Tag: crime fiction

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Cover Reveal: The Bone Mother – Suzy Apsley

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Martha Strangeways has settled into a quiet life in Strathbran, after the horrific events that traumatised the village a year earlier. But all this is turned upside down when her friend at Glasgow CID, DI Derek Summers, calls on her to help with a disturbing case: a human ear, with an unusual Celtic earring, has been found next to a railway line in the Highlands. And when the body of a young woman wearing matching jewellery turns up at a landmark church shortly after, the mystery deepens. Why has she been laid out in a ritualistic fashion? Does her trek along the little-known Cailleach Way have anything to do with her death? And who is running the Facebook Group where she posted details of her journey to the shrine of the Bone Mother goddess? As Martha tries to unpick the threads, she finds herself entwined with a ghost from her own past, and in conflict with the owner of a project that threatens to destroy the goddess’s sacred land. With Halloween approaching, and someone determined to protect the goddess at all costs, can Martha and Summers catch the killer before they strike again – and this time much closer to home…?

About Suzy Apsley

Originally from the north-east of England, former journalist Suzy Aspley has lived in Scotland for almost thirty years. She writes crime and short stories, often inspired by the strange things she sees in the landscape around her. She won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect in 2019 with the original idea for her debut novel and was shortlisted for the Capital Crime New Voices Award. In 2020, she was mentored by Jo Dickinson as part of the Hachette future bookshelf initiative. Crow Moon was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, and shortlisted for the Val McDermid Debut Award and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. When she’s not writing, she’s either got her nose buried in a book, or is outside with her dogs dreaming up more dark stories. She lives in Stirlingshire with her family.

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Blog Tour: The Silent Boy – Michelle Kidd

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A brutal double murder. A traumatised little boy.

Detective Jack MacIntosh tackles his most impossible case yet.

Detective Jack is standing at the graveside of his old friend and mentor, DCI Frank
Tyler, when the call comes in. ‘Boss – we need you NOW!’

He arrives at a smart Richmond townhouse to a scene of unspeakable horror. There’s blood everywhere – soaking through the thick-pile rug, slashed across the curtains, sprayed across the ceiling. Two bodies lie side-by-side, next to the king-sized bed.
They’re not fresh. They’ve been there at least two weeks.

Nothing adds up. A frenzied attack, yet meticulously executed. Carefully planned. No forced entry.

Then the most chilling discovery of all.
A six-year-old boy, hiding in the study. Clothes stiff with dried blood. Eyes blank.
Silent.

Joshua is the only witness. And whatever he saw has trapped him deep inside himself.

Now Jack is in a race against time to unlock the little boy’s memories and coax out the truth – before the killer returns to silence Joshua for good.

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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.

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My thoughts: Michelle writes smart, cleverly plotted crime fiction. Her Detective Jack MacIntosh is a complicated character, he’s a good investigator and leader, but he has secrets and complications that could endanger his career. He’s working on an investigation of his own alongside his official cases.

This one is shocking, two people brutally murdered, and their six year old son has been alone in the house with his parents’ bodies for some time. Did he see what happened? He’s not talking and it will take a skilled psychologist to get him to open up.

The couple’s family are in Jack’s sights, the dead man’s brothers are evasive and quick to complain but not to help. Joshua seems afraid of them too.

As the team dig into the family’s secrets and hope for Joshua to start talking, Jack’s distracted by his secret case, and worried about the implications of dealing with a dangerous gangster.

The case is full of twists and the killer is a surprise, I certainly didn’t guess it right up until the last second. Excellent 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.

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Blog Tour: Hidden Truth – C.D. Steele

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Private Investigator Joe Wilde is investigating the murder of Philippa Redmond a former Labour MP.
She had been found dead in her sauna over the Christmas holidays six weeks ago. The majority of her family had been staying with her at the time, but the police didn’t regard any of them as
suspects. Evidence suggested an intruder had got into her home.

