DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat’s instincts come up against Lock’s logic.
But when the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal. AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?
My thoughts: The premise of this book is really interesting – a brilliant scientist has developed an AI program to assist the police in solving crimes. It removes the emotions from the investigation but does that make it foolproof?
Paired with DCS Kat Frank, herself and excellent detective, can AIDE Lock help her find out who is abducting people, cases that have gone cold, before anyone else goes missing?
The case becomes very personal to Kat and Lock has a lot to learn from the human investigators in the team. Can their unique blend of cutting edge science and emotional intelligence create a crime solving team better than anything that’s come before?
I really enjoyed this, Kat and her team are great, and Lock is really intriguing, both as a concept and as a character, he’s designed to learn and expand his knowledge, but will it make him more human?
The case itself is shocking and disturbing, which adds to the sense that this is something new. It’s a science based case in many ways as well as being deeply human. Absolutely cracking stuff. I dived straight into book two from here, I couldn’t resist.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
For this blogathon I’m re-sharing my review of Jack Jordan’s thrilling Redemption.
THE LATEST PULSE-POUNDING THRILLER FROM MASTER OF THE MORAL DILEMMA AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER JACK JORDAN
Aaron Alexander has just been released from jail after serving eleven years for causing the death of Joshua Moore in a hit-and-run. Now a free man, all he wants to do is stay on the straight and narrow and leave his troubled past behind him. But for Joshua’s mother Evelyn, eleven years in jail isn’t nearly enough. Consumed by grief and rage, she has been waiting for Aaron’s release, counting down the days until she can exact the revenge he deserves. And now that time has come. But as Evelyn and her husband Tobias embark on a road trip to track Aaron down, they find themselves caught on two different sides of a gripping game of cat-and-mouse. Because Tobias knows what Evelyn is planning, and he will do anything to save her from herself. Even if it means protecting the man who killed their son.
Locked in a collision course set in motion eleven years ago, Aaron, Evelyn and Tobias are about to find out whether the road they have chosen leads to redemption . . . or to retribution.
My thoughts: this is a rollercoaster of a revenge road trip from hell. Ordinary couple Evelyn and Tobias had their lives turned upside down by the death of their son, and now, instead of returning to the UK and working through their grief, Evelyn has decided to track down the recently released Aaron and kill him.
She abandons Tobias in a motel and heads off on her own with a gun and no real plan. Tobias has to commit several crimes to chase after her, trying to stop her killing anyone, especially Aaron. Unfortunately it’s a bit late as Evelyn’ rage is blinding her to anything and she’s trigger happy.
As Tobias chases Evelyn and Aaron has to go on the run to avoid her, truths come to the surface and all three are forced to reevaluate their lives.
Twisty, intelligent and cinematic, thus thriller has a real punch..
“My name is Phyllis Ada Latour, known to many in my later years as Pippa, and I am 102 years old. I am also known by other names — code names and alias names — because I was a World War II secret operative agent. This is my memoir, which finally tells the story of my life working behind enemy lines in France 80 years ago. It is a part of my life that, until now, I have intentionally never revealed to anybody. Not my husband (when I had one), nor my children — even when they became adults. This book tells the truth about my war. I’m the last living female special operative from F Section and I need to record what happened before I die. I would like to leave my story behind so that, perhaps, young women in particular might know what it was like for me back then”. – Pippa Latour
‘Vivid, honest, inspiring and sometimes shocking, Pippa Latour’s memoir shows how right the SOE were to assess her as having ‘”tons of guts”‘ – CLARE MULLEY, author of Agent Zo
The Last Secret Agent, by Pippa Latour is the extraordinary untold story of Latour, who parachuted into occupied France in 1944 as an undercover agent and sent secret messages back to Britain.
In June 1940, a covert new force – the Special Operations Executive (SOE) – was set up to wage a secret war. Its agents were tasked with sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines, and over the course of the next five years, 470 special agents would be sent into France. Only 26 female SOE agents, including Pippa, would return. Pippa had an extraordinary life – born in 1921 she lived in Congo, Kenya and France before eventually landing in London. In 1943, aged 23, she was parachuted into France, where she travelled around the occupied countryside, concealing her codes in a hair tie and her Morse key underneath her bicycle seat, and sending crucial information back to Britain in the lead-up to D-Day. More than once, she came frighteningly close to being discovered. For decades, Pippa told no one – not even her family – of her incredible feats.
