Tag: crime fiction

What if one moment – one split second – changed everything? 

When a firearms officer shoots a suspect dead and wounds another, who later dies in hospital, the official line is that the sun was in her eyes. Her body cam failed.

Known only as Officer X, her anonymity is meant to protect her – until a judge releases her name and a media storm erupts. Detective Superintendent Jack Dylan and DI Charley Mann are called in to determine whether it was a justifiable use of force – or something darker. And when it’s revealed that Officer X knew the victim, and her brother died of a drug overdose linked to the same woman, the case becomes charged with personal and political tension.

As pressure mounts, a vulnerable witness dies and a lost phone surfaces with a photograph and a message that could unravel everything – and reveal the truth about what happened that day.

Split Second brings Dylan and Mann together for the first time, in an investigation that will test their instincts, their loyalties and the limits of justice itself, as both detectives must decide how far they’ll go – and what they’re willing to sacrifice – to uncover the truth.

Former Head of CID Bob Bridgestock is now an international best-selling author, along with his wife Carol, who also worked for West Yorkshire Police. The couple, who write under the pen name of R.C. Bridgestock, were voted the eight best crime writers of all me by WHSmith Readers.

The writing duo created the character DI Jack Dylan, a detective from Harrowfield, with nine books in the Dylan series. In 2020, they launched a new series featuring a strong Yorkshire female, Detective Inspector Charley Mann. The couple were the storyline consultants/police procedural on BAFTA winning BBC1 police drama Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey and The Beast Must Die, as well as other police dramas.

My thoughts: I can’t imagine having to make the split second decision the story revolves around, knowing you might be about to end someone’s life, but the officer in this case does make that decision and then everything changes.

The decision is made to charge the officer with murder – because she has a link to one of the deceased pair of criminals, and it looks a bit convenient that she was the one who took the shot. But things are a lot more complicated than that.

As the case progresses, as the barristers present their versions of events, hoping to sway the jury, we spend time with Officer X, her nerves and her fears. It’s intense and the confines of the dock add to the feeling of pressure building. Juries can be hard to predict and if one barrister is more persuasive than the other, that could be all it takes.

There’s a couple of killer twists and a few things not followed up by either the police or the lawyers that leave unanswered questions and a nagging suspicion of something else going on. It’s very clever and subtle. 

I really enjoyed this, it’s got excellent plotting, paced out beautifully, and interesting characters, I wanted to know more about so many of them. A really good read. 

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

Detective Abigail Morton of Kent Police is in a race against time to catch a killer before he finds his perfect victim. Because when he finds her, she will die.

She must have red hair, green eyes, and pale skin. Just like Lizzy Oaken. Lizzyʼs drink is spiked. She wakes up in a locked basement. Trapped by a man who knows exactly what he wants from her. He cuts a lock of her hair as a trophy. But for some reason sheʼs not quite right. And Lizzy survives.

Detective Abigail is Lizzyʼs source handler. Her last informant turned up in A&E, badly beaten, too frightened to talk any more. Now sheʼs relying on Lizzy. Because the attacker is still out there. Still searching. And the next woman might be the perfect victim.

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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: DC Abigail Morton has a tendency to take risks, not check in with her colleagues and put herself in harm’s way. Which she does once again in pursuit of whoever is kidnapping young women, knocking them out, assaulting them and then threatening to send out degrading photos taken during the time they were unconscious. But as awful as it is, sometimes these women end up dead.

The victims have all been students at the university, and there seems to be a link with parties taking place in abandoned, condemned buildings. But Abigail’s informant claims not to know anything.

There’s also a connection to a case from fifteen years ago, could it be the same man, released from prison and living in another county? 

As Abigail continues to run her own investigation, leaving her partner and the wider team out of the loop, she doesn’t realise that she’s being watched, her somewhat foolish attempt to solve the case all by herself, shadowed by people who will keep her safe.

She has good instincts, but is impulsive and her partner, the good natured, cake loving Vince is at the end of his tether. Abigail needs to get better at her communication skills or risk losing her job. Thankfully not this time, and the team might be just in time to save a life.

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

A city-wide conspiracy. A serial killer on the loose. A detective battling her own demons.

If pain is the price of strength, Grace is one of the strongest people you will ever meet. Five crime scenes connected by a visible pattern. A serial killer terrorizes the citizens of Jacksonville, and the entire police force is focused on cracking the case—but will they be able to stop the murderer before more bodies are found?

Three suspects who all tell a different story. Homicide detective Grace Hartwellʼs knack for reading people has never let her down—until now. Is the killer playing a clever game or is she losing touch with herself? One determined detective with a taste for justice.

Grace’s life is dedicated to her work. But she has a dark secret—a secret that could jeopardize not only her job but her life . . .

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Wendy Church is a Seattle-based author known for fast-paced and sometimes humorous crime fiction novels.

