Tag: crime fiction

Holed up in prison, Mike Regan is offered a deal – his freedom in exchange for his firm taking down the gang that is supplying a new dangerous drug that has hit the streets. What starts as a game soon becomes a shocking revelation with devastating consequences.

Meanwhile, Mike’s fiancé, Zara Ezra, has her own firm to run. But when the so-called Governor is out to take her down, she has her own decision to make – either fight, run, or write her own rule book…

My thoughts:

If you like the gangsters are the heroes genre of thrillers, then you’ve probably already heard of Kerry Barnes.

Rather than a police procedural this book is on the other side of the tracks and the bad guys make the rules.

An enjoyable romp through a London that most people wouldn’t recognise,of gangs and guns, is at heart about people. And people can be messy and complicated, even while trying to rise to the top and stay alive.

Mysterious marina accidents. Destroyed evidence. Can a tenacious reporter decipher the twisted clues at a small-town lake?

Jordan Reed is burned out from all the attention on her previous high-profile story. But when a new lead lands in her lap, she reluctantly postpones her vacation to investigate a classic New England marina. With hundreds of dead fish washing up on Copper Lake’s otherwise pristine shores, Jordan suspects a sinister cover-up.
But by the time she arrives on the scene, she’s surprised to discover the police chief eliminated every last carcass and seems hellbent on blocking her inquiries. And her search for the culprit takes a perilous turn when gambling kingpins descend on the city and a string of unexplained calamities plague the docks.
Can Jordan expose the corruption, or will she be the next to go belly-up?
Lake Effect is the second book in the fast-paced Jordan Reed mystery series. If you like steely female sleuths, gripping action, and clever twists that’ll keep you guessing, then you’ll love K.C. Gillis’s page-turning mystery.
Buy Lake Effect to dive into dangerous waters today!

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K.C. (Kevin) Gillis is the author of the Jordan Reed mystery series. Despite being a lifelong lover of stories and books, writing took a distant back seat as his professional career travelled through the Canadian Air Force, a decade as a chemist, followed by a long and continuing run in corporate America. With writing no longer in the back seat (but not quite yet in the front seat), Kevin how has the Jordan Reed series well under way. His personal interests focus on endurance and water sports. Having grown up in the Canadian Maritimes, he now lives in the US northeast with his wife, teenagers and a pair of black cats.

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Published in ebook format on 26th May 2020 by Chesterfield Press

My thoughts:

This was an interesting twist on the crime novel – some dead fish lead to a whole range of conspiracy and scandal and the local sheriff is right at the heart of it all – not the hero cop common in crime fiction.

Jordan is a complicated character – she’s initially reluctant to investigate but gets drawn into the strange goings on at the lake, and draws in others to assist her.

The plot is compelling and as the schemes pile up and the villains surface, it gets knottier.

*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 stunning new thriller from the authors of Serial Damage. In a sleepy country village, Detective Inspector Robin Marshal – now in retirement – is nearly killed by a stranger. His friend Alice, a police psychiatrist, discovers that the murder attempt was almost certainly ordered by a terrifying criminal, ‘Big Mack’, currently incarcerated in a notoriously violent prison. There his criminal kingdom controls not only the inmates, but many of the guards, through the power of money and the threat of extreme violence.
When Alice goes to work in the prison to find out more, she too, becomes a target, her car machine-gunned on a country road, and Robin is attacked again while recovering in Spain.
Under pressure from an outraged public and with political concern rising, the authorities try to put a stop to Big Mack’s activities. But everyone is under threat when he is suddenly at large following a murderous escape. How can this evil kingpin be stopped?

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Donough enjoyed a successful marketing career in Britain, Ireland and the US. His previous books include Fame by Chance, Banana Skins, Numeroid, and In the Heat of Battle: a study of those who rose to the occasion in warfare and those who didn’t. His latest historical book was WHO? The most remarkable people you’ve never heard of. He has co-authored thrillers Peace Breaks Out with Robin Hardy and Serial Damage with his wife Liz Cowley.

