Recommended Book – nigeladamsbookworm

Nothing Left Behind. Hannah Brennan

Book two of the DCI Liz Field series.

All emergency services suffer from regular nuisance callers. Most are malicious false alarms, sometimes they are a cry for help, but they are always taken, and responded to. Sometimes that response can be a bit slower than they would expect, the calls being prioritised, and known false callers get put to the bottom of the queue.

But what happens when those callers really need help. The time they are calling wolf because there is actually a wolf there.

Anne was one of those callers. Her regular cry for help was that “he” was going to burn the house down and kill her inside it.

So when one night another call comes in, to her house being on fire, the nearest Police Officer takes his time in responding.

When he does get there he finds the house well alight and goes inside to rescue the old lady most police officers in the area have come to know.

His life is saved when a neighbour pulls his unconscious body out of the house.

And so begins a complex investigation which takes more than a few unexpected, and thoroughly compelling twists.

DCI Liz Field is appointed SIO but her team is reduced to help cover another team who are investigating the murder of a high profile activist who had been shot on her own doorstep.

Fields investigation soon uncovers the real identity of Anne, the victim in the house fire had changed names, and location, following the conviction of her husband who had previously assaulted her.

Could this be the reason for the murder, he had always said he would kill her and her son.

Who is the son, and where is he. The police officers who had grown to know her had no knowledge of her previous life.

This is the basis of a fantastic story.

As with the previous book No Safe Place, the story revolves around Field, and the two or three other key players in the plot.

As the story progresses the slow drip of clues finally builds up and I eventually realised who some of the characters really were. I had a good idea of who might be the murderer, but when it was revealed I was still surprised.

It’s been a long time since I have read books so well plotted. Hannah Brennan hides things in plain sight so that when the reveal is made I couldn’t help thinking to myself “how did I not pick up on that”

It helps that I love DCI Field. She is about as realistic as it comes, and I find empathy with her every time she makes a decision.

What really struck me about this book is how well it is researched. I recently read and reviewed a book in which the main character was a Fire Investigator. I criticised the research for that book as it was factually and procedurally incorrect. And that was with the FIre Investigator as the main character.

In this book the Fire Investigator has a bit part, an important part in the story but still a small part. The realism in the scene setting, and the procedural aspects, in this book are really very good, and there is absolutely no comparison between the two. This one is far better than the other.

For me, as a retired Fire Investigator, that makes a hell of a difference.

I can’t wait for book three to be published in November 2026, in fact I preordered it as soon as I finished this one.

Pages: 446. Publisher: Avon. Audiobook length: 10 hours 13 minutes. Narrator: Rachel Atkins

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

All She Burns. Charlotte Essex

What happens when the person who investigates the cause of a fire is actually an out of control deliberate fire setter themselves.

Dr Catherine (Red) Carter is known to the Police Officers, and Fire Investigators, she works with as the Fire Guru.

She has the ability to read fire patterns and work out which direction the story travelled so that she can ultimately identify where the fire started.

She has the ability to look closely at the seat of the fire and scientifically work out what caused the fire.

This is why she works for an independent Fire Investigation firm in London.

Most people think that she honed her skills when she was a Firefighter, whilst studying for her Forensic qualifications and writing her doctoral thesis.

What they don’t know is she has a psychological fascination with, and for fire.

She is a fire setter. She has set numerous fires but never knowingly put anybody in danger.

Until now. She had been planning a fire in a boarded up council house. She’d cased the building, gone in an and set the scene, but she wasn’t meaning to start the fire that night.

She hears a voice in her head, Scarlett is the personality driving the fire setting. Usually Red can keep her under control but in a moment of weakness she goes to the house and sets it alight.

The next day she is surprised to be asked to attend the scene to investigate the cause of the fire. It should have been a simple cause diagnosis for the Fire Service.

The problem is the fire didn’t go as she planned it, and worse, there was a body found in the upstairs bedroom.

Now she is tasked with investigating a fire she set. But the deeper she looks the more convinced she becomes that the fire the Fire Service encountered when they arrived at the scene, was not the one she’d set.