Now for the first time, her story can be told in full. It is an incredibly rare first-person story. Although there are several biographies of female WW2 spies, there are no other first-person memoirs of this kind. And as the last female WW2 SOE agent to die, Pippa’s story will be the first and last to be told in this way. It is a rare and privileged glimpse into her life, and in many ways, it is Pippa’s last public service, her last contribution to freedom. It is a remarkable testament to a remarkable and brave woman.
THE AUTHOR PIPPA LATOUR – following the war, Pippa settled in New Zealand where she raised four children. For decades, Pippa told no one – not even her family – of her incredible feats during WWII. For seventy years, Pippa’s contributions to the war effort were largely unheralded, but she was finally given her due in 2014 when she was awarded France’s highest order of merit, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Pippa was the last surviving F (France) Section Special Operations (SOE) agent from World War II. In the final months of her life, Pippa finally decided to tell her remarkable story, written with the assistance of award-winning historical documentary producer and writer Jude Dobson. Pippa died in 2023, at the age of 102.
My thoughts: This was incredible, Pippa Latour lived a heck of a life, born in South Africa, raised in the Congo, orphaned but with a wonderful extended family who love her, sent to finishing school in Paris just before the war and then after joining the WAAF, she’s recruited by SOE to go to France undercover as a spy.
Her life behind enemy lines is incredibly dangerous, terrifying and yet there’s something a little bit magical about it. Pretending to be a teenage girl selling her French grandparents soap, she snoops around the Normandy countryside, relaying troop movements and locations by radio, in Morse code, to London, as D-Day preparations ramp up.
Shocking, terrible things happen, some of them because of her intel, and her own life is on the line several times. She mentions the other female SOE operatives in France, many of whom sadly did not survive, incredibly brave women all.
Pippa lived to be 102, having lived and extraordinary life, but her war years were largely unknown, even to her family, for a long time. This memoir is full of brave, courageous, ordinary men and women opposing the massed forces of the Nazis and fighting for freedom. It stands as a wonderful tribute to those people and also to the magnificent Pippa herself, who did something few could and help influence the course of the Second World War. Genuinely inspiring, heart pounding, mind boggling stuff.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
In this swoon-worthy conclusion to the New York Times instant bestselling Luminaries trilogy, Winnie continues her fight against the monstrous nightmares of Hemlock Falls and finds answers about her past.
Winnie Wednesday’s future is looking bright. Hemlock Falls is no longer hunting the werewolf, she and Erica Thursday are tentative friends, and Winnie finally knows exactly where she stands with Jay Friday.
With everything finally on track, Winnie is looking forward to the Nightmare Masquerade, a week-long celebration of all things Luminary. But as Luminaries from across the world flock to the small town, uninvited guests also arrive.
Winnie is confronted by a masked Diana and charged with an impossible task–one that threatens everything and everyone Winnie loves.
As Winnie fights to stop new enemies before time runs out, old mysteries won’t stop intruding. Her missing father is somehow entangled with her search for hidden witches, and as Winnie digs deeper into the long-standing war between the Luminaries and the Dianas, she discovers rifts within her own family she never could have imagined.
What does loyalty mean when family and enemies look the same?
The forest is more dangerous than ever as secrets are revealed in this highly-anticipated, swoon-worthy conclusion to the bestselling Luminaries trilogy.
My thoughts: I don’t agree with the above blurb writer, I don’t think this book is “swoon-worthy” whatever that means. It is however, very good.
Winnie and her friends finally start to unravel all the secrets and mysteries in Hemlock Falls, they might finally unmask the Dianas and find out what happened to Winnie’s dad.
But first they have to get through the Nightmare Masquerade, for reasons she never understand Winnie is made the sort of mascot, like a prom queen, for the event, which is her worst nightmare. She hates the attention, she can’t be off the cuff funny, and it makes sneaking around looking for clues really tricky, oh and she can’t wear her beloved Save the Whales hoodie.