Her latest, Five Things I See, is to-date her darkest, and most psychologically complex book that Kirkus referred to as “A textbook case of how to make a police procedural pulse with energy.ˮ

Wendyʼs debut, Murder on the Spanish Seas, was named a Booklist Top Ten Debut Mystery/Thriller novel of 2023, and introduces Jesse OʼHara, an introverted and often inebriated woman with a million dollar brain and a ten-cent personality who travels to interesting places and solves crimes, sometimes on purpose.

Knife Skills, the first in Wendyʼs Shadows of Chicago series, follows a talented chef who is forced to work for the FBI. Knife Skills received a starred review from Kirkus, “Audiences who wish the TV series The Bear could make room for Russian mobsters are in for a treat.”

Wendyʼs propulsive novels are informed by her international travel and many careers. Sheʼs been a bartender, tennis pro, management consultant, nonprofit CEO, PhD researcher, and dive bar cleaner. When sheʼs not writing, doing research, or reading, Wendy spends time with her partner as full time personal valets to a dog and two cats.

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My thoughts: Grace is an excellent detective, but has a habit of going off on her own and not always communicating with her colleagues. She has a theory about the killer and is determined to follow it, despite being told by her boss to stop digging.

Instead she finds a friend, a man in hiding, a former detective in witness protection, and someone she can test her theories out on, especially as a new colleague on the team is annoying her.

But Grace has secrets, her childhood was brutal and it’s left its marks. Marks she isn’t always totally aware of. Things only her psychiatrist knows. If the sheriffs office found out, she’d lose her job, and she has a killer to catch.

I really liked Grace, she’s complicated and brilliant, a smart and savvy detective, who won’t let anyone stop her from solving her cases, she sees things others miss and puts things together. She doesn’t trust easily and has few friends, which is understandable when you know about her childhood and how much she’s suffered.

Her secrets and how hard she works to keep them could be her downfall, but could also help her in solving cases, depending on how she uses them. I look forward to her next case, I’m intrigued to see where this goes.

*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 Elinor Saxby thinks she’s found her perfect rural retreat: a crooked little cottage amid the towering pines of the New Forest. But bad things still happen in beautiful places . . .

On a lonely stretch of shingle, where the Solent laps the forest’s edge, something terrible is about to wash ashore.
The bloated body of a young man. Several days dead.
A ragged wound gapes in his chest. Because this was no accident. He’s been
shot at close range, then dumped.

City cop Elinor’s on the case — and utterly out of her depth.
The frosty coastguard tells Elinor the victim is a stranger. From out of town.
But Elinor would swear she knows more than she’s saying . . .

Before long, a second body is discovered deep in the forest.
Same wound. Same cold-blooded MO. Same killer?

It’s up to Elinor to unravel the truth from the lies, before more victims die.
But she’d better watch her back.Because here in the New Forest, secrets run deeper — and darker — than the murky waters of the Solent itself.

Trusting the wrong person might just cost Elinor everything . . .

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Linda Mather is the author of the Jo and Macy Mystery series. The 6th book in this series is THE PERFECT HOUSE FOR MURDER, published in August 2023.

Her Jo and Macy Mystery books are Forecast Murder, A Sign for Murder, Murder as Predicted, The Hanged
Man and A Future Murder, all published by Joffe Books and available on Amazon. They feature Jo Hughes and her private investigator boss David Macy. Jo is an astrologer, who also works as a PI and whose tenacious inquiries lead her to twisty resolutions.

The Jo and Macy Mysteries series is set in the West Midlands and Cotswolds. A sense of place is really important to Linda. She likes to research the places she writes about by visiting when she can to absorb the atmosphere, weaving the details into the stories.

The idea for her latest book came to her during lockdown during many canal walks. The cottages with their flower-filled window boxes and the idyllic pubs along the canal path are so pretty and perfect that it looks as if nothing bad could ever happen there. Linda saw this as a challenge.

Linda has recently landed a contract for 3 books in a police thriller series and is currently writing the first of these, which is set in the New Forest.

She also has plans for the next Jo & Macy Mystery.

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My thoughts: Elinor is still trying to find her feet in this new role, her predecessor casts a long shadow and she feels her team don’t always listen, and neither do her superiors.

When a body washes ashore with a gunshot wound, and the coastguard volunteer claims not to recognise the victim, she’s suspicious. Then when another person is killed in the same manner, but this time on land, she and her team know something strange is going on.

I really like Nancy, the DC, she’s new to the role and still learning but has good instincts and a determination to get to the truth, although this does sometimes lead her to go off on her own and put herself at risk.

Elinor is a good detective, she’s got lots of experience and knowledge, but she doesn’t really understand the place or the people yet. The New Forest is very different from inner city Birmingham, and the people aren’t always keen on incomers.

This case follows the adage that murder is always about money or love, sometimes both. There’s plenty of twists and turns, unreliable witnesses and suspicious goings on. The team will have to separate truth from lies to solve it, and with suspects pointing fingers at each other, work out what really happened.

A really enjoyable second outing for this team of detectives and with more of their personal lives, they feel more rounded and interesting as characters. Very good.

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