Tag: crime fiction

When the worst comes calling…

Scott and Blair Bagby are a happy, successful English couple living in the suburbs with their teenage son and Great Dane. Life seems good, until one beautiful spring morning when a detective inspector
knocks on their door asking if their son is home, unleashing an unspeakable horror that blows apart the life they thought they had.

Police have discovered bodies buried deep in the Peasedale forest and the inspector suspects one is Jamie, the final victim of a brutal and prolific serial killer. But Jamie’s death is unlike all the others, starting with his emergency phone call that leads to a macabre burial ground near a dilapidated
hunting shack and creates shocking suspicions.

With bone deep grief threatening to destroy their marriage and their sanity, Scott and Blair set out to investigate Jamie’s death, a journey that not only upends their perceptions of who they are, but torturously reveals they may not have known Jamie at all…

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Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the
children that have yet to fly the nest.

In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University. She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers. Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits
and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.

My Facebook author page is: Heidi Field Author
@HeidiField11
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My thoughts: Sad, shocking and chilling, Scott and Blair’s quest to find answers to their son’s death at the hands of a sadistic killer lead them to unexpected and disturbing places. Grieving but unable to let go of Jamie’s last hours, they hunt for the titular other boy, a friend of their son’s who might just have been helping his killer.

Blair especially struggles with her grief, manifesting a version of Jamie that only she can see in order to cope with the loss. Time at an inpatient clinic helps her come to terms but only answers will help her finally let him go.

Scott, an investigative journalist, doggedly follows every lead, chasing down a burglar and hunting through his son’s things. He too wants answers, but more for Blair than himself.

Combining an exploration of parental grief with a quest for truth and answers to Jamie’s death, this is an unusual and highly enjoyable thriller.

*This is a repost of a review from earlier this year, to help promote this book. All opinions expressed remain my own.

There’s no such thing as happy families.

In the space of a morning, Vicky’s life changed. She started the day happily married, with a wonderful infant son and a doting husband. By lunchtime, her husband was dead and her child missing.

DI Jennifer Stone knows time is critical. She and her team need to find nine-month-old Harry quickly – but the case has reopened old wounds for her, reigniting a pain that had only just started to heal.

However, when people close to Vicky are hurt and her late husband’s estranged mother turns up, DI Stone suspects something may be going on behind the family’s closed doors. If she can’t figure out what, and soon, more people will die.

It begs the question; how well do you really know your family?

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Scott Englefield grew up on the Isle of Wight. Despite being surrounded by
idyllic beaches and woodland walks, he was often to be found with his
head buried in a book.

His love of reading endured into adulthood and now he spends his free
time writing crime and psychological thrillers, often having to stop to fend
off his cat James who believes his keyboard is the perfect place to sleep.

He is in his mid-forties (and feels it) and lives with his wife, son and cat in
the East of England.

He grew a beard once – his wife hated it.

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My thoughts: Poor Vicky, her husband has a shocking heart attack in the supermarket car park and then someone abducts her infant son from his car seat. That’s truly awful. The police quickly start looking for little Harry, they know the longer he’s missing, the worse the outcome.

But things get worse for Vicky after that, her sister-in-law is knocked down by a car, then her lovely old neighbour John, who has been so kind and supportive, dies in a suspected murder. What on earth is happening and why to this poor woman?

But the police know there must be something in Vicky’s past – some clue as to what’s going on. Her mother-in-law might be in the frame for one, maybe two, of the incidents, but is in the clear for the rest. Especially once the toxicology report on Tom comes back. Things are very weird.

The twists in this, the killer’s reasoning, so many gasp out loud moments. Poor Harry will never remember his dad, and Vicky will have to live with the memories and trauma. But it’s very enjoyable and I was totally hooked.

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

Mistletoe, mince pies… and murder

When Jude Gray inherited Malvern Farm, she never thought she’d become so used to farm life, let alone be good at it!

But now a beloved national TV show is coming to film their Christmas special on her land, celebrating the charm of rural living and all Jude’s achieved so far.

At least, that’s the plan… until one of the crew is found dead in suspicious circumstances.

At first, it looks like a tragic accident, but when alibis start to crack, it seems like anything but. With a growing list of suspects and enough behind-the-scenes drama to rival anything the cameras are capturing, Jude must dig deep to uncover the truth.

Because someone on her farm is hiding a deadly secret – and this year, the season of goodwill may come with a killer twist…

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Kate Wells is the author of a number of well-reviewed books for children, and is now writing cosy crime set in the Malvern hills, inspired by the farm where she grew up.

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My thoughts: I really like this series and while reading a book set at Christmas at the end of summer does feel a bit silly, hard to imagine needing a big coat yet, once December arrives, this book will be perfect.

Jude has agreed to let a TV show film on her land – it’s a bit like Countryfile I think or Springwatch. It’s also paying her, so she can afford to keep the farm going. However it’s the run up to Christmas, there’s always a lot to do on a farm and she’s also helping her sister organise her wedding, to be hosted just after Christmas on the farm.

The director is an egotistical nightmare who seems to think Jude works for him, and doesn’t understand animals at all. He drives her a bit crazy with his demands and orders. The rest seem OK, but there’s tensions and secrets among them.

Then the camera operator is killed, in what could be a horrible accident but the police investigation reveals it’s murder. Again. Jude seems to attract them.

When it looks like the presenter of the show has been having an affair with the dead woman, and his co-presenter wife knows, but could that be a reason to kill? As Jude and her police friends investigate the TV crew and try to uncover who might have wanted the camerawoman dead, another member of the crew is found dead, pointing in a different direction. What is going on?

