Tag: crime fiction

Welcome to Honeybee’s diner, where the scent of butter and garlic wraps itself around you, thick and comforting. Jessie Haynes’ homestyle cooking feeds the hearts and souls of the good people of Willow Bluff. Until someone puts murder on the menu!

Y’all are invited to dig into a steamin’ plate of meatloaf. The diner’s well-worn red chairs have cradled folks from every corner of Willow Bluff—Jessie’s podcasting bestie, Tee, Old Mr Higgins, two mighty mischievous kittens, Biscuits and Gravy, and every tattling townsperson in between—so when the mayor turns blue after a bite of Jessie’s famous shrimp and grits, she finds herself in seriously hot water…

Suddenly, all eyes are swivelled toward Jessie. For fifty years her family has fed Willow Bluff, and Jessie won’t let one mouthful shatter the legacy of her grandmother’s secret recipes. The mayor’s peanut allergy was talk of the town, so when traces are found in his food, Jessie must fight to clear her name.

An empty peanut packet in the diner’s pantry has Jessie and Tee hot on the heels of the murderer when another case of food tampering occurs at a nearby bakery. Someone is dishing out delicious death sentences. How many locals will get served before Jessie can crack the case? Her investigation must be a recipe for success or Honeybee’s will be toast…

This unputdownable and addictive cozy mystery is full of Southern charm, a gripping whodunnit and a feisty amateur sleuth. It’s perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Ellery Adams and Joanne Fluke.

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Skylar Warren is a Chicago native and a graduate of Chicago State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, Media Arts and Theatre. She now lives in New York City and works as a claims adjuster. In her spare time, she enjoys watching mysteries and solving puzzles.

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My thoughts: This was a fun and enjoyable crime caper centering on a diner in a small town called Willow Bluff. Jessie has taken over the diner her grandmother founded, cooking her recipes for the town.

Until disaster strikes and the mayor drops dead of anaphylaxis on the diner’s anniversary. He’s well known to be allergic to peanuts and Jessie is insistent that her kitchen is peanut free, so how did the nuts get into his food? 

Did someone murder the mayor and frame Jessie? Luckily she has a crack team of investigators  – also known as her friends – to solve the case. And it helps that the sheriff is on her side too, the evidence has been collected and is being analysed.

Unfortunately the town is a gossip’s paradise and the local estate agent, a rather nasty woman, cannot stop spreading rumours and undermining Jessie’s attempts to assert her innocence.

I hope this becomes a series, with Jessie and her friends solving crimes in their small town, the characters are fun and there are cats called Biscuits and Gravy.

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

The BRAND NEW instalment in the bestselling, beloved Armstrong & Oscar Cozy Mystery series!

A road leading to Rome

Former DCI Dan Armstrong has been living and working in Florence for nearly three years—yet somehow, Rome has always eluded him. That is, until glamorous TV celebrity Tamsin Goodfaith turns up with a request he can’t refuse: investigate her uncle’s suspicious death in the Eternal City.

Murder at the castle

Philip Hastings was a billionaire financier, found dead at his magnificent—if slightly spooky—medieval castle in the Roman hills. Dan and his faithful canine companion, Oscar, soon find themselves surrounded by luxury, secrets and more suspects than sightseeing opportunities.

This time it’s personal

But when a second murder follows close behind, the case turns dangerously personal. With whispers of ghosts and crumbling alibis, Dan and Oscar must sniff out the truth before he becomes the next
victim. Harder to crack than castle walls—and harder still than stopping Oscar from stealing snacks—this Roman holiday is anything but relaxing.

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I’m a man. And a pretty old man as well. I studied languages at Nottingham University a long time ago and then lived and worked in France and Switzerland before going to work in Italy for seven years. My Italian wife and I then came back to the UK with our little daughter (now long-since grown up) where I ran a big English language school for many years. We now live in a sleepy little
village in Devonshire.