Erica has to do a lot more snooping, and Jay is in trouble, Winnie needs to get away from the spotlight to solve this thing once and hopefully, for all.
There’s lots of action and racing against the clock craziness, the Dianas launch their own plan, Winnie gets put under a spell that means she can’t tell anyone what’s going on, Jay gets kidnapped (don’t you love it when the macho stereotype is the damsel in distress) and Winnie breaks out of jail.
This was a lot of fun, with lots of plot, lots of tying up loose ends, answers finally about what happened to Erica’s sister and Winnie’s dad, and the door left open for more in the Luminaries’ world…
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
I am accused of the worst of crimes – murdering my baby – and I have hours before this passenger ferry docks in Spain to find him, alive. Someone knows about my difficult past and darkest secrets, and now I think they’ve taken my baby. But who would do this to me and why? I know the answer. Or least I think I do…
The police want to know why I have fled my home and husband. How do I tell them that I had a breakdown after my first baby died? That today is the anniversary of his death? That my husband is planning on having me sectioned? Despite what my husband says, I’m not ill. Am I? For I have discovered he has an agenda…
So how could I have been so wrong about him?
And how do I convince the police I’m innocent, when everyone believes I’m guilty, and get my baby back before he disappears forever?
Daniele Ramsay is the author of the DI Jack Brady crime novels and other dark thrillers. She is a Scot living in the North-East of England and was previously published by Hodder & Stoughton and Avon.
My thoughts: Losing a child is every parent’s worse nightmare, and after her son dies of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Alice becomes ill with depression. After spending some time in a psychiatric unit getting better, and discovering she’s pregnant once more, Alice vows that she will do everything in her power to protect her next child.
Tom, her surgeon husband, hires a nanny to help out, but Alice’s troubled mind is increasingly paranoid and she starts to imagine that he’s planning to have her committed and take off for his native US with their son.
It all comes to a head on a ferry to Spain, where her brother Oli is staying, when someone takes baby Eli from her, and she can’t remember what happened.
But Alice’s paranoia and fears aren’t entirely unfounded, someone is targeting her and her family, but she’s looking in the wrong direction.
Full of twists, I wasn’t sure who was trustworthy and I really felt for Alice as she struggled to grieve for Noah and then bond with Eli while it was all so raw. People grieve in different ways, and she gets upset that Tom seems less affected than her. It all builds up in her head and she reacts instinctively, but it puts her and Eli into further danger.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Hattie Gilby has not been back to her family home since the devastating events that took place there years ago. Events that changed Hattie and which continue to haunt her today. But one phone call changes everything.
Now Hattie is going back to her family home to face her brothers, Adam and Luke and to hear the last words of her dying mother.
Imogen Gilby hasn’t spoken a word since the night she was beaten almost to death and her husband was murdered. But now it’s time to reveal the truth about what happened that night and the secrets that almost destroyed her.
Hattie isn’t sure she wants to know the truth. And it seems someone close to them will do anything to make sure the secrets stay hidden forever…
Another chilling read from bestselling author L H Stacey guaranteed to keep you up all night!
Perfect for fans of Valerie Keogh, J.A. Baker and Diana Wilkinson.
L. H. Stacey is the bestselling psychological suspense author of over seven novels. Alongside her writing she is a full-time sales director for an office furniture company and has been a nurse, an emergency first response instructor and a PADI Staff Instructor. She lives near Doncaster with her husband.
My thoughts: Hattie doesn’t return to her parents’ house, she can’t move on from the terrible events of the night her father was killed and her mother brutally beaten. They still don’t know who did it, and Hattie worries she might have been responsible. She and her cousin Louisa were involved in something that went awry and she’s always wondered if that was what led to the tragedy.
But now, as her mother is dying, she has returned and as she and her brothers Luke and Adam look through all the paperwork in their mother’s old office, a terrible, truly shocking secret emerges. It seems their parents were involved in something very dark, and that certainly led to their father’s death.