Liz Cowley, whose family comes from Connemara, is a long-time fan of poetry, she enjoyed success with her first collection, A Red Dress, published in 2008 and her second, What am I Doing Here? (2010), which were then made into a theatrical show. Her next book ‘And guess who he was with?’ published in 2013, and two poetry books for gardeners, Outside in my Dressing Gown, and Gardening in Slippers, are bestsellers. Serial Damage was her first novel.

My thoughts:

This was a clever thriller about the past catching up to a copper and his psychiatrist friend and former colleague.

As the plot bounds from England to Spain and France, Big Mack’s reach seems unstoppable and Robin and Alice live in fear.

The writing is crisp, the plot clever and the narrative keeps you hooked with each twist and turn.

*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 new book in the bestselling Hannah Weybridge thriller series!

Dulwich Library is the scene of a grisly murder, followed swiftly by another in Manchester, the victims linked by nothing other than their Australian nationality. Police dismiss the idea of a serial killer, but journalist Hannah Weybridge isn’t convinced. She is drawn into an investigation in which more Australian men are killed as they try to trace their British families. Her research reveals past horrors and present sadness, and loss linked to children who went missing after the Second World War. Have those children returned now?
Once again Hannah finds herself embroiled in a deadly mystery, a mystery complicated by the murder of Harry Peters; the brother of Lucy, one of the residents of Cardboard City she had become friendly with. It soon becomes clear Lucy is protecting secrets of her own.
What is Lucy’s link to the murders and can Hannah discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

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For most of her working life in publishing, Anne has had a foot in both camps as a writer and an editor, moving from book publishing to magazines and then freelancing in both. Having edited both fiction and narrative non-fiction, she has also had short stories published in a variety of magazines including Bella and Candis and is the author of seven non-fiction books. Telling stories is Anne’s first love and nearly all her short fiction as well as Dancers in The Wind and Death’s Silent Judgement began with a real event followed by a ‘what if …’. That is also the case with the two prize-winning 99Fiction.net stories: Codewords and Eternal Love.

My thoughts:

Set in the 1990s and inspired by the real life cases of children wrongly sent to Australia during the Seconf World War, this is a clever, knotty thriller that takes in murder, government cover ups, child abuse and religious maniacs.

Hannah Weybridge is a determined journalist and investigator, her connections to families of the men murdered make this case personal to her, but also puts her at great risk from a killer who wants to complete his mission.

Well written, gripping and full of detail, Anne Coates’ books deserve to be as well known as other crime writers like Val McDermid, Lynda LaPlante and Kathy Reichs.

*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 modern western set in an isolated Australian bush town with a soaring crime rate, where a local constable with a troubled past must investigate the death of a teenage girl whose murder threatens to set the dusty streets ablaze.

Constable Paul Hirschhausen—“Hirsch”—is a recently demoted detective sent from Adelaide, Australia’s southernmost booming metropolis, to Tiverton, a one-road town in the country three hours north.

Hirsch isn’t just a disgraced cop; the internal investigations bureau is still trying to convict him of something, even if it means planting evidence. When someone leaves a pistol cartridge in his mailbox, Hirsch suspects that his career isn’t the only thing on the line.
But Tiverton has more crime than one cop can handle, due largely to the town’s stagnant economy, rural isolation, and entrenched racism and misogyny. When the body of a 16-year-old local girl is found on the side of the highway, the situation in Tiverton gets even more sinister, and whether or not Hirsch finds her killer, there’s going to be hell to pay.

My thoughts:

A remote Australian town, a violent death, a dysfunctional police force and a cover up gone wrong. Hirsch is in disgrace but determined that crime and murder won’t be brushed away this time.

Unhelpful colleagues aside, the lack of witnesses and general disinterest from the community makes it hard for him to solve the murder of a young woman; despite the convenient “accident” Hirsch’s instincts sense more going on than it appears.

The setting, the plot and the sense of isolation give the novel a claustrophobic feel, as Hirsch drives along the handful of roads, trying to solve crime in his truck, despite a campaign of intimidation against him.

A clever, twisted read, with an ending I didn’t see coming.

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