Joe also takes on a cold case of a missing woman named Julie Turnbull. She had disappeared six years ago without a trace. Meanwhile Joe’s good friend DI Whatmore is investigating the horrific murder of a woman who was burnt alive in her own home. His investigation crosses over with Joe’s missing person investigation. As they conduct their own investigations there are more killings.
DI Whatmore and Joe must join forces to track down a serial killer and solve a puzzling mystery, but doing so puts them and others in grave danger.

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Author Bio – C.D Steele works as an Executive Officer in the Civil Service. He has a degree in Recreation Management and lives in County Down, Northern Ireland. This is his third novel and is the
next book in the Joe Wilde Series after False Truth and Dark Truth.

CD Steele on Amazon

Giveaway to Win 3 x copies of False Truth (book 1 in the Joe Wilde series) and 1 x copy of Dark Truth (book 2). (Open to UK Only)

My thoughts: Private Detective Joe Wilde, formerly of MI6 has two complicated cases on his desk. One the murder of a former MP, the other the disappearance of a young woman six years ago.

The family of the MP are cagey, and not happy with his lack of progress, her daughter keeps threatening to stop paying him.

But the missing girl seems to be connected to something bigger, as DI Whatmore’s investigation reveals, a robbery, several murders and gangsters are all involved. The missing Julie seems to have been the daughter of a rather unsavoury person and been dragged into a whole mess before she disappeared.

As Jack and the police carry out their investigations they put themselves in the firing line as someone is chasing old secrets and won’t stop for anyone.

It’s a tangled web that has to be unwoven in order to solve the tragic disappearance and the MP’s murder too. Although Jack is dedicated and determined. This is a clever read with a twisty turny plot.

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


**Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam link. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or
email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of
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Blog Tour: Six Hours to Live – Charlie Gallagher

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Margate, on England’s south coast. The hottest day of the year.

A derelict warehouse on an industrial estate. A woman claws desperately at the
smooth, unbroken walls of a steel shipping container as it slowly fills with water.

She has six hours to live.

Her husband gets a chilling message on his phone: Drown The Rats. And a map. He
races to the site. He sees his wife struggling for life . . .

Police Constable Abigail Morton is in her twenties, can’t find a man she wants to
keep, and has just resigned after being passed over for promotion. Her special talent is getting people to talk to her, making her perfect for the role of source handler.

The one detective she really respects is DCI Paul Cotterill. And Abigail is the one
person Cotterill needs in this case. When she gets the call from him, she’s back in.

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Charlie Gallagher was a serving UK police officer for thirteen years. During that time he had many roles — starting as a front-line response officer, he became a member of a specialist tactical team and finally a detective investigating serious offences. Charlie left to concentrate
on writing full time.

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My thoughts: This was a really interesting and fascinating case, death by drowning is apparently incredibly unpleasant, your body desperately tries to fight it. I cannot imagine what watching someone you love die in that way, but that is what happens here.

The police are at a loss, the victims were connected to their covert intelligence unit – passing on information about criminals they happen to be in the orbit of. But someone is clearly unhappy about this and is determined to stop them. It looks like there’s a leak in the unit, so the team have been suspended. At the end of his wits, their boss DCI Paul Cotterill calls on Abigail Morton – freshly resigned from the police, to help him.

I really like Abigail, she’s clever and resourceful, knows her own mind and has become frustrated after being passed over for promotion in the very team that needs her help. She’s not impressed with Cotterill’s methods, but she is intrigued by the case.

As these two cops attempt to get to the bottom of these awful deaths, find the leak and prevent another person from being killed, they come into contact with a strange man who commits the same crime repeatedly in order to get into police custody. He might hold the key to the whole case.

Gripping and intelligent stuff, I wanted more immediately. Abigail is a really interesting character and I would like to see what happens next for her.

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

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Blog Tour: Sharks – Simone Buchholz, translated by Rachel Ward

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In Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s so-called ‘problem area’, an American couple is found brutally murdered in a derelict house. Prosecutor Chastity Riley is assigned the case and quickly finds herself waist-deep in a murky tangle of city planners, shady investors and vanishing officials.