I was genuinely shocked, the secrets that the house holds are horrific and terrible. Somehow Hattie manages not to completely spin out, I’m not sure I could be as cool as she is. As the siblings unearth their parents’ past, we’re shown the events that led to the assault and murder.
It seems there was a lot more to what happened that night than any of the siblings are aware. And someone close to them knows a lot more than they’ve ever said.
Full of shocking moments and twists, this was utterly gripping and a compelling read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
In London, 1666, drinking coffee can get you killed…
The case of Samuel Pepys’s missing pocket watch escalates rapidly when Eustace Blount, writer and wit, is found murdered in Rose’s Coffee House on The Strand.
Blount was a prig, a poseur and a parliamentarian – nobody liked him, not even his friends – and Pepys’s intrepid personal inquisitors, Abby Harcourt and Jacob Standish, find themselves with a suspect list as unwieldy as it is perplexing.
When their investigation leads to the nearby Gilded Bean coffee house, frequented by fervently royalist members of parliament, it becomes clear that a dangerous political game is afoot. Abby and Jacob face their most audacious challenge yet:
To break into Westminster Palace, at the very heart of English politics. The penalty, if discovered – is death.
Ellis Blackwood fell in love with the writings of Samuel Pepys, and the 17th-century England he inhabited, through the great man’s published diaries. The Samuel Pepys Mysteries are the result of that literary love affair.
My thoughts: I really like this series, it’s a lot of fun and brings the hubbub of 17th Century London to vivid life.
The coffee shops were a new concept and where the great and good (and not so good) would meet to talk, boast and scheme. They were male only spaces much of the time and Pepys would have been very familiar with them.
When Pepys asks his two inquisitors to locate his missing pocket watch, which he thinks may be in one of those very coffee shops, they stumble into murder and intrigue, just round the corner from Jacob’s house.
Abby as always, is quicker off the mark and starts to untangle the relationships between the coffee house denizens, the wits who spend their days writing pretty terrible poetry and the politicians who pontificate and squabble just round the corner.
The plot the pair discover threatens the King himself, Charles II, and the heart of government, much like the Gunpowder Plot that almost killed his grandfather.
Clever, entertaining and enjoyable, each installment of this series gets better and better.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
It’s been years since Zoe last saw them – since they graduated, drifted apart, and lost touch.
Years since Zoe ended things with Dan because the memories were too painful to bear.
Years since that night – the night an unexpected death shattered their close-knit group of friends.
Now, Zoe is invited to Scotland for a wedding – a grand affair at a manor house on a remote island. Apprehensive about the reunion, she hopes the long drive with Lily will help ease her nerves. But things are far from simple. Lily has also agreed to give Dan a lift, and Rod, not wanting to be left out, is joining them as well, along with his fiancée. And when they come into trouble on a cold, dark, desolated Highland road, it sets off a chain of events which will leave them all shaken to their very core, and questioning everything they thought they knew…
An unsettling and unputdownable edge-of-your-seat thriller set in the eerie mists of Scotland, perfect for fans of The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
M. A. Hunter is the alter ego of Stephen Edger, the bestselling author of psychological and crime thrillers, including the Kate Matthews series. Most recently published by One More Chapter, his new thriller, Adrift, will be published by Boldwood in May 2023.
My thoughts: this was a good one, clever, twisting and suspenseful. Reuniting with a group of old friends, with history between them and secrets makes everything a little tense when they’re in Lily’s dad’s old car.
Zoe is a lawyer and dealing with a workplace fling gone horribly wrong, Lily is her high school best friend, with a little secret of her own, Dan was her teenage boyfriend, Rod another friend, who’s getting married and has invited them all along. But between them is the accidental death of their friend Saul, an incident that has bound them together but also driven a wedge between them all.
Bella, Rod’s fiancée, doesn’t really fit in with the group and things about her don’t quite add up. As they drive up to the Highlands to catch the ferry to Jura for the wedding events take a nasty turn.
With events bringing the past crashing into the present, and secrets spilling out of everyone, will their friendships survive?
*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 JACK MACINTOSH IS BACK — ON THE TRAIL OF A BRUTAL KILLER.
A punch in the face. A painful visit to the dentist. A summons from his boss. Detective Jack is having a very bad day.
