Tag: crime fiction

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Blog Tour: The Silent Wave – NGK

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Embark on a gripping voyage of intrigue and danger in this fast-paced murder mystery.

Six friends agree to go on the cruise of a lifetime and leave their complicated past behind them. On night one of the cruise someone is murdered, and everyone is a suspect. As the calm facade unravels, deep secrets and complicated histories are exposed and one thing is for certain, not everyone is getting off the ship alive.

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N.G.K. (Nathan) is an international bestselling author whose first children’s picture book ‘Harry The Happy Mouse’ has been featured on the bestseller lists in Paperback and eBook around the world. Harry The Happy Mouse is also now part of the curriculum in many UK schools to teach children about kindness. 

N.G.K. was named one of the Top 10 worldwide children’s authors in 2018 by the Author Academy Awards, and ‘Harry Saves The Ocean’ won a gold standard at the Mom’s Choice USA awards.

NGK’s eighth book ‘The Fox Who Stole The Moon’ has been in the top 20 children’s books in the UK for the past two years since its release.

The Silent Wave is Nathan’s first book for adults.

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My thoughts: Another book set on a cruise, reminding me to stay on dry land. They never end well, and this one certainly has a body count.

A group of old friends, none of whom seem to like each other anymore, or who are particularly happy, go on a cruise towards Norway. They don’t quite make the fjords after someone goes overboard, and it only gets worse from there. All sorts of old entities, grudges and schemes emerge, pitting the friends against each other and forcing them into secret pacts of equal jeopardy. 

By the time they make it back to Southampton’s docks, things will never be the same for any of them again.

So that’s one – stay away from old “frenemies” and two – no cruises. Got that.

None of the characters are particularly likeable, even the ultimately innocent ones, and one character turns out to be a truly awful person, but not the one you might suspect. There can’t be many worse places than trapped at sea with people you don’t actually like anymore. Twisted and shocking, this is a clever and 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.

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Blog Tour: Heartless Crimes – Michael Hambling

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Meet Detective Sophie Allen. She’s an expert on murder and violent crime. Her brilliant mind works tirelessly to put the most vicious criminals behind bars, but conceals dark secrets from her own past.

A dark, wet night on a lonely road in west Dorset. Bryony O’Neil stops her car when she spots a distressed young woman by the side of the road. But all is not as it seems . . .

The following day, keen rambler Robin Pryor sets off along the clifftop path from the pretty seaside town of Lyme Regis — and never comes home.

The subsequent search reveals a badly beaten body hidden in the undergrowth beside the path.

It’s the third time that week the police have been called out to the quiet little town. First an attempted car-jacking. Then a break-in — where nothing was taken. And now murder.

Detective Barry Marsh’s instincts tell him that a particularly callous killer has descended on his patch. And their timing couldn’t be worse. His boss and mentor, Detective Sophie Allen, is still in hospital, recovering from the injuries she sustained in their last case. Not that she’d let that stop her!

Then a second body is discovered, a few miles further along the coastal path. And the case takes a terrifying new twist . . .

Discover a captivating crime mystery which will have you gripped from start to finish.

If you like Joy Ellis, Ann Cleeves, J.D. Kirk, J.M. Dalgliesh, or Pauline Rowson, you will love this thrilling crime mystery.

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I try to write thoughtful, contemporary crime novels and include several plot layers in my books. The adult novels feature DCI Sophie Allen and her close-knit team of detectives. I don’t write simple whodunnits, nor violent, all-action, gun-toting thrillers

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My thoughts: When a woman is forced off the road in a nasty accident, followed by the disappearance of one of her colleagues and a break in at another’s home, the police start to think there might be something very weird going on. All three work at a company developing an eco park for a South American country, one that clearly has some objections. And not from local protesters but dangerous criminals.

Sophie Allen is in charge of the team, but currently in hospital, where she meets the first victim. It also allows her to gather some evidence the victim hasn’t shared with the police. As they dig into the company and it’s new project, they uncover an international conspiracy, which calls in Sophie’s old friend, the Home Secretary and the consulate. People are at serious risk and there seems to be someone on the inside. Can they team crack the case before anyone else gets hurt?

This was so clever, totally gripping and intense, lots of twists, red herrings and  moments where you just can’t guess what they might uncover next. Totally had me hooked from the first page.

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

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Blog Tour: The Housekeeper – Sadie Ryan

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My name is Linda. Most of my friends, not that I have many left, call me Lindy. I work as a housekeeper in a local hotel. I had the world at my feet once. Not anymore.

The first time I saw Mia was in the car park. She came over to help when my shopping bag split. There’s something about her delicate femininity that mesmerises me.