A clever, twisty-turny crime, with lots of festive goings on around the chaos on the campsite. And it ends with a wedding!

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

Don’t speak. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.

After a whirlwind romance, widow Lisa thinks she’s found her perfect match in senior policeman Alex. He’s everything she needs—a devoted husband and caring stepfather to her daughter Bella.
And, like Lisa, he knows what it is to lose someone precious. Alex suffered his own bereavement when his previous partner, Polly, passed away.

But is he really Mr. Right?

As Alex’s charm gradually morphs into rigid control, Lisa realises that he has a dark side, that she has married a man she doesn’t really know.
When she discovers a note left by his deceased wife Polly which seems to imply that Alex may have been responsible for her death, Lisa fears that she and Bella may be in mortal danger.
But escaping a man who wears a badge and knows how to hunt isn’t just difficult—it could be deadly.

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Elena enjoys psychological thrillers and crime fiction of all kinds, from the cosiest of cosies to the blackest of noirs.
She lives in East Lothian, Scotland, with her husband, three kids, and a fat black pug. Born in a colliery village in the North East of England, she cut her literary teeth on the great storytellers of the 70’s – Wilbur Smith, Frank Yerby, and Mary Renault. She began her writing career as an advertising copywriter and has since had novels published by Random House and HarperCollins. She’s had an original audio series produced by Audible UK, and also writes for TV.

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My thoughts: The domestic abuse statistics for police officers are pretty grim and the last few years have shown us that not everyone who works for the service is a good person. That’s certainly what Lisa comes to realise as she discovers that her new husband Alex is not the person he pretends to be.

There are cameras inside the house “for security”, he tracks her phone, checks her emails, follows her to her friend’s digs in Bath, demanding they go home right away. She catches him attempting to drown their dog. None of this is normal behaviour. Then she learns a bit more about his previous marriage, and the fact that he might have been poisoning his late wife.

So she plans to escape him, taking her young daughter with her, scared for her safety. He’s dangerous and she can’t go to the police – he’s one of them and she doesn’t trust that they’ll listen to her.

Then things turn really nasty. It seems there’s nowhere she can go that he won’t find them, nothing she can do to escape him. Faking her suicide might hold him off long enough to get away, but it might also put people she loves in danger, as he will go to any lengths to hold onto his family.

Gripping, tense and grounded in reality, this is a stay-up-all-night, rooting for the protagonist 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.

Where do you hide an escaped prisoner? On a wheelchair holiday perhaps. Like a spoke in a wheel, the villain is seen but not seen.

Aspiring writer Sandy Blee is stuck in a dead-end receptionist job until she wins a working holiday to Jordan, pushing a wheelchair for Wheelchair Warriors Holidays. Even though she quickly realises she was the only entrant in the Blerglergle writing competition she is extremely excited about leaving England for the first time.

However, after arriving in the pink city of Petra she discovers her fellow travellers are not all they seem, and most are not who they claim to be. Moreover, the whole group is under investigation by the SeeMs Detective Agency who have been sent out to search for an escaped convict.

When members of the group are kidnapped and one mysteriously dies, Sandy finds herself pulled into the SeeMs detectives’ investigation. Is she, who so wants to write bestselling crime stories,
ready to take on a real-life mystery – one that might just turn deadly?

This book will be enjoyed by readers who like travel crime, plus devotees of Agatha Christie, Grease the movie and MM Kaye

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Like many authors, Gina has had a lot of different jobs and careers. She has been a
physiotherapist, a flying instructor and pilot, a dog breeder, and a journalist. This is her sixth book in the SeeMs Detective series: the agency that looks behind what seems to be true.
Gina had two lengths of time when she was in a wheelchair (after a car crash and a helicopter accident) and having experienced the difficulties of wheelchair travel firsthand she wanted to write a book that showed the challenges for wheelchair users when travelling, not just steps and narrow doorways, for example, but unexpected things like the difficulties of traversing cobbles.
When not writing or travelling Gina lives in Sussex with her husband and dogs.

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My thoughts: The SeeMS Detective Agency are sent to Jordan to apprehend a familiar villain, mistress of disguise and Stevie’s former girlfriend Bella Chantry, they also uncover another criminal on the run – Lady Bumstead.

But before that, a member of the travelling party with Wheelchair Warriors Holidays is tragically murdered and Cat and Miranda must help the local police identify the killer after a botched hostage taking.

The trip’s organiser Miss Abbey is at her wits’ end with the group, mostly elderly, mostly impossible to manage – like herding cats. The majesty and beauty of Petra seem lost on them as they bicker and gossip their way through the desert. But who hated Mrs Cox enough to kill her?

I do wonder if the detectives are a little bit hopeless, they get distracted from their task a bit too easily and I figured out who the disguised criminals were in about thirty seconds. But the hostage taking, murder and all the other secrets the tourists are carrying were quite gripping and intriguing.

I have first-hand knowledge of how difficult it can be to travel with a wheelchair and negotiate awkward terrain (Cyprus FYI is a great place to go if you are looking for a holiday that’s pretty good on access – the beach even had a ramp and a sort of chair lift into the sea) so I understood how tricky finding willing “pushers” could be and although most wheelchair users would far rather take their own chair, how difficult it is to load and unload transport while travelling.

Overall I enjoyed the book, and wonder whether the detectives will ever catch Bella or whether they’re destined to chase her around the globe, always one step behind.

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