The gentrification machine is rolling on, and someone is sending a very clear message. As November fog settles over the city, Chastity is coughing up blood, her personal life is a slow-motion disaster, and her former colleague, Faller, won’t stop interfering.

But nothing’s going to stop her from cutting through the lies – not even the sharks circling ever closer…

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious HenriNannen-School.

In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena (winner of the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger) and River Clyde all followed suit, with 2023’s The Acapulco and 2024’s The Kitchen reloading the series.

She is on the board of PEN Berlin, and is at the forefront of the lobbying movement for fair pay for authors. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her son.

My thoughts: Chastity Riley has a nasty virus she can’t shake, and a nasty case too. Two elderly Americans who have lived in Hamburg for decades, have been murdered in their homes.

As the team investigate, they discover a mess of planning applications, permits, foreign investment and no one wants to answer her questions. There’s a niece who has hired a retired Faller, who has started working as a PI, but her story seems a bit off.

Faller’s replacement has started, and causes more than a ripple in Chastity’s personal life too. She needs to get some rest, but she can’t shake this case.

Another clever and twisty turny story of Hamburg’s seedy underbelly and opaque bureaucracy. Chastity gets more complicated, and the changes to her team of detectives throws up complications. I’m really glad this series is back, the writing is always excellent and compelling, really enjoyable.

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

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Blogathon: The Death Watcher – Chris Carter

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The 13th adrenaline-packed Robert Hunter thriller and Top Ten Sunday Times bestseller.

When a routine autopsy on what looked like a straightforward hit-and-run leads the LA Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Carolyn Hove, to discover some puzzling inconsistencies, she calls in Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Not only did Dr Hove discover that the death wasn’t caused by a hit-and-run, but she also found indications that the victim had been severely tortured prior to death.

What no one realises is that what Dr Hove has stumbled upon is just the tip of the iceberg and it will lead Hunter and his partner, Carlos Garcia, on the trail of a twisted and clever killer who hides in plain sight. A serial killer no one even knew existed – a killer who has always operated under the radar, expertly disguising every gruesome murder as an accidental death.

But with no leads as to why the victim was targeted, the investigation comes to a standstill, until another body is discovered with an alternative cause of death.

What becomes clear is that this serial killer isn’t going to stop – unless Hunter and Garcia can get to him.

But how do you investigate a murder when you have no victims? How do you catch a killer who leaves behind no crime scene? How do you stop a ghost who no one can prove even exists?

My thoughts: Thirteen books into this dark but compelling series, I am still completely hooked. This case might be Hunter and Garcia’s strangest yet.

Because their medical examiner is brilliant, she spots a few things that prove their hit and run victim is nothing of the sort – he died from hypothermia. In Southern California, in summer. Now I have actually spent summer in Orange County, south of LA and it is hot. So, so hot. There’s just no way you could get that cold unless you were locked in a freezer. And nobody does that voluntarily.

While Hunter and Garcia are trying to figure out whodunnit and why. There’s another body that appears, again the supposed cause of death doesn’t match the evidence on the body. A body that was donated to the students at a medical school, training to be medical examiners.

Slowly, the brilliant detective duo, veterans of dozens of baffling cases, put together what links the victims and what might the killer be thinking.

Chris Carter is a brilliant writer, and was a criminal psychologist, and really knows how to build suspense and a sense of real danger, which once again Garcia and Hunter find themselves in.

This blogathon has been just tremendous to be part of and I cannot wait to see what Carter writes next.

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

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Blog Tour: A Dowager is Done In – Helen Golden

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A mysterious summons. A fatal hot chocolate. And a duchess who never expected mourning to be this dreadfully dull.

Hampshire, 1891. Six months into widowhood, Alice, Duchess of Stortford, is restless. Black gowns and seclusion in the country have their limits, so when Clarissa, Dowager Countess of Romley, sends a personal summons asking for her discreet assistance with a troubling matter at Lawrence House, Alice seizes the excuse for a change of scene.

But what begins as a family gathering to welcome home the Dowager’s once-disgraced son ends in shock. Clarissa is discovered dead, her passing swiftly dismissed as a heart attack. Alice knows better.