Ever since then, I’ve been kind of obsessed. Mia is stunning, with beautiful ash-blonde hair. I’ve had mine cut in the same style.

She has two beautiful children, the same age as mine. A gorgeous home on an exclusive estate. And a husband who’s the old-fashioned kind who picks her up after a night out. Mine wouldn’t even pick me up if I fell over in the street.

But then I get a call. Mia’s voice on the phone is breathy, edgy. She’s whispering, like she doesn’t want anyone to hear. ‘Lindy, I need your help. Listen to me, please.’

I’ll help her. But only if she helps me . . .

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Sadie Ryan is the author of three books. Her latest, Guilty came out in April 2021, a psychological thriller. She loves animals and lives in leafy Cheshire in the North West of England with her daughter and rescue dog. When not writing she spends her time reading, gardening, walking her dog or watching old black and white movies.

When asked where she gets her ideas from, she says, ‘From observation, inspiration and lots of wicked thoughts.’

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My thoughts: Lindy is quite messed up, driven by her grief, she’s been stalking Mia, spying on her, determined to see if Mia is the sort of person she thinks she needs to find.

Mia’s home life looks perfect on the surface, handsome TV presenter husband, two adult daughters, cute dogs, lovely house, but her husband is a controlling bully. She’s terrified of him and he’s got worse recently, taking her phone, changing the locks and holding her captive. Could new friend Lindy help?

As the two women become close and start to work together, events take a dark turn, and things only get worse from there.

Shocking, full of twists and turns and with a jaw dropping ending, this is a smart and gripping thriller.

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

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Blog Tour: The House Swap – Miranda Rijks

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Two perfect families. Two beautiful homes. A one-way trip to hell.

When two families organise a house swap, it seems like the perfect holiday arrangement.

The Browns will exchange their London townhouse for a stunning chateau in the south of France, the perfect place to relax and rekindle their flagging marriage.

And the Lesters are looking forward to showing their son, Rafael, around their old haunts in the British capital.

Sounds wonderful. Except for one thing – both families are hiding dark secrets, and secrets have a way of coming out…

In France, there’s a mysterious break-in at the chateau. Then the Browns discover that a woman who lived there disappeared and was never seen again. Instead of feeling rested and relaxed, they now feel isolated and vulnerable.

Then, in London, 17-year-old Rafael vanishes without a trace.

As the tension mounts to an unbearable pitch, both couples are forced to face their darkest demons. Someone won’t be coming home…

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Miranda Rijks is a writer of fast-paced, twisty psychological thrillers many of which have been Amazon bestsellers. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre. 

After surviving bone cancer, Miranda turned to writing and is now living the dream, writing suspense novels full time. 

She lives in West Sussex, England with her Dutch husband and two black Labradors and spends as much time as she can in the Swiss Alps.

This is her twenty-third psychological thriller with Inkubator Books.

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My thoughts: I’m not sure I’d want to do a house swap, although a holiday in Provence would be great (although not in December). But the two families in this book swap a falling down French villa for a Kensington town house, apparently to see if it’s a viable prospect for Elodie’s business to expand into.

However some of the people involved have ulterior motives and the supposed Provencal idyll is far from it, the house is damp, smelly and has builders working on it. The neighbours seem nice, but they don’t get on with the usual residents, so they too might have their own reasons for being chummy.

Meanwhile in London, the Lesters aren’t having a good time either, their marriage is teetering on the edge and Piers learns a huge secret that could destroy everything, and that’s before their son Raf goes missing.

The perfect holiday starts to become the perfect nightmare for both couples.

Miranda Rijks’ books are always really fun and the twists are always total surprise, as it is here. I didn’t see some of them coming at all and the connections between the two families were a shock. I was hooked from the beginning, partly because swapping houses is just not something I would ever do, strangers rummaging through my stuff – no thanks. Really enjoyable, intelligent and full of suspense.

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

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Blog Tour: Dead Sweet – Katrín Júliíusdóttir, translated by Quentin Bates

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To celebrate the paperback of Dead Sweet, I’m re-sharing my review from the hardback tour. You can get a copy from all good bookshops and here.

When Óttar Karlsson, a wealthy and respected government official and businessman, is found murdered, after failing to turn up at his own surprise birthday party, the police are at a loss. It isn’t until young police officer Sigurdís finds a well-hidden safe in his impersonal luxury apartment that clues start emerging. As Óttar’s shady business dealings become clear, a second, unexpected line of enquiry emerges, when Sigurdís finds a US phone number in the safe, along with papers showing regular money transfers to an American account. Following the trail to Minnesota, trauma rooted in Sigurdís’s own childhood threatens to resurface and the investigation strikes chillingly close to home…

Atmospheric, deeply unsettling and full of breakneck twists and turns, Dead Sweet is a startling debut thriller that uncovers a terrifying world of financial crime, sinister cults and disturbing secret lives, and kicks off a mind-blowing new series.