It’s then he gets the call. ‘We’ve got ourselves a murder.’
Jack races to the crime an empty flat on the twelfth floor of a rundown tower block. To be met with a truly shocking sight.
On the kitchen floor are two dismembered human legs. On the shabby sofa in the living room lie three severed arms.
In the bathroom, there’s something even worse . . .
The following day, on a derelict industrial estate, two holdalls are found containing more human limbs.
Then an early morning passenger makes a horrifying discovery on the top deck of the Number 42 bus.
Someone is leaving body parts all over town. But who are the victims — and why have they been targeted? Jack and his team must piece together the parts of the puzzle before more people die.
Michelle Kidd is a crime fiction author best known for the DI Jack MacIntosh and DI Nicki Hardcastle series. Michelle qualified as a legal executive in the early 1990s, spending ten years practising civil and criminal litigation.
But the dream to write was never far from her mind and in 2008 she began writing the first book in what would later become the DI Jack MacIntosh series.
Michelle now works full time for the NHS and lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
She enjoys reading, wine and cats — not necessarily in that order.
My thoughts: this was a gruesome and gory tale, opening with dismembered body parts found in an empty flat, someone has been abducting sex workers, murdering them and chopping them up. Leaving limbs and other body parts all over the place, including on a bus.
As DI MacIntosh and his team investigate and more vulnerable women go missing, they soon have several suspects, each one more dodgy than the previous. The caretaker of the block of flats, the former resident’s son, they’ve both got links to the building and are acting evasively. But could it be someone closer to the team?
Then there’s the gangster who’s trying to either get Jack to work for him or somehow manipulate him, and now he’s broken a dangerous man out of prison with connections to Jack. Can he keep his bosses off his back and get these two men under arrest?
There’s a lot going on, and the longer the case continues, with more women missing, the harder it is to solve. The press are salivating at the story, with its echoes of Jack the Ripper and an apparently ineffective police force. But Jack knows his team are good, and they’ll get the right man given a chance. But it could come at a cost.
Gripping, dark and compelling, with conflicted protagonist Jack, his team and ruthless criminals. Good stuff.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
When Drew Hopgood’s brother, Frank dies whilst out climbing, it’s initially thought his death was simply a tragic accident. But when Frank’s much younger wife, Stella arrives at Hopgood Hall demanding half of Frank’s inheritance the Hopgoods and Alexi Ellis begin to suspect foul play…
Stella has no claim to Frank’s legacy, but she isn’t giving up easily. And with the reputation of Hopgood Hall still fragile, Alexi can’t afford to lose any more money because of Stella’s greed. So Alexi, her partner Jack, and Cosmo of course, decide to dig deeper into Stella’s background. Just how did she meet Frank and were they really as in love as she claims?
As the trio investigate, they discover Stella has her own reasons for being back at Hopgood Hall. And rather than console the grieving widow, Alexi and Jack think they might need to look again at Frank’s tragic death – because rather than an accident this could have been a deadly fall – planned by his own wife!
A boutique hotel. A feral cat. A recipe for murder!
A gripping murder mystery, perfect for fans of Faith Martin, Frances Evesham and Emma Davies.
Evie Hunter has written a great many successful regency romances as Wendy Soliman and is now redirecting her talents to produce dark gritty thrillers for Boldwood. For the past twenty years she has lived the life of a nomad, roaming the world on interesting forms of transport, but has now settled back in the UK.
My thoughts: This time the case Alexi and Jack take on is close to home. Drew and his brother might have been estranged but it still hurts that he’s died in a horrible climbing accident, especially as he was such a good climber. And then there’s his horrid wife Stella, who turns up demanding money she thinks Frank is owed. Was his death really an accident? And why hasn’t Stella gone back to Australia?
As the ask questions and learn more about the gold digger with a heart of stone, as well as Frank’s past misdemeanours with women and other people’s money, motives emerge. Alexi is put in danger, but Cosmo and his newest canine chum Silgo are there to save the day!
Another interesting case for the Hopgood Detectives, full of grudges held far too long and secrets. All they really want to do is help their friend, but as always they end up catching plenty of bad people along the way!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 