I’ve been writing almost all my life but it was only thirteen years ago that I finally managed to find a publisher who liked my work enough to offer me my first contract.
I started off writing romances but after 28 of them, I knew I wanted to try something different, and so the first of the Armstrong and Oscar cozy mysteries, Murder in Tuscany, was born three years ago.

I’ve been having a lot of fun ever since getting to know the dynamic duo (and introducing them to people all over the world). These books are cosy crime [a genre I didn’t even know existed when I
started writing them). They are murder mysteries, but not gory, over-violent stuff, but stories designed to exercise the brain of the reader and to put a smile on their face.

Maybe it’s because there are so many horrible things happening in the world today that I feel I need to do my best to
provide something to cheer my readers up. My books provide escapism to some gorgeous locations all over my beloved Italy.

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My thoughts: As you might know by now, I love this series, especially the excellent K9 Detective Oscar, who always finds something vital to the case. 

In this installment Dan and Oscar are off to Rome, the Eternal City and somewhere I’d love to visit (I’ve only been to the airport on my way to Venice).

British celeb Tamsin Goodfaith has asked Dan for his help. Her uncle has recently died and she doesn’t agree that it was a tragic accident – she thinks he was murdered. Posing as her friend, and there on a writing break, he gently probes the various family members and staff at the family’s medieval castle outside Rome.

But then two more members of the family die, and the killer must be somewhere in the castle – there’s only the family and three employees, as well as Dan and Oscar. Is there a ghost? Old buildings do attract them and Oscar really hates the suit of armour.

It’s another clever case for Dan and the local police detective inspector, one that has deep roots and will change the family forever. I really enjoyed trying to unravel the clues and solve it before Dan (I failed).

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

A gruesome discovery in a Copenhagen apartment. A desperate author’s dark secret. A stalker who will stop at nothing, to destroy everything…Jensen returns in her most sinister case yet.

When human remains turn up behind an apartment wall DI Henrik Jungersen finds himself on the trail of a killer who has been hiding in plain sight.

Meanwhile, Jensen should be enjoying maternity leave but life has other plans. Legendary author, Valde Brix, is claiming to be her father. But Brix has an ulterior motive.

Then a woman connected to Brix turns up brutally murdered, and Jensen and her teenage apprentice Gustav become embroiled in Henrik’s investigation.

It soon becomes chillingly clear that the stalker will stop at nothing. And as the danger closes in Jensen realises the threat isn’t just to Brix – her own family is in mortal danger.

Heidi Amsinck a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen has lived in London for many years. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, she was previously shortlisted for the VS Pritchett Memorial Prize.  She has written many stories for BBC Radio 4 including The Bellevue Poltergeist series which features Jensen. She is the author of four previous books in the Jensen series: My Name is Jensen, The Girl in the Photo, Back from the Dead and Out of the Dark, as well a book of short stories, Last Train to Helsingor.

My thoughts: This was really good, a twisted, clever case that throws up lots of avenues for the detectives to go down, links between old cases and the new one, new cases coming along while they’re working that might be connected.

When the remains of a young woman are found bricked up in a Copenhagen flat, the police are shocked to discover that she was pregnant when she died. The flat’s owner insists he knows nothing, and suspicion falls on author Valde Brix, who once stayed there.

Brix has contacted Jensen, who’s on maternity leave, he drops a bombshell, he thinks he’s her father. He was in a relationship with her mother at around the right time, but Jensen’s mother is adamant he isn’t. He also asks Jensen to help him investigate a stalker who has been sending anonymous threats.

This brings Jensen back into Henrik’s life, while he’s already having problems at home, can they work together or is it just too complicated?

I really enjoy complex crime books like this, where the characters are as messy as real life and the cases cause them personal chaos. The case does get solved, but there are repercussions that might come up in future books.

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

Meet Peter Maxwell: film buff, golden-hearted cynic, bow-tied eccentric teacher . . . and reluctant amateur sleuth.