Katrín Júlíusdóttir has a political background and was a member of the Icelandic parliament from 2003 until 2016. Before she was elected to parliament, Katrín was an advisor and project manager at a tech company and a senior buyer and CEO in the retail sector. She worked from a young age in the fishing industry, was a store clerk and also worked the night shift at a pizza restaurant. She studied anthropology and has an MBA from Reykjavík University. Katrín’s debut novel Dead Sweet received the Blackbird Award and was an Icelandic bestseller upon publication. She is married to critically acclaimed author Bjarni M. Bjarnason, who encouraged her to start writing. They have four boys and live in Garðabær.

My thoughts: this was really good, but also really awful because when the truth comes out about the victim, Óttar, he turns out to have been one bad man and I didn’t really want the cops to find his killer, because weirdly I felt bad for them – not him!

SigurdÍs is a really good investigator, even if she does go off on her own – she just wants to prove to her bosses that she’s a great cop and not keep getting left out of investigations or given paperwork to shuffle.

I really hope this grows into a series as I was completely hooked, the writing (and Quentin’s brilliant translation work) was so gripping and compelling, even as I realised, oh no, he’s guilty of really gross and horrible things, I wanted to keep reading.

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Blog Tour: The Guests – Adriane Leigh

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Six guests are invited to paradise. Not all of them will survive.

Ryleigh is a struggling artist, still trying to catch her break in theater. Her new best friend offers her a once in a lifetime opportunity — a week on her family’s private island on Lake Michigan.

She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t know these people at all.

Kerrigan is the housewife with the perfect life. She has a loving husband and a glamorous city apartment. Her life is everything she could ever dream of.

Her husband hates her. Their marriage is a sham.

Cole is the only local on Stonecliffe Island. He’s there to make sure the guests have everything they want. He has to focus on creating the perfect experience.

He can’t afford any distractions after last summer. This is his final chance.

Each guest has their own villa. There are staff on-call to help with every need — a masseuse, a chef to make dinner every night, waiters pouring endless champagne. It’s going to be perfect.

But a violent storm looms on the horizon. There’s no way off the island.

Then, one of the guests disappears. And they won’t be the last . . .

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Adriane Leigh is a USA Today bestselling author of multiple novels and novellas. With appearances in publications such as Vogue Magazine and The Montreal Gazette, the award-winning author, in addition to writing, founded RARE: Romance Author & Reader Events, a community of internationally-renowned book conventions that draw thousands of readers and #1 bestselling authors to events around the world each year. 

She hosts a podcast, The Rebel Artist, and her books are translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

She lives on Lake Michigan with her family.

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My thoughts:

Note to self; do not accept any invitations to remote islands, ever.

Invited for a combination will reading and holiday on a rather exclusive island, this rather disparate and bickering group arrive, spend several days falling out with each other and then leave, minus two of their number, who are either missing or dead.

There’s some serious confusion over what happened, stories keep changing, no one is reliable and the police never really seem to get to the bottom of it. The island’s caretaker is arrested and charged with neglect and manslaughter, but is he really to blame for any of it, or is there something larger and nastier going on?

Nine months later, the survivors are slowly building new lives, but none of them have really moved on. Questions still remain and some are plagued by guilt. Things get stranger and more volatile. But can anyone untangle the mess and find out what really happened?

Twisted and twisting, this is an edge of your seat “what just happened?” read. The lives of the characters are so enmeshed and messy, it’s not surprising that events are beyond their control and more than one of them is capable of murder.

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

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Blogathon: In the Blink of an Eye – Jo Callaghan

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DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat’s instincts come up against Lock’s logic.

But when the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal. AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?

My thoughts: The premise of this book is really interesting – a brilliant scientist has developed an AI program to assist the police in solving crimes. It removes the emotions from the investigation but does that make it foolproof?

Paired with DCS Kat Frank, herself and excellent detective, can AIDE Lock help her find out who is abducting people, cases that have gone cold, before anyone else goes missing?

The case becomes very personal to Kat and Lock has a lot to learn from the human investigators in the team. Can their unique blend of cutting edge science and emotional intelligence create a crime solving team better than anything that’s come before?

I really enjoyed this, Kat and her team are great, and Lock is really intriguing, both as a concept and as a character, he’s designed to learn and expand his knowledge, but will it make him more human?

