Category: books

Instead of escaping reality to this fantastic city, this city of phantoms, I was rushing towards it – hard fate awaited me in this soupy shade of a place…

In the oppressive heat of summer in Bologna, English detective Daniel Leicester is reliving his beloved wife Lucia’s final days. Vivid memories have been awakened by the sight of her bicycle, missing since the accident that killed her, ridden by a stranger through the city’s tight medieval streets.

As unfinished business bleeds – quite literally – into the present, the sickening realisation that Lucia’s death wasn’t accidental dawns on Daniel. He embarks on a quest for the truth, and this most personal of crusades leads him to two contrasting worlds: the secretive, ancient realm of freemasonry, and the revolutionary ‘Reclaim Bologna’ activist movement.

What links these two opposing factions? Is there a chance Lucia wasn’t the woman Daniel believed her to be? And will the truth be too painful, or too perilous, to bear?

Tom Benjamin grew up in the suburbs of north London and began his working life as a journalist before becoming a spokesman for Scotland Yard. He later moved into public health, where he developed Britain’s first national campaign against alcohol abuse, Know Your Limits, and led drugs awareness programme FRANK. He now lives in Bologna.

Find Tom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at tombenjaminsays.

My thoughts: I’ve read a couple of books in this series before so I knew I would enjoy it. In investigating his late wife’s death, Daniel is also filling in some of the gaps in his back story too. We learn why they moved to Italy, and then why they really moved to Italy.

He’s wrapping up the last few investigations before the summer, and heading to the family summer house, or so he thinks. Instead he is being flooded with memories, of Lucia, of his involvement with a rather peculiar aristocrat who was a member of the Masons, but had to flee the city.

After seeing Lucia’s distinctive bicycle, missing since her death, he starts following and investigating a group of local protesters, who are wrecking holiday homes in the city, demanding that the local government house locals not tourists. The police would very much like to speak to these people too.

Daniel discovers a web of connections between his client, the protesters, his former acquaintance and Lucia’s death. It all ends in truly dramatic fashion, and a headache for the police to sort out.

Moving between time lines as Daniel roams the city looking for the bicycle, and hoping to get some answers, his only assistance a reluctant Dolores, and the drones Carlos operates from the comfort of his sunlounger. Bologna in the summer is a hot, sweaty mess, much like Daniel.

This series is really interesting and enjoyable, Daniel is a likeable and wry protagonist, and Englishman in a country he still, despite years living there, doesn’t quite understand.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

Ray Eke has always found peace in his job, collecting litter for the city council. Until the day he finds the brutalized, bloodless body of a girl on his round. He recognizes her immediately too. Lauren Pascoe went missing three years before.
It’s also clear she hasn’t been lying on the roadside verge all this time. Someone’s clearly been holding her prisoner. Keeping her as their very special toy.

The police know it couldn’t have been Ray, whose gentle heart is obvious to all. But then another girl is taken. And she’s someone who Ray had a connection to, back in his previous job as an accountant,
before his breakdown…

The twists in this novel are guaranteed to leave readers with their jaws on the floor. Just when you think you know who the killer is, you’ll have your mind blown!

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Anita Waller is the author of many bestselling psychological thrillers and the Kat and Mouse crime series. She lives in Sheffield, which continues to be the setting of many of her thrillers.

Facebook: @anita.m.waller
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Bookbub profile: @anitamayw

My thoughts: Well, this was deeply unsettling stuff, the police have a nightmare of a case on their hands. Lauren went missing three years ago and now her broken, tortured body is found dumped by the road still dressed in the clothes she was wearing when she went missing.

Opening a cold case when it isn’t good news must be quite hard but the team are dedicated and willing to dig until they get some answers. And then Hannah goes missing. She just popped out to get some milk for the office, and then she was gone. If it is the same person, then she’s in for a world of pain.

Ray Eke, who works for the council collecting rubbish, found Lauren, and he knew Hannah too. Can this seemingly benign musician be involved? It seems unlikely, but as they struggle to find any evidence of who might have taken both victims, and as what they do uncover seems to point in one direction…oops, no spoilers but the twists will make your head spin.

I enjoyed this but was definitely creeped out at the same time, the things Lauren endured are horrific. And the shocking moments towards the end, the last page *shudders*. So good but also so sinister.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

Detective Mike Nash thought that moving back to Yorkshire from London would give
him a quieter life. Instead he finds a sleepy little town where nothing is what it seems . . .

Two dead bodies, locked in a disused mortuary. In the basement of a hospital that shut its doors over twenty years ago. The irony isn’t lost on veteran DI Mike Nash.

The victims have been shot in the head, execution style — by a consummate professional who knows exactly how to cover their tracks, leaving no evidence and no solid leads for Nash to go on.

The deeper Nash digs, the more he fears the past will come back to bite him. These bodies are tied to a dark history of crime and betrayal, and a past case with more loose ends than Nash cares to remember. It’s not long before a third body surfaces. This time the scene’s awash with DNA, belonging  to a man who died decades ago.
Now Nash must face the chilling possibility that his oldest adversary is behind it all, watching  and waiting to take his own brand of deadly vengeance . . .

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Bill Kitson was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, a wool merchant, was a fan of crime books giving Bill access to his diverse thriller collection from a young age.
Educated at Ashville College, Bill worked in the family business before spending over thirty years as a bank executive. A keen cricketer and sportsman, the highlight of his career came when he umpired a one-day international at Lords.
He and his wife now live in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, where he writes crime, romance, and general fiction. Bill’s interests include Cricket, Crime, Crete, Cookery, Cryptic crosswords – and also Alliteration.

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My thoughts: This was really good, very clever, compelling and just convoluted enough. When a fire at an old hospital building reveals two corpses in the former mortuary, both with gun shot wounds, the bullets and the victims are linked to a series of underworld killings, almost like someone was cleaning house.

Then there’s a dummy with a bullet hole or three, a dead hitman, a pair of lovers on the run, and all sorts of other complications in this far from simple case. Could it all be linked to a man Detective Mike Nash knew at school? Even though he’s dead.

As the team investigate and attempted to ID ‘The Keeper’, the criminal shot caller they believe might be behind it all, other interested parties are making plans of their own. Can Mike get to the bottom of this and help out a charming former celebrity at the same time?

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.