As the guilt of killing somebody is replaced by the knowledge that somebody else set a bigger fire, after she set hers, she begins to worry that she may be a target.

I’m going to have to review this book in two parts, firstly as a crime fiction fan, reader and book blogger, and secondly as a Fire Investigator.

As a Crime Fiction Reader.

I loved the story and Red is a great character.

The weaving of the narrative to take the reader on a route that brings all sorts of suspects to the fore, without ever actually giving us a firm reason to suspect them, elevates the story to another level.

Red herself may be one of the best characters I’ve encountered for a while. She is flawed, and there is no way I should have felt any empathy with her, but I just couldn’t help myself liking her.

She drinks too much, she’s self destructive, she’s a fire setter, yet somehow she comes out of this as a good person.

As a Fire Investigator

I spent thirty years in the Fire Service, nineteen on fire engines at all ranks, and eleven as a dedicated Fire Investigator, all in a busy Metropolitan Brigade, so forgive me for being picky.

There are too many procedural errors to overlook, things that just either don’t happen or wouldn’t happen, and yes I understand the need for license in fiction but to me the basis of a good story is being as accurate to real life situations as you can.

There are some technical issues about the observations made at the scenes which I found too much of a stretch.

For example I would imagine every firefighter, or Fire Investigator will have the same thoughts as me about the fact Red thinks it unusual for a fire setter to start multiple fires at the same incident. Multi seated fires are one of the main indicators of deliberately started fires.

But as I said, I’m being picky. It’s just that a lot of people who read my blogs would be surprised if I didn’t bring these things up.

Does this put me off recommending this book.

No it doesn’t. I would recommend it as a great story with a great character.

In fact, I’m hoping for a second instalment.

Pages: 320. Publisher: Wildfire. Publishing Date: 25th March 2027

All The Sinners Bleed. S.A Cosby

Titus Crown is a newly elected Sheriff in a small town in Southern Virginia, and he’s about to have a very bad day.

When a young black boy walks into a high school and kills a popular white teacher Crown and his small team rush to the scene.

The boy is coming out, holding a gun, when they arrive and he is shot dead on the school steps.

That alone is enough to rile the white minority in the community but what Titus discovers during the early stages of the investigation is going to send the town into meltdown.

Spearman, the teacher, was not as good a man as most people seem to think. Disturbing images on his computer show him to be part of a trio that has been abusing, and killing young, black, early teenage boys and girls.

Was Latrell, the shooter, a victim, a willing participant of the trio, or something in between. He is implicated, but him and Spearman are dead, and the one part of the trio that is still alive is an absolute monster.

With the town divided along racial lines, the whites not believing that Spearman was guilty, but the blacks too scared to talk to the police, the investigation is tough.

I’m a big fan of John Grisham and Greg Iles, and now that I’ve found S.A Cosby he’s joined the list.

There is something disturbing about the fact there is still a big divide between some communities, along racial lines, in some states in America.

The fact that this book, like the ones penned by Grisham and Iles, bring it to life, and highlight the issue with such believable realism, belies the issues but makes for great stories.

There seem some graphic scenes in this book, especially around the description of disposition scenes, but nothing that should put the reader off.

The story is brilliant, though provoking, and definitely worth reading.

The characters are well written and it’s great to see an author showing the frustrations of investigating a crime, and the mental and emotional effects the scenes, and the investigation have on the Sheriff.

Pages: 353. Publisher: Headline. Audiobook length: 13.05 hours. Narrator: Alex Lazarre-White

Crimson Thaw.

Bruce Robert Coffin

I think I may have found my new favourite American Crime Fiction series

This is book one of four so far published in the Detective Brock Justice series, and the good news for those that have it, its on kindleunlimited.

Set in a small rural community in the north of the state of Maine, close to the Canadian border, the story uses the countryside and lakes to produce a different type of suspense to that where the story is set in a city.

The isolation of each location, the small town everybody-knows-everybody community. The outdoor activities, including hunting and the use of all terrain vehicles, all add to the tension.