When Peter Maxwell’s history club meeting sparks a deadly explosion,
leaving a charred body behind, the police suspect Maxwell was the intended target.

Then a hit-and-run attempt leaves Maxwell in no doubt. Someone wants
him dead — but why?

Now his neighbour, Mrs. B, is abducted — and Maxwell uncovers a chilling truth — someone is using his history lessons as a call to violence.

As the arsonist closes in on his next target, can Maxwell stop a deadly campaign of vengeance?

Or will history repeat itself once more…

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M J Trow (the ‘M’ as most people know by now stands for Meirion, a Welsh name few can manage, so he writes as M J, is known by all and sundry as Mei, rhyming with ‘my’) has been writing for many years, with his first book – The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade – being published in 1984 by Macmillan.

More Lestrades followed and then some true crime and somehow it all snowballed so now he has many historical biographies and three other crime series (Maxwell, Marlowe and Grand and Batchelor, the latter two written with his wife, writing as Maryanne Coleman, though her name is
Carol, actually!) to his credit.

He claims to be retired, but that’s just from teaching. In fact he has never been busier and is a sought after ‘ghost’ these days as well as historian and novelist, with many different subjects’ stories having been told
through him. He has recently started collaborating on fiction projects (with
someone other than his wife, that is) and finds it a really exciting and pleasurable experience.To relax he … actually, that’s a bit tricky, as he doesn’t really ever relax.

He has been known to garden, he is a keen cook and artist and likes to travel. This is rather easier these days as he is a popular speaker on cruise ships – in fact his profile picture was taken on a very gusty day in
Cape Town, setting off on a long voyage home to Southampton through some of the scariest seas he and his wife have had the pleasure to meet!
It really was the calm before the storm, despite being a Force 9 just leaving the Bay.

My thoughts: Maxwell seems to have upset someone so badly this time they want him dead!

Forced by the terrifying headteacher of his son’s school into speaking at her history club, there then follows both several complaints about him, a house gets blown up (not his, but one mistaken for his), another gets set on fire and someone tries to run him over with a car.

The police can’t work out why a history teacher has provoked such rage and violence, but as there’s at least one dead body so far, they’d rather it stopped. Obviously Maxwell feels the same.

Luckily, with a bit of help from him, the police soon have it all sorted out, poison pen letters, and murderous history fan, but sadly not without another loss. And Mrs B getting kidnapped.

Bits of this book are laugh out loud funny, and I very much enjoy Maxwell’s conversations with the Count and the Chancellor (his cats) as well as the genuine love between the members of his family.

The resolution is a bit of a shock, as are the motivations behind it, and may even have Maxwell deciding against speaking at another history club meeting.

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

Wiltshire is a county of ancient beauty — rolling chalk downs, wooded valleys and
chocolate-box villages. Famous for its ‘big’ skies and breathtaking scenery, it seems
tranquil. But looks can be deceiving.

Katarina Raslova, a young British archaeologist, is found dead in a secluded cabin on a powerful local landowner’s estate. Her body has been carefully posed.
She looks like an exquisite sculpture. Except for the bruises circling her neck.
The only potential witness is a terrified girl who waited at the scene for the police to arrive. . . then vanished without a trace.

Detective Craig Wild, formerly of the Metropolitan police, is called in to investigate. He quickly discovers there’s no shortage of suspects. An obsessive ex-boyfriend with no alibi. The landowner’s evasive son, who knows more than he’s telling. And someone on the estate is growing something far more deadly than wheat.

Even his own partner, Acting DC Marnie Olsen, has a troubling personal connection to the victim.

Wild is determined to crack the case — and quickly. But this is rural Wiltshire, not inner-city London. Here, everyone knows your business, and miles of countryside offer countless places to hide the truth.

And then another young woman’s body is discovered . . .