The case itself is shocking and disturbing, which adds to the sense that this is something new. It’s a science based case in many ways as well as being deeply human. Absolutely cracking stuff. I dived straight into book two from here, I couldn’t resist.

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

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Blog Tour: Taken – Danielle Ramsey

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I am accused of the worst of crimes – murdering my baby – and I have hours before this passenger ferry docks in Spain to find him, alive.
Someone knows about my difficult past and darkest secrets, and now I think they’ve taken my baby.
But who would do this to me and why? I know the answer. Or least I think I do…

The police want to know why I have fled my home and husband. How do I tell them that I had a breakdown after my first baby died? That today is the anniversary of his death? That my husband is planning on having me sectioned?
Despite what my husband says, I’m not ill. Am I? For I have discovered he has an agenda…

So how could I have been so wrong about him?

And how do I convince the police I’m innocent, when everyone believes I’m guilty, and get my baby back before he disappears forever?

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Daniele Ramsay is the author of the DI Jack Brady crime novels and other dark thrillers. She is a Scot living in the North-East of England and was previously published by Hodder & Stoughton and Avon.

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My thoughts: Losing a child is every parent’s worse nightmare, and after her son dies of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Alice becomes ill with depression. After spending some time in a psychiatric unit getting better, and discovering she’s pregnant once more, Alice vows that she will do everything in her power to protect her next child.

Tom, her surgeon husband, hires a nanny to help out, but Alice’s troubled mind is increasingly paranoid and she starts to imagine that he’s planning to have her committed and take off for his native US with their son.

It all comes to a head on a ferry to Spain, where her brother Oli is staying, when someone takes baby Eli from her, and she can’t remember what happened.

But Alice’s paranoia and fears aren’t entirely unfounded, someone is targeting her and her family, but she’s looking in the wrong direction.

Full of twists, I wasn’t sure who was trustworthy and I really felt for Alice as she struggled to grieve for Noah and then bond with Eli while it was all so raw. People grieve in different ways, and she gets upset that Tom seems less affected than her. It all builds up in her head and she reacts instinctively, but it puts her and Eli into further danger. 

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

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Blog Tour: The Family Home – L.H. Stacey

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Nothing is as perfect as it seems…

Hattie Gilby has not been back to her family home since the devastating events that took place there years ago. Events that changed Hattie and which continue to haunt her today. But one phone call changes everything.

Now Hattie is going back to her family home to face her brothers, Adam and Luke and to hear the last words of her dying mother.

Imogen Gilby hasn’t spoken a word since the night she was beaten almost to death and her husband was murdered. But now it’s time to reveal the truth about what happened that night and the secrets
that almost destroyed her.

Hattie isn’t sure she wants to know the truth. And it seems someone close to them will do anything to make sure the secrets stay hidden forever…

Another chilling read from bestselling author L H Stacey guaranteed to keep you up all night!

Perfect for fans of Valerie Keogh, J.A. Baker and Diana Wilkinson.

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L. H. Stacey is the bestselling psychological suspense author of over seven novels. Alongside her writing she is a full-time sales director for an office furniture company and has been a nurse, an emergency first response instructor and a PADI Staff Instructor. She lives near Doncaster with her husband.

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My thoughts: Hattie doesn’t return to her parents’ house, she can’t move on from the terrible events of the night her father was killed and her mother brutally beaten. They still don’t know who did it, and Hattie worries she might have been responsible. She and her cousin Louisa were involved in something that went awry and she’s always wondered if that was what led to the tragedy.

But now, as her mother is dying, she has returned and as she and her brothers Luke and Adam look through all the paperwork in their mother’s old office, a terrible, truly shocking secret emerges. It seems their parents were involved in something very dark, and that certainly led to their father’s death.

I was genuinely shocked, the secrets that the house holds are horrific and terrible. Somehow Hattie manages not to completely spin out, I’m not sure I could be as cool as she is. As the siblings unearth their parents’ past, we’re shown the events that led to the assault and murder.

It seems there was a lot more to what happened that night than any of the siblings are aware. And someone close to them knows a lot more than they’ve ever said.

Full of shocking moments and twists, this was utterly gripping and a compelling 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.

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Blog Tour: The Coffee House Murders – Ellis Blackwood

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In London, 1666, drinking coffee can get you killed…

The case of Samuel Pepys’s missing pocket watch escalates rapidly when Eustace Blount, writer and wit, is found murdered in Rose’s Coffee House on The Strand.

Blount was a prig, a poseur and a parliamentarian – nobody liked him, not even his friends – and Pepys’s intrepid personal inquisitