Tag: crime fiction

Liz has been watching the neighbors. One of them has noticed.

Liz McAdams knows a lot about her neighbors. Recently divorced, with time on her hands, she amuses herself by observing them as she walks her dog past their houses. And no life looks more wonderful than Sabrina Thompson’s.

Beautiful, wealthy, married to a gorgeous husband, Sabrina seems to have it all. But one day Liz sees something through Sabrina’s bedroom window – something that could blow her seemingly perfect marriage apart. Liz is shocked and intrigued. She herself has always played by the rules and now she can’t help envying Sabrina’s reckless abandon as she risks everything for her own pleasure.

Fascinated, she starts to watch Sabrina’s every move. And soon realizes that her glamorous neighbor has some very dark secrets. Then there is a chilling murder on this affluent street, and Liz wonders if Sabrina could be involved.

Even more disturbing, Sabrina seems to have noticed that Liz has been shadowing her. Leaving Liz with two terrifying questions – Is Sabrina a killer? And what might she do to the woman who knows too much?

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Lauren Dykovitz writes psychological thrillers and suspense novels. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Steve, and her black lab, Lucy. Lauren is a former police officer with a Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and sociology, as well as a minor in legal studies. She has an unhealthy obsession with true crime and murder that makes her husband sleep with one eye open. Lauren has also self-published two memoirs about her mom’s battle with Early Onset Alzheimer’s.

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My thoughts: Liz has taken a sabbatical from her job as a divorce lawyer, hoping to spend her time writing a book but she’s having writer’s block. Lonely, she spends her time walking her dog, and watching her neighbours.

She’s fascinated especially by Sabrina and her husband Greg. Sabrina is beautiful, with a lovely house, great wardrobe and an apparently loving husband. Liz becomes a bit too obsessed with Sabrina.

When Sabrina’s husband is murdered, Liz starts her own investigation, which catches Sabrina’s attention. She’s fed up with her nosey neighbour, especially when she’s questioned by the police. She was at a spa weekend her husband sent her on when he died, but Liz is convinced the beautiful young widow was involved.

Can Sabrina, with her collection of lovers, truly be innocent? And what will Liz find out if she keeps spying on her neighbour? Well, read it and find out!

With a rather brilliant twist at the end, this is a smart and entertaining whodunnit.

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

Something old, something new, something borrowed… someone dead?!

When Sadie Sutton swapped four walls for the four wheels of her trusty orange VW campervan, she didn’t realise that it would come with a new career as a super sleuth! But when a wedding at local beauty spot Winching Priory Hotel is halted because the father of the groom has been found fatally poisoned, Sadie drops everything to take on her next case!

As the wedding grinds to a halt, Sadie soon learns that the victim, gifted local artist Benedict Lawrence, also had a talent for making enemies, from the snooty hotel owners to his long-suffering ex-wife. With an ever-growing list of possible suspects, Sadie is stumped. Until she finds a crumpled, threatening note sent to Benedict hours before he died.

The note leads Sadie deep into Benedict’s past, to a secret love affair, a bitter feud and a long-buried grudge. And when she finds a faded newspaper article about him and his artist friends in their youth, she’s stunned at who else she recognises in the photo…

With secrets and lies at every turn, Sadie knows no guests are safe. Can she crack the case before the nearly wed become newly dead?

This warm, witty and utterly addictive cosy crime novel from bestselling author Maeve Haran is perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, The Thursday Murder Club and Robert Thorogood.

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Maeve Haran is an Oxford law graduate who had a successful career in television before writing her worldwide bestseller Having It All , which was translated into twenty-six languages. She has written twenty contemporary novels, two historical novels, and a work of non-fiction in praise of life’s small pleasures. She has three grown up children and four grandchildren. She lives mainly in North London but escapes when she can to a much-loved cottage in the beautiful Cuckmere Valley near the sea in East Sussex. Her hobby is ignoring age and having a good time!

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My thoughts: The campervan detective is back! Asked by an old friend to help out because there’s something not quite right about her daughter’s wedding, Sadie isn’t expecting the groom’s father to be murdered.

And with both his current and ex wives present, as well as a few other people with old scores to settle, there seems to be plenty of suspects around. But who could have smuggled poison into the victim? Especially one that’s quite unpleasant taste-wise.

As Sadie investigates with the help of the Vintage Vanettes and her old teacher, there seems to be more than just murder going on at this country hotel!

Another fun and slightly dangerous adventure for our sleuth and her canine sidekick.

*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 a notorious investigation into Los Angeles’s darkest criminal network thrusts private investigator Trevor Finnegan into the national spotlight, the fallout is immediate—and lethal.

Haunted by his past as a cop and driven by an obsession with justice for the dead, Finnegan has spent years hunting the powerful men who profited from torture and murder on the dark web.

But when a billionaire suspect dies in federal custody and the agents involved turn up dead under suspicious circumstances, Finnegan finds himself facing a far more insidious enemy. One that doesn’t just silence people but drives them to the edge.

As Finnegan digs deeper, his search leads him into the orbit of a brilliant, charismatic tech mogul promising a cleaner, safer future through artificial intelligence. And the line between progress and cruelty blurs beyond recognition.

With his pregnant wife at risk, his agency on the brink of collapse, and his own moral compass under siege, Finnegan must decide how far he’s willing to go—and what he’s willing to lose—to stop a force that claims it can conquer death itself.

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Aaron Philip Clark is the author of the International Thriller Writers Award-nominated Detective Trevor Finnegan series. He has co-written and collaborated on works of fiction with rap artist and entertainment mogul Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Civil Rights Attorney and activist Benjamin L. Crump, and various public figures and luminaries.

He has two forthcoming novels: BLUES FOR THE DEAD (Severn House/Joffe Books), which features Det. Trevor Finnegan, an ex-LAPD detective turned PI, investigating a powerful tech CEO with a dark past and nefarious plans for the future, and ALL THE SMOKE (Amistad/HarperCollins), a psychological thriller inspired by The Talented Mr. Ripley, set in the world of hip-hop and scheduled for publication in Feb. 2027.

In addition to writing, Aaron is a professor at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in Hollywood, CA, and hosts the podcast, The Culture Point, on the Authors on the Air Global Radio network.

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My thoughts: PI Trevor Finnegan is helping the FBI look into a group of truly nasty predators, but when the agents he’s been working with turn up dead, it looks like it might all fall apart. But when the tech billionaire son of a dead suspect hires him, he finds a whole new layer of evil.

His wife’s pregnant and on bed rest, his ex is a mess which puts their young daughter in danger, and his team are not happy with his methods.

As he digs into his new client and tries to find out what really happened to the FBI agents, he puts everything he holds dear at risk.

A smart, gripping dark thriller that exposes the risks of progress when it does harm and the way powerful people manipulate the situation.

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

The Boy is a powerful novel of wasted talent, loss, greed and revenge – but also of discovered genius and life-affirming friendship.

By turns terrifying, taut, humane and tender it tells the origin story of Ireland’s organised-crime epidemic with a skill and grace which belies a debut novel, and is the calling-card of a ringing new voice in Irish fiction.

When the Guards knock on the door The Boy already knows his mother is dead. His father flees to the pub, leaving him to wait alone. Soon his brother Fallon, half-protector and half-outlaw, draws him into a world where grief and crime are rarely separated. At the same time, a wealthy landowner harbours grotesque secrets in the countryside – a hidden “family” of abducted boys, a nightmare lurking beneath respectability.

As The Boy moves through these fractured worlds – his father’s guilt, his uncle’s paramilitary past, his brother’s violent death – he becomes both witness and inheritor of a brutal legacy.

Think of a space where the layered complexity of Tana French meets the whipsmart dialogue and brutal beauty of Colin Barrett and the sharp tenderness and humour of Graeme Armstrong’s The Young Team – and you’re somewhere near where this novel will take you.

The Boy is a dark, lyrical crime debut. It is unflinching, propulsive, and unforgettable.

Mark Gyves is an Irish crime fiction writer. He has lived and worked in the UK and Ireland and now resides in his hometown on the outskirts of Cork.

My thoughts: I actually thought this was a black comedy, as The Boy becomes mired in death and crime in order to buy video games, pizza and trainers. He takes over his brother’s drug business with his strange friend, gets caught up with some complete nutcases and goes all out for revenge.

The world he finds himself in is full of gangsters and drug dealers, people who don’t want to know what’s going on, but also kind neighbours and loving grandmothers. His dad’s a deadbeat, but was once a genius, until he used that brilliance to improve ways of blowing people up and turned to drink, The Boy makes sure his bar tab has been paid.

It’s a weird, dark place, the underbelly of Cork and full of very odd people with nasty habits like killing people or keeping them in dungeons under their ancestral home. The Boy is smart but perhaps a bit too young and naive for the life he finds himself in.

An interesting and quite enjoyable 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.

She vanished without a trace. But someone knows exactly where she is.

Bronte Lowe — single mother and the key witness to a local hit-and-run — disappears in broad daylight.

Probation officer Cate Austin is used to spotting lies. So when Adam, one of her offenders, starts raising red flags, she can’t ignore her instincts.

Meanwhile, Adam’s girlfriend Freya has just moved into his remote cliffside home, hoping for a fresh start. But something isn’t right. The closer she looks, the more she senses the house is hiding something — or someone.

As Bronte’s disappearance collides with Cate’s investigation, a web of secrets begins to unravel. When desperation takes over, how far will three women go to protect what they love?

Don’t miss this gripping thriller, perfect for fans of Joy Ellis from award-winning, Kindle #1 bestselling author Ruth Dugdall.

My thoughts: Cate returns to Ipswich when her troubled sister Lizzie leaves rehab and goes missing. Staying with her ex, so their daughter can spend time with her dad, she gets drawn into the mysterious disappearance of the woman next door – Bronte. Everyone is adamant she wouldn’t abandon her son Kai and the dog came home from a walk without her.

Having exhausted the possibility that she somehow fell into the sea, the police move onto more sinister options  – did someone take Bronte? If so, is it because she was a victim in a hit and run – the van that hit her was driven by a notorious local drug dealer, or because of her job at local nuclear power station? There’s currently a protest being held about it.

Cate agrees to do a few days as a probation officer again – the money will be useful, and while supervising a new recruit, meets a suspicious character  – Adam. Her spidey senses tingling, she looks into him. All the while trying to find Bronte and get Lizzie back into rehab. 

Another complex and involved outing for Cate Austin, who really needs to start her own detective agency, she’s always doing so much. Returning to Suffolk wasn’t necessarily the best move – she gets sucked into so many people’s lives and reconnecting with Tim has its risks too.

I really enjoyed this, the whole series is great, and can’t wait to see what chaos Cate gets into next 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.

A skeleton tied to a chair. A witness whose story unravels. A killer who’s not finished yet.

Detective Greg Geldard is still reeling from a blazing row with his partner Chris when the call comes. A body in a derelict farmhouse outside the quiet Norfolk village of Themelthorpe. Nothing in twenty-five years of policing has prepared Geldard for this. A headless skeleton bound at the wrists and ankles. And facing it, a tripod. A video camera pointing straight at the remains. The only witness is a hitchhiker whose story falls apart the moment Geldard starts asking questions.

But one thing is clear: someone wanted this woman’s death to be seen. And someone may still be watching. Because somewhere on the Norfolk Broads, another woman is already tied to a chair. Waiting for her turn in front of the camera. She has days if she’s lucky. Hours if she’s not.

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Award-winning author Heather Peck has enjoyed a varied life. She has been both farmer and agricultural policy adviser, volunteer covid vaccinator and NHS Trust Chair. She bred sheep and alpacas, reared calves, broke ploughs, represented the UK in international negotiations, specialised in emergency response from Chernobyl to bird flu, managed controls over pesticides and GM crops, saw legislation through Parliament and got paid to eat Kit Kats while on secondment to Nestle Rowntree. She is author of the very popular DCI Geldard Norfolk Mysteries and her standalone thriller ‘Milestones’ won the PageTurner Book Award for best crime novel in 2024. She lives in Norfolk with her partner Gary, two dogs and two cats. See more and sign up for Heather’s free monthly newsletter at http://www.heatherpeckauthor.com

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My thoughts: This is a shocking case, starting with the remains of a young woman being found in a rotting farm house. The hitchhiker who found her body has a story that doesn’t add up and as the police investigate it becomes clear something dark and terrible happened to the woman.

And then it becomes apparent that there’s another victim, a woman being slowly starved to death on camera. The online team determine she’s somewhere in Norfolk, and a task force swings into place to find her and get her help as fast as they can. But who is behind this and what is the connection between the victims, a London university and the farm where the first woman was found?

DS Geldard also has some personal stuff going on, as his partner is struggling with returning to work in a reduced capacity, and it’s throwing a lot of things up in the air. He needs to focus on the case but he can’t neglect his family.

A sinister and disturbing story of vulnerable young women being exploited and killed by a murderer without a conscience. 

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