The investigation even starts with the recovery of a man, from beneath a remote site on a frozen lake, who had been handcuffed to a snowmobile.

The characters are just as good. The main protagonist is Detective Brock Justice. Once a city detective he has returned home under a cloud. Transferred from the city to his backwater home town force following a dubious shooting of a criminal during an arrest.

It wasn’t him that was accused of the bad shoot, but he was there, and it was partially his fault for not waiting for backup. But he committed the ultimate crime by testifying against his partner who did fire the fatal shot.

That reputation precedes him to his new post and he is never going to be the most popular man in the small team.

Because of his experience he is appointed lead detective on the case of the body recovered from the lake, and is partnered up with a brand new detective recently promoted from uniform. Chloe Wright may be a rookie detective but she has a brain on her, and despite Brock’s reputation she is keen to learn from him.

There may sound like there’s a lot of cliche character traits here but believe me the story, and the characters, are so well written that that is soon overlooked.

I’d describe this book as a cross between Michael Connelly’s Bosch books and C.J Box’s Joe Picket books.

A great I can highly recommend

Pages: 378. Publisher: Severn River Publishing

We Begin At The End. Chris Whitaker

This is one of those rare books that will stay with me for a long time.

The characters are incredibly well written with one in particular who managed to strike chord in me that no literary character ever has.

The story is set in a sleepy American town where, thirty years ago, a young girl was killed.

A youth, Vincent King, is tried as an adult, and given thirty years in prison, a term which is close to coming to an end.

The victim was the little sister of a girl he was in a relationship with. Her name is Star Radley and she is now a single mother with two children of her own.

It’s one of these children Duchess, a 13 years old girl who lives her life by the rules of the old Wild West outlaws that got to me. Quoting the outlaws way of life and history’s is the way she manages to put on a brave face, and boy does she need to.

Her mother is one of life’s victims, she drinks too much and has a bad taste in men, which often sees her returning home battered and bruised.

Duchess has a younger brother, and he is her world. She looks after him like his mother should.

Vincent Kings best friend growing up was “Walk” Walker, who is now Chief of the local police. He has always thought Vincent was hard done by, and that 30 years for murder was a harsh sentence for what was a drink drive hit and run.

But is he seeing things through rose tinted glasses. Was Vincent the kind youth that Walk remembers. Others certainly have a different opinion of him.

The sleepy little town hides a few secrets, and all of them seem to revolve around Star and Vincent.

Vincent still owns his childhood home, inherited after his incarceration. It may be run down but it sits on prime land. Land that a local businessman, Darke, is trying to develop.

Darke and Star have history.

When Star returns home one night having suffered another battering Duchess puts two and two together and seeks revenge on Darke.

From there on her life turns into a nightmare.

She tries to look out for her little brother but her revenge on Darke is coming back to bite her.

Meanwhile King is arrested for another murder shortly after his release from his thirty years in prison.

All the characters are good but there is something about Duchess that resonates with me. She is a captivating character who really pulls on the heart strings.

Again Walk is convinced of his innocence but he is the only one.

The story winds up to a fantastic end.

It’s a story of misguided loyalties, and misunderstandings, secrets and lies, and it is brilliant.

The entire story is good enough to recommend this book as one of the best I’ve read this year.

But Duchess’s story, within the book, is one that will stay with me.

Pages: 386. Publisher: Zaffre. Available Now. Audiobook Length 10 hours 29 minutes. Narrator: George Newbern

The Bone Stalker. Victor Methos

Book 3 of the Vegas Shadows series

A deprived serial killer is trying to get into the head of Detective Lazarus, but why.

There is a hierarchy of people that have reasons.

The white supremacist Phineas (Deadeye) Walsh.

Judge Hope Dawson, who is running for the Senate

Police Assistant Chief Harold Dubbs, a career desk jokey who has no courage and can’t stand up for himself.

All of these people, and many others have reason to take down Lazarus, but they also have reason to bring down each other. It’s a type of vicious circle that is spiralling around the detective.

His friend Piper Danes is inevitably caught up in his manic investigation, and along with helping him investigate, she is also trying to nurse him.

