Tag: crime fiction

‘You can’t save someone that doesn’t want to be saved . . .’
Thirty years ago, Vincent King became a killer.
Now, he’s been released from prison and is back in his hometown of Cape Haven, California. Not everyone is pleased to see him. Like Star Radley, his ex-girlfriend, and sister of the girl he killed.
Duchess Radley, Star’s thirteen-year-old daughter, is part-carer, part-protector to her younger brother, Robin – and to her deeply troubled mother. But in trying to protect Star, Duchess inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will have tragic consequences not only for her family, but also the whole town.
Murder, revenge, retribution.

How far can we run from the past when the past seems doomed to repeat itself?

My thoughts:

Occasionally you come across a book that does the unexpected and rips your heart out. This book does just that.

Duchess Day Radley, outlaw, sister, broken hearted child; such a compelling and moving protagonist, so young but life has been brutal and happiness will be ripped away from her over and over.

The adults around her are stuck in the past, suffering from events thirty years ago, dragging their guilt and pain around with them.

This whole book is a treat to read but also one that leaves you breathless, the prose is so crisp and precise, a masterclass in imagery and creating in its readers a deep empathy and understanding.

I was kindly gifted a copy of this book with no obligation to review but all opinions remain my own.

Alexandra Avellino has just found her father’s mutilated body, and needs the police right away. She believes her sister killed him, and that she is still in the house with a knife.

Sofia Avellino has just found her father’s mutilated body and needs the police right away. She believes her sister, Alexandra did it, and that she is still in the house, locked in the bathroom.

Both women are to go on trial at the same time. A joint trial in front of one jury.

But one of these women is lying. One of them is a murderer. Sitting in a jail cell, about to go on trial with her sister for murder, you might think that this is the last place she expected to be.

You’d be wrong.

My thoughts:

The Eddie Flynn books are very popular in my house and so there was a little unseemly squabbling about who got to read this first.

The plot is so clever, the twist at the end I couldn’t even see coming, and I’m pretty good at spotting them.

Cavanagh is an excellent writer at the top of his game and knows how to deliver a clever, witty plot and play with his readers’ brains in the process.

I was kindly sent a copy of this book with no obligation to review.

Meet Weston Kogi, a London supermarket store detective. He returns home to his West African home country for his aunt’s funeral. He sees his family, his ex-girlfriend Nana, his old school mate Church. Food is good, beer is plentiful, and telling people he works as a homicide detective seems like harmless hyperbole, until he wakes up in hell.

He is kidnapped and forced by two separate rebel factions to investigate the murder of a local hero, Papa Busi. The solution may tip a country on the brink into civil war.

Making Wolf is the outrageous, frightening, violent and sometimes surreal homecoming experience of a lifetime.

Tade Thompson is the author of Rosewater, a John W. Campbell Award finalist and winner of the 2017 NOMMO Award for Best Novel. His novella The Murders of Molly Southbourne has recently been optioned for screen adaptation. He also writes short stories, notably ‘The Apologists’ which was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award. Born in London to Yoruba parents, he lives and works on the south coast of England where he battles an addiction to books.

My thoughts:

I’d read Thompson’s award winning Rosewater, a strange, trippy novel and was curious to see what he’d do with the detective genre.

Making Wolf starts with a small lie told at a funeral and takes in a whole lot of chaos; political factions at war, poverty, murder, kidnap, you name it, Weston encounters it – all the things his aunt sent him out of the country to avoid.

Having been assigned a case he’s not exactly equipped for by both sides of a long running rebel feud, Weston soon finds himself up to his eyeballs in trouble but making some headway with the case, as long as he can stay alive.

Funny and wry, this is a clever take on the detective genre and I found myself rooting for Weston as the secret police, both rebel factions, various taxi drivers and his ex-girlfriend cause havoc around him.

West Africa is brought vividly to life, I could really picture the places Weston visited and the people he encountered, from the super obese inmate of the asylum to the Somalian pirates on a luxury yacht.

*I was kindly sent a copy of this book by the publisher with no requirement to post a review. All opinions remain my own.