Derek Thompson grew up in London and credits the local library with fostering a
lifelong passion for books. As a teen he wrote dreadful poetry and the world’s densest fantasy novel. After a formative year in the US he returned with a lot of debt and a treasure trove of stories. In hindsight it seems like a fair trade.*

Fast-forward to 2008 when he wrote a feature for The Guardian and attended a novel-writing summer school, where the ideas for his debut spy thriller first emerged. He cites film noir as a major influence on his novels with recurring themes of death, truth and secrets. As the saying goes: write about what you know.
After five novels featuring Thomas Bladen, a working class spy in the UK’s Surveillance Support Unit, he began a separate crime mystery series that follows DS Craig Wild – a former Met detective now transferred to leafy Wiltshire.

Derek’s books have been described as snarky (it’s a real word), pared down, and
morally ambiguous. What more could any novelist ask for? Apart from pens — you
can never have too many pens.

*Especially if he can sell the film script.

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My thoughts: It starts with the body of an archaeologist, it ends with a suspect no one had on their list. As the police hunt for a killer, they have plenty of suspects but not the right one as more bodies prove. Who is responsible and why?

The possibility of a Saxon hoard is exciting, but someone has a different plan to hunting for ancient treasures. DS Wild and his colleagues are soon chasing clues all over Wiltshire and beyond. And then there’s their private issues too – Wild gets close to a woman of the cloth, is Marnie jealous or just distracted?

There’s some career rivalry that needs to be resolved, as well as whether Wild is going to be sticking around, but when it becomes clear the answers they’re looking for are a bit more complicated, it’s Wild that might just be able to get to the truth…

Full of twists, cleverly plotted and with engaging characters, this series is fun and interesting, sleepy Wiltshire is a lot more interesting than you might expect…

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

You can change your name. Change your life. But someone knows exactly who you are.

Twenty years ago, Mason Tucker was tried and convicted as the teenager who helped
lure young boys to the serial killer known as the Pied Piper of Peasedale. After serving his twenty-year sentence, Mason is freed and hopes to remain invisible while he rebuilds his life as an adult, hoping to become a man he can be proud of. A new town, a new flat, a new job and a new purpose.

But living with secrets is challenging, and protecting his anonymity, the woman who
stood beside him, and her child becomes impossible when the past pushes back. Hard.

Within days of his release, Mason suspects he’s being stalked. He’s threatened and
twice attacked. He never imagined being outside would be more dangerous than being in prison. The police aren’t an option. One headline will destroy him.
Someone wants him punished, not redeemed, and as danger closes in, you will never suspect where the next threat comes from.

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Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the
stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest.

In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University.
She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers.
Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.

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My thoughts: It was interesting to read Mason’s perspective on the events that previously we’ve seen from the point of view of his mum and the parents of his friend Jamie (in The Other Boy and The Other Mother). He was groomed and manipulated, a victim too in many ways, of the same man who murdered all those young boys. But because he appeared to be an accomplice – due to his age, things he probably didn’t tell anyone, and the fact that he survived, he’s spent twenty years in prison.

Released and given a new identity and back story, the rest of his life is his to do with as he pleases. Mess it up, and he’s back inside.

He gets a job, has a flat, makes a few friends, but trouble is coming for him and there’s nothing he seems to be able to do to stop it. Befriending a teenage boy who reminds him of himself attracts attention from the wrong sort of person and unfortunately his true identity might have been uncovered.

Mason tries to steer clear, keep his head down and stay free, but deep down he’s a good person and doesn’t want to let anyone else suffer like he did. His choices aren’t going to make his life better, but they might just help someone else.

There’s a redemption arc here, and Mason has had plenty of time to reckon with his past actions and the awful things that went on in the creepy shack in the woods. We can see that he was targeted and groomed by a monster, but he couldn’t, not at the time, and that’s how things went so badly for him. I don’t think he’s even half as bad as people think, he just didn’t know where to turn and had no support. 

Fascinating to see the differing angles on the same events, how they affected the different characters and impacted their lives, and how they managed, or not, to move on and rebuild. 

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