Still suffering from serious injuries sustained in a previous investigation. Lazarus is also going cold turkey from the lack of alcohol.

He wouldn’t class himself as an alcoholic, but he is a typical hard drinking cop, and with trauma damage to his liver, and the medications he is on he has to stop drinking, and its taking an effect.

His judgment is questioned and when the murders start to connect back to him Dubbs bans him from the investigation.

The trilogy of suspects are all connected, and all of them have reason to get to Lazarus.

So when his estranged daughter decides she wants to know her Dad, it just another worry for him, another distraction.

Distractions are something he can’t afford. This killer is different. He doesn’t make mistakes, he leaves subtle clues only Lazarus seems to be able to pick up on. He kills in a ruthless manner.

For fans of the series you might have expected me to mention Piper Danes a bit more. But to be honest, with the exception of a side story about her family, and the fact that she is nursing Lazarus, she doesn’t have much impact on this story.

If you haven’t read the previous two books, The Silent Watcher and The Night Collector, I would highly recommend reading those first.

This book would not read well as a standalone and relates back to both the previous ones.

My reviews are in the links below.

The Silent Watcher

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2024/12/01/the-silent-watcher-victor-methos/

The Night Collector

https://nigeladamsbookworm.com/2025/09/25/the-night-collector-victor-methos/

Conn Iggulden Nero Trilogy

Nero, Tyrant and Inferno

Taking nothing away from how Conn Iggulden writes, which is brilliant, but if you introduced a few dragons and a bit of magic into these books they could easily be in the same genre as books such as Game of Thrones.

For me this is a grown up version of the same type of stories found in those books.

Loosely based on history, and containing people who we know from Roman history, set immediately after the execution of Jesus, this series is a compelling read.

At the core of the series is a mother and her son. Agrippina is the granddaughter of a previous Emperor of Rome, Augustus. When we first meet her she has a young son, Nero who is no more than a toddler but already showing signs of his bullish future behaviour.

She is married to a man who was once a great Chariot racer but who is now a drunk living on his past fame.

Agrippina may have a bloodline to the past Emperor but it means nothing in the Rome of the early 1st Century.

Emperors are killed by those closest to them as power becomes the target of the people who hold important posts.

And although she holds no official post, there is nobody who has a craving for power more than Agrippina, and she will use whatever means she has to make sure she sits at the highest of tables.

She cannot become Emperor, so to get where she wants to be she either has to marry an Emperor, or ensure her son, no matter how tenuous his blood line, becomes Emperor.

Nothing will stop her and she turns to murder and incest in her relentless rise.

But will she succeed…………….it is no spoiler to say yes she does. History tells us Nero became a Roman Emperor, but she made enemies along the way, including her son.

Nero has seen her relentless push for power, he knows how dangerous she can be.

The way he deals with her is a big part of the plot of the second and third books and it is really interesting to see how Iggulden has weaved the plot around historical fact.

There are side stories throughout. Agrippina accompanies her Uncle/Husband Claudius on his invasion of Britain.

The size of the raiding army, and the logistics of its travel to, and ultimately invasion, of Britain is brilliant.

The in house politics of the Roman Empire, the nepotism of the leaders leading to ineptitude of duty is fascinating.

The underground rise of Christianity, with the one of the disciples, Paul, giving sermons and converting many to the new religion and away from following Roman Gods.

In the last book this really causes division as people start to look at the Emperor in a different way.

Nero doesn’t help himself with his erratic behaviour and stranger rulings.

His days are numbered but how will he ultimately meet his ending.

This is not my usual genre of book but I do occasionally dip into what I call proper historical fiction. Books by the likes of Ken Follett, CJ Swanson, and CS Forester.

These books always lead to a pleasant trip into the land of research and this series was no different.

The books are accompanied by forwards by Conn Iggulden where he notes that many of the characters are known to have existed, as did many of the events. But the way he has weaved the web of stories is extraordinary.

I would have blogged a review after the first book, but I just had to go straight to the second, and in the end did a back-to-back-to-back read of the trilogy over about a week.

Highly recommended.

Connie. Charlotte Duckworth

A simple cast of characters, a relatively simple plot, but a brilliant and absorbing story.

The characters, and there’s only really two, Connie and Olivia. Connie the serial killer and Olivia the middle aged mother of two twins.

But there’s much more to both characters.

From the start there is no doubt that Connie is a killer, in fact shes in prison serving a life sentence for killing seven people. She shows no remorse, and throughout the investigation, and still whilst in prison, she has never given any reason as to why she killed those seven random people.

Olivia is an ex detective. She took maternity leave when she had her twin boys, and never went back. Now, 18 years later, they have gone to university and she is bored. There is an emptiness in her life she tries putting down to empty nesting, or rather her husband puts does.

He’s a successful business man who earns enough for her to stay at home. But she has a bee in her bonnet, and it’s Connie Cross, the infamous killer.

Why?

Not only is she intrigued by the fact that Connie has never given a reason for the killings, but she also had dealings with her when Connie was a very young girl.

Olivia was the Family Liaison Officer assigned to Connie when her baby sister died suddenly at home.

The police would be involved in any sudden death but when Connie let it slip to a neighbour that she thought her Dad dad killed her the Police arrest him.

What had always been a bad relationship between father and daughter, as well as his abusive behaviour towards Connie’s Mom, make him an ideal suspect. But he is innocent and the relationships get even worse.

Olivia meets with an ex colleague, who is now a Detective Inspector and was part of the team that arrested Connie when her crimes came to light, and tells him shes thinking of writing a book about Connie. He tries to convince her to return to policing but helps her get access, as a visitor, to Connie.

What follows is Then-and-Now chapters as Connie’s story is told.

How she became a killer, why she killed the people she killed.

All the time Olivia is realising that her home life is not what she wants anymore.

But is that her choice, or is Connie manipulating her.

Because at the end of the day Connie just like to mete out justice in her own way.

You always hear the phrase on TV talent and reality shows. If you are going to do “simple” it has to be perfect.

This is the epitome of that.

It’s a simple story but it is written so well it is stunning.

It unfolds slowly, without being boring.

There are no shocks or twists that make it unlikely.

It is simply one of the best books I’ve read for some time.

Pages: 464. Publisher: Quercus. Audiobook length: 10h 7m Narrator: Susie Riddell

Dissection of a Murder. Jo Murray

I want to start this review with two quotes, of quotes, from the book.

Are we just to accept you’re either the victim or the killer, and there’s nothing in between

And

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer

Two paragraphs from early in the book that sum up this story.

There are twist and turns, there are hidden clues, some of which were so obvious, but only with the benefit of hindsight, and there is one hell of an ending

Leila is a Barrister and she is about to defend her client, Jack Millman.

There are a few things that make this a tense situation.

It’s Leila’s first murder trial.

The Victim was a well loved Judge

Perhaps the worst, her Husband is the prosecution Barrister.

Oh, and there’s one other thing. Millman pleads innocent but he won’t give any information to help build his defence.

He was arrested at the scene and has gone given no comment as his answer to every question the police has asked him.

A tactic he continues when he has his first meeting with Leila.

She has defended him before, on an assault case. He was innocent but found guilty.

Why?

Because he gave the police information about the girl he was protecting during the alleged assault. She was going to be his key witness, but she was got at by some powerful people and never gave her evidence in court. Worse still he was labelled a grass for accusing a gang member of assaulting the girl.

This time he’s giving nobody a chance to interfere with what he hopes will be a fair trial.

That is the main thread of the story, but there is also the nice in house soap opera that is the Chambers Laila and her husband work out of.

It’s a hard working law chambers where politics and “relationships” drive the narrative.

I like legs thrillers. The American ones are usually top of the best sellers but the British Legal system is so full of traditions and history; nepotism and old school ties, sex and scandal, that it makes for fascinating reading.

This is one of the best, in this genre, that I’ve read for a long time.

Pages: 416. Publisher: Macmillian. Audiobook Length 11 hours 40 mins. Narrator Joanne Froggart