Coincidence? Of course not.

The murders are horrific but more than that, somebody is playing with Katie’s head. A head that is full of booze and hasn’t functioned properly for a year.

She can only turn to one person.

Radley has spent the last year living alone in a cottage in Scotland, reading children’s literature because he is too scared to open the boxes in his brain that hold memories of past cases. Scared of the feelings that vicious crime provokes in him.

To say he is unwilling to help his ex-partner is an understatement, but she gets him back to London and they start working on the murders.

What follows is one of the best, and most original criminal psychological thrillers I have ever read.

There are twist and turns as suspects come and go. There are frustrations as the pair are branded mentally and physically unfit to carry on with the Police investigation. But they’ve got to find the killer before he destroys them.

The two main characters are complimented by a cast of fringe characters that bring a credibility to the story.

I loved this book. In fact I have a confession to make. It had been on my to-be-read pile for weeks now. It was only when I remembered, that I was taking part on the launch blog blitz for it, that I picked it up on Saturday morning and started reading it. I put my Kindle down late Saturday night when I finished it. I don’t usually read a book in one day. I just could not put this one down.

Well it says on the cover Detective Rhodes and Radley Book 1. Well bring on book 2, and 3, and 4, in fact Mr Hollin, just keep them coming.

Pages: 275

Publishers: Bookouture

Publishing date: 26^th March 2018

The Baby Sitter Sheryl Brown Blog Tour

The Baby Sitter - Blog Tour

The Baby Sitter, by Sheryl Brown was released to the world yesterday, the 8^th March 2018.

I reviewed this book earlier in the year and that review will appear just below here. Since my review I have read a lot of others about the Baby Sitter, and it’s fair to say it has been a bit of a mixed bag.

I’m firmly in the I Liked It, camp.

It’s a good story, it’s the type of story that could easily be true; and because it could be true it’s the type of story that can play with your head.

The story holds no big surprises, it is quite transparent and easy to predict, but that’s what makes it so good. I spent a lot of time shouting in my head why can they no see what’s going on.

So no matter what you have read, give it a go.

I did

And I enjoyed it

My review

The Baby Sitter Sheryl Brown

8 years ago young Grace watches as her house burns down. Her Mom, her sister, and her Moms latest husband are trapped inside. Grace doesn’t care.

When a Police officer finds her hiding in a bush he takes her to the detective in charge of the investigation, DI Mark Caine.

Today, Mark and his family are living happily in a small town. The house next door suffers a fire and the new neighbour, a single young woman, Jade, is left homeless.

Mark and his wife Mel hardy know the woman but when they find out she is a qualified child minder they agree to take her in to look after their children so that Mel can start to concentrate on her art.

What could possibly go wrong

Anybody who has watched a film which includes a “bunny-boiler” will know what comes next, but strangely this book hooked me. Even though I thought I knew what was coming next, most of the time, it was written in such a way that I wanted to carry on reading, and at times its scary reading.

When Jade moves in things start to go bad. At first its little things that could be put down to other people mislaying things, but she is evil and her activity starts to intensify.

Nothing is sacred, pets, kids, wife, husband. What is he after? Why is she doing what she is doing, or more to the point, how will she be stopped and will everybody survive to tell the tale.

There is a lot to like about this book, the plot, the characters, the way it’s written.

There were times when it made me cringe, in a good way. At the beginning I nearly put it down, ten pages later I was glad I didn’t.

I finished it. I enjoyed it.

About the author

Sheryl Browne brings you powerful psychological thriller and contemporary fiction. Her latest psychological thriller THE BABYSITTER – the first of a three-book deal – comes to you from fabulous BOOKOUTURE. A member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and previously writing for award winning Choc Lit, Sheryl has several books published and two short stories in Birmingham City University anthologies, where she completed her MA in Creative Writing.

So why does Sheryl write in two genres? Quoting E. L. Doctorow, Sheryl says: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights…” This she thinks sums up a writer’s journey, you never quite know where you are going until you get there. You might start with an outline, but a strong character will always divert from the plot. If Sheryl’s not sure where a character is going, she simply has to trust him to show her the way. Plus, according to one reviewer, she also has a scary insight into the mind of a psychopath.Please do find out more about Sheryl at www.sherylbrowne.com

The Visitor K.L Slater

The thing I like about novels by K.L. Slater is their subtleness. The stories are almost pedestrian but they are loaded with tension, and this one is fully loaded.

David is a slightly strange middle aged man who lives at home with his mom and her new partner. David has autistic tendencies, he hates change, he’s very methodical, socially awkward, and he’s a bit voyeuristic. He sees himself as a one man neighbourhood watch.

His nextdoor neighbour is the widowed Cora. David counts her as one of, if not his only friend, so when Cora takes in a lodger David becomes worried.

Holly is the lodger. At 28 she has just moved back to her old home city of Nottingham after 10 years in Manchester. As the story moves on it is apparent that Holly moved away because she lived in a home where she felt unwanted and unsafe. But what she found in Manchester was worse, and now she’s run away from there, but why back to Nottingham. As the story unfolds Holly’s Manchester years get told in her memories.

She is paranoid somebody is watching her and that her Manchester life is hunting her down.

Holly and David develop a friendship, but who is helping who. Is one, or the other, actually more of a danger than a friend.

If you want a book that’s going to keep you turning the pages, and keep you guessing right up till the end, you’re going to love this book.

I have tried to find the right analogy to describe this book, but I keep going back to one that sounds negative. It’s like the Chinese Water Torture, but in a good way. There is a constant drip of information, and each drip builds up the tension. The story builds and builds without any specific key moment; but that constant drip is really mounting the tension in one of the best psychological thrillers I’ve read.

The end of this book is nothing short of stunning. The last two chapters twist the story in a direction I never saw coming, but it makes perfect sense.

What a book.

Pages: 350

Publishers: Bookouture

Publishing Date UK : 2^nd March 2018

Tell No Lies Lisa Hartley

Internal compartmentation in covert policing makes life dangerous for the undercover police officer; but, are Met and the NCA working with or against each other on this case.

The secrets that are being kept have far reaching effects on the investigation and the personal lives of some of the officers carrying it out.

There is a new drug baron in one of London’s suburbs. Actually, it’s more accurate to say the old one has been arrested and is in prison and some low-level dealers are trying to muscle their way into the big time.

But then a body is found tortured to death, and its linked to a second death that happened a few days earlier, that of a Policeman that died in similar circumstances.

The Met decides to send in a team of undercover officers.

This story follows Detective Caelan Small. At the start of the book she is recovering from a recent undercover operation that has damaged her physically and emotionally. She is given no choice go to work or go away. So, she assumes an identity she has used before and goes in search of information about the new drugs dealers.

She soon establishes that there may be more than one gang involved and that the dead Policeman may have been running his own investigation, “off-the book”

The investigation leads to some of the more salubrious areas of London, and this is where the book really comes into its own.

Lisa Hartley describes the areas and people of London involved in the gang and drugs culture very well. I was hooked by its reality.

The story is very fast paced. In fact I intended to read it over a week and ended up not putting it down, and finishing it in a day.

Its pace is breathless. The story takes place over just a few days and I felt like I was there with Caelan. Feeling her frustrations at her Senior Officers who were making decisions based on facts she could not be told, the frustrations of knowing other officers are working with her, but feeling they are working against her.

I felt the anxiety she feels when she has to make snap decisions, putting herself in danger, but more worryingly potentially putting others in danger.

The story is complex, and right up till the last page I had no idea how it was going to end.

I loved it

Pages: 331

Published by: Canelo

Publishing date: 19^th February 2018