Tag: crime fiction

‘Not all evil, on the surface, is ugly and menacing. It doesn’t always lurk in city centres after dark. It
mows your lawns, frequents your local pub, takes its kids to school and contributes to communities.’

When the first letter arrives saying that ‘tonight it begins’, journalist Miller Hatcher ignores it. But
then the body of a murdered woman is discovered, strangled, a scarf around her neck.

Cassie Hughes has always vowed to find the man who murdered her mother. Cassie knows he’s out
there and wants him to pay, and Miller agrees to bring the cold case back into the public’s eye.

Logan Dodds has been obsessed with true crime ever since his sister was murdered thirty years ago.
He has turned his obsession into a career and has created the True Crime Enthusiasts Club and his
newest venture, True Crime Tours.

The lives of Miller, Cassie and Logan – all affected differently by murder – become entwined as The Scarf Killer, desperate for infamy, and Miller’s attention, makes his mark on the small town of Lentford.

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After seven years of working as a librarian in New Zealand and overseas, Nikki now works as a freelance proofreader and copy editor. She lives in the small Waikato town of Cambridge in New Zealand with her husband and two girls.

Nikki has been writing on and off her whole life and before she turned to crime writing had success in flash fiction. She has been published in ‘Bonsai: Best Small Fictions from Aotearoa New Zealand’, and ‘Fresh Ink’ anthologies.

Crime/thriller/mystery novels are her passion. Her first novel, ‘Nothing Bad Happens Here’, featuring journalist Miller Hatcher, is set on the Coromandel Coast of New Zealand. It was a finalist in the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Award for best first novel. Her second book, ‘No One Can Hear You’, was long-listed for the Ngaio Marsh Award for best novel in 2019. ‘

The Murder Club’ is the second in the Miller Hatcher series.

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My thoughts:

This was really enjoyable, a small town is suddenly on the map after a killer starts their spree, with everyone looking at their friends and neighbours slightly differently. Is the murderer among them?

Miller is a local journalist who gets drawn into the case by the killer, who starts sending her letters, in the sinister tradition of Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer, among others. Instead of publishing them however, she hands them to the police, determined not to give in to the murderer’s desire for publicity.

But she can’t help but wonder about it, as more women are killed and it dredges up terrible things from the past – like the murder of Cassie’s mother, and the other terrible deaths Logan’s awful murder tours exploit.

The plot is clever, the ending satisfying, and Cassie and Miller make great characters – similar but different, both dealing with their troubled pasts and trying to heal, both stronger than they think.

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

When a body is found in the grounds of a prestigious Wiltshire private school, DI Gillian Marsh takes
on the case. The young groundsman, Bradley Watson, has been shot dead, pierced through the heart with an arrow.
As the investigation gathers pace, DI Marsh is frustrated to find the Whalehurst staff and students
united in silence. This scandal must not taint their reputation. But when Gillian discovers pictures of missing Whalehurst pupil, fifteen-year-old Rachel Snyder, on Bradley’s dead body – photos taken on the night she disappeared, and he was murdered – the link between the two is undeniable.
But what is Whalehurst refusing to reveal? And does Gillian have what it takes to bring about
justice?

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Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mystery series. A
globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian.

She read law at the University of South Africa and Warsaw University, then gained teaching qualifications in New Zealand.

She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories.

Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.

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Giveaway to Win a DI Marsh Series Mug, and the first four books in the Series (UK Only) DI Marsh Series First four books – Swimming with Sharks, Nothing to Lose, Thicker than Blood and Sandman.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this crime novel set in a small Wiltshire village, after a body is found on the boundary of an elite public school.

Dealing with the attitudes and insularity of the privileged school felt slightly familiar as my home town also houses (and shares a name with) one of the fanciest public schools in the country.

At this school, Whalehurst, there is a distinct us and them attitude with regards to the villagers, and the headmaster tries to push the investigation off his campus. However the dead body is a member of staff, and there’s also a missing student to account for.

Within the walls of the school someone knows what happened, and Detective Inspector Marsh is not giving up.

She’s a forceful and determined protagonist, putting the case first in her priorities as she searches for answers on behalf of the families and victims. She knows there’s something very wrong at the school, and she will keep digging.

Clever, gripping and with a sinister villain at the heart of it, this was a great read and perfect for a cold, wintry night’s reading.

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

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A homeless man. Violently strangled. No leads. Except his past.

An outsider himself, DS George Cross is drawn to this case. The discovery of the dead man’s connection to an old cold case then pulls Cross in further. Convinced this is where the answer to the murder lies, he sets about solving another that someone has spent the past fifteen years thinking they’ve got away with.

Cross’ relentless obsession with logic, detail and patterns is what makes him so irritatingly brilliant. It doesn’t exactly make him popular with colleagues or his superiors, though. He has numerous enemies in the force wanting to see him fail.
Red flags are soon raised as suspicious inconsistencies and errors in the original detective’s investigation come to light. Now retired, this ex-cop has powerful friends in the force and a long-standing dislike of Cross.
Set in picturesque Bristol in the Southwest of England, it’s not long before the city reveals its dark underbelly, in a case of intriguing twists and turns whose result astonishes even those involved.
Difficult and awkward, maybe. But Cross has the best conviction rate in Avon & Somerset Police. By far. Will this case put an end to that?

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TIM SULLIVAN made his first short film before graduating from Cambridge University. His ambition to become a screenwriter was formed not so much by this experience but as an attempt to foil his father’s determination to turn him into a lawyer.

Within weeks of leaving university armed with a law degree he had met the film maker Derek Jarman and persuaded him to commission an original screenplay from him entitled BOB UPADOWN and so a career was born.

A few months later he joined Granada Television as a researcher. Here he was commissioned to write the first of many television scripts for the company. Two sitcoms entitled THE TRAIN NOW LEAVING and THE GREASY SPOON followed by the crime dramas MYSTERIOUS WAYS and MAIGRET.

While at Granada he was selected for the prestigious Directors’ Training scheme when only 26. Previous encumbents had included Mike Newell, Roland Joffe, and Michael Apted, more recently Julian Farino. Among other credits he directed CORONATION STREET, MADE IN HEAVEN, THATCHER THE FINAL DAYS and THE CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES with Jeremy Brett.

During this time he also co wrote the screenplays for the movies A HANDFUL OF DUST starring Kristen Scott Thomas, Judi Dench and Alec Guinness and WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD starring Helen Mirren and Helena Bonham Carter, both with producer the legendary TV producer Derek Granger (BRIDESHEAD REVISITED).

Upon leaving the bosom of Granada and venturing into the wild wide world of the freelance film maker he wrote and directed the movie JACK AND SARAH starring Richard E Grant, Samantha Mathis, Ian Mckellen, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins. This led to a commission from New Line Pictures to write the screenplay WALKING PAPERS based on the Jay Cronley novel of the same name.

This screenplay came to the attention of execs at Universal and Imagine who then asked Tim to do a page one rewrite of a western for Ron Howard entitled THE PRETENDERS. Tim enjoyed working with Ron for over a year on this.

He then wrote an original screenplay, PERSONAL SHOPPING, which was promptly snapped up by Paramount for producer Scott Rudin.

He spent four months working for and with Jeffrey Katzenberg at Dreamworks animation as a production writer on the movie FLUSHED AWAY. Impressed by his work Katzenberg commissioned him to write a script for SHREK 4 which wasn’t used as a different storyline was decided upon as a director came on board.

During this time he was actively involved in British television directing the last ever ninety minute episode of the BAFTA award winning series COLD FEET. As well as a TV movie for ITV called CATWALK DOGS written by Simon Nye.

He was commissioned by the BBC to write a pilot for a TV series he invented called BACKSTORY as well as another pilot for the ITV network entitled OFFSPRING.

He also wrote HIS MASTER’S VOICE for the BBC as a radio play starring Rob Brydon which was broadcast in 2015.

He recently wrote the screenplay for LETTERS TO JULIET starring Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave.

Oscar winning producers of The King’s Speech, Iain Canning and Emile Sherman then commissioned an original screenplay from him entitled THE WEDDING DRESS.

Tim is writing and co-producing and co-writing an animated feature screenplay for Hasbro and Paramount which is in production and scheduled for release in 2021.

He has now embarked on a series of crime novels featuring the eccentric and socially-awkward, but brilliantly persistent DS George Cross. Set in Bristol in the south west of England, Cross’ methods often infuriate his colleagues and superiors “not so much a thorn in my side as a pain in my arse,” according to his boss DCI Carson. But his conviction rate, thanks to his dogged persistence and attention to detail, is the best in the force. The DENTIST is in the first of a series.

The Cyclist (DS George Cross #2) was published on 2nd September 2020 and is available to purchase NOW!

Tim lives in North London with his wife Rachel, the Emmy award-winning producer of THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA and PIONEER WOMAN.

He is currently the UK chair of the Writers’ Guild of America (West).

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My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book, although at first glance I thought it might be about a murderous dentist (I’m glad it’s not, dentists scare me!). Instead it’s about a brilliant detective with Aspergers Syndrome (a form of autism that happens to run in my family) which means a lot of people find DS Cross hard to deal with.

He is very single minded and determined to solve the murder of a homeless man that at first appears to be a tragic accident but Cross realises it has links to a previous murder and ends up solving two crimes.

Cleverly written, gripping and with a lot of twists and just enough red herrings to keep an amateur sleuth/reader guessing, I look forward to the next one.