The Dowager had been afraid — and had trusted her to uncover the truth. Someone silenced her, but why? Was it to do with the announcement she made over dinner, or something even more dangerous?

Now everyone in the house is a suspect: the resentful heir, the returning prodigal, the mysterious guest with a too-familiar face. With her sharp-witted maid Maud, steadfast footman George, and her
reluctant ally Lord Rushton at her side, Alice must act quickly. If the Dowager was murdered to keep her secrets buried, the killer will not hesitate to strike again.

The Dowager is dead. The clock is ticking. And the duchess is about to discover that country house parties can be murder.

Full of clever twists and a heroine who won’t give up until she finds out the truth, A Dowager is Done-in is the perfect escape for fans of historical mysteries wrapped in wit and warmth.

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Helen Golden spins mysteries that are charmingly British, delightfully deadly, and served with a twist of humour.
With quirky characters, clever red herrings, and plots that keep the pages turning, she’s the author of the much-loved A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series, following Lady Beatrice and her friends—
including one clever little dog—as they uncover secrets hidden in country houses and royal palaces.

Her new historical mystery series, The Duchess of Stortford Mysteries, is set in Victorian England and introduces an equally curious sleuth from Lady Beatrice’s own family tree—where murders are solved over cups of tea, whispered gossip, and overheard conversations in drawing rooms and grand estates.

Helen lives in a quintessential English village in Lincolnshire with her husband, stepdaughter, and a menagerie of pets—including a dog, several cats, a tortoise, and far too many fish.

If you love clever puzzles, charming settings, and sleuths with spark, her books are waiting for you.

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My thoughts: Alice, Duchess of Stortford has been invited to the home of the Dowager Countess of Romley by the lady herself, she needs Alice’s help, but before she can explain why, she is murdered.

And so, Alice and her band of assistants, maid Maud, footman George and friends Fee and Baxter (and her reluctant brother Duncan) must find out who killed the Dowager and why. Was it her recently returned prodigal son? But if it is over the will of the Countess or something else? Alice must get to the bottom of the family’s troubles and find a murderer before it is too late.

I really like this series, Alice is clever and quick, her servants are excellent sidekicks and even chatty, scatty Fee comes in very useful in getting information on their suspects.

It’s another clever and satisfying read from Helen Golden.

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

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Blog Tour: The Lost Detective – Elspeth Latimer

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On a summer’s day, a baby vanishes. The mystery is never solved, leaving a young
mother lost in grief.

Twenty-one years later, ex-police detective Dan Hennessy is struggling with his own
tragic loss, and when a neighbour disappears and a body turns up at the solar farm, he is desperate for answers.
The haunted landscape is keeping secrets, and there are dangers lurking in the Brecks.

Dan must find the truth.

Can he offer hope to the grieving mother, and also save himself?

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Elspeth Latimer is an associate tutor on the prestigious  University of East Anglia MA in Creative Writing Crime Fiction, and also the author of Writing the Detectives, an academic study of the protagonist in the contemporary crime fiction series, published by Cambridge University Press.

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My thoughts: Dan is a former police detective who quit after his fiancée was killed in a horrible accident, he’s still struggling. Having moved to a caravan park where he’s supposedly in charge of security in exchange for a place to live, he becomes involved in the murder of a man on the solar farm next door. His landlady also asks him to look into the cold case of her missing son, who vanished as an infant over twenty years ago.

His former colleagues aren’t happy with his involvement with the murder case, and he keeps his PI activities a secret from them, knowing it won’t go well if anyone finds out he’s digging in a case the police never closed.

His grief is causing him to do strange things, and he’s losing time. But by focusing on the cases he’s able to give his days a little more meaning. He still needs to sell the house he and Beth bought before she died, and decide what to do with her ashes. But it all seems too much, instead he’d rather hunt for a missing caravan renter and the long lost baby Felix, wading into a past some would prefer to forget.

Clever and intriguing, the cases that are helping Dan somehow, weave around each other in his head and in the story, there’s some strange things that he sees and his friend Cassie, now in his old job, gets frustrated with him a fair bit. He hasn’t lost his instincts as a detective, and digs away at things, even when officially told not to. He’s an interesting character, the reluctant detective, who wants to shut out the world but can’t resist a mystery.

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

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Blog Tour: Tombstoning – Doug Johnstone

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Your best mate just fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. You were the last person to see him alive. What do you do? If you’re David Lindsay from Arbroath, you leg it – and don’t go back.

Not for fifteen years. Then Nicola Cruickshank – yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to speak to – gets in touch. She wants you back for a school reunion. At the very place it happened. Of course you say yes. Not to lay ghosts to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.

The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn’t going to bring closure. Because when someone else tumbles off the cliffs – an act the locals now call tombstoning – David has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people around him keep dying…

Doug Johnstone is the author of nineteen novels, many of which have been bestsellers. The Space Between Us was chosen for BBC Two’s Between the Covers, while six of his books have been shortlisted or longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year or the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.

Doug has taught creative writing or been writer in residence at universities, schools, writing retreats, festivals, prisons and a funeral directors. He’s also been an arts journalist for twenty-five years. He is a songwriter and musician with ten albums released, and drummer for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club.

My thoughts: I love Doug’s books (#skelfaholic) so I was excited to read this, the re-issue of his very first book. And I wasn’t disappointed. It doesn’t read like a debut, it’s as assured and clever as his most recent, this is an author who knows what he’s doing.

The story is full of twists and gets pretty dark at one point, but had me completely gripped. I could not put it down.

David and Nicola are very ordinary people, but when things get nasty, they’re also brave and resourceful. Tracing the last steps of David’s old friends before their shocking deaths, he comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t add up. It never has.

The police are looking at him, but they haven’t thought of the last member of their foursome – Neil. If David can track him down, maybe he might get some answers, or at least an idea for why two of his old pals, fifteen years apart, appear to have chucked themselves off the cliffs. When they had plenty to live for.

So begins David and Nicola’s quest. Find Neil, get some answers, hopefully lay this to rest. But of course, it’s not straightforward. And chaos ensues.

Absolutely brilliant stuff, you should get a copy and enjoy.

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

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Blog Tour: Overkill – Colin Garrow

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Edinburgh, Christmas Eve, 1936. A gruesome double murder. A white-faced killer. A mysterious stranger…

Still haunted by his recent past, Professor Finlay MacBeth is called in to assist the police following an horrific double murder. Traces of greasepaint and white cotton lead MacBeth and Inspector
Callaghan to the Christmas Circus, but while they search for clues, someone else is watching them.

Meanwhile, bent cop Kilmartin still has MacBeth in his sights…

In this thriller series set in Edinburgh, Overkill is book #2 in the Finlay MacBeth series.

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Colin Garrow grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland. He has worked in a plethora of professions including taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate.

He has published more than thirty books, and his short stories have appeared in several literary mags, most recently in Witcraft, and Flash Fiction North. Colin lives in a humble cottage in Northeast
Scotland where he writes novels, stories, poems and the occasional song.
He plays several musical instruments and makes rather nice vegan cakes.

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My thoughts: Professor MacBeth is settling in for Christmas Eve, when Inspector Callaghan calls, a couple called McDuff have been murdered (which made me grin, any other survivors of reading The Scottish Play at school will know why).

They’ve been savagely butchered and some of their organs are missing, and the police are at a loss. As MacBeth and the inspector hunt for the killer, they find themselves directed towards the circus, in town for the festive season.

There a performer mentions being scared by a man with a strangely pale face – and striking blue eyes. Could he be their killer? The traces of greasepaint at the scene suggest a link.

More bodies turn up as the police work, also brutally slaughtered. But there’s another killer lingering in the wings with his own plans and a personal vendetta against the professor.

Absolutely gripping and sinister, I really enjoyed (if that’s the right word for a book about a murder) this book. I like MacBeth, Rhona and Johnnie, his little found family. Looking forward to seeing where this series goes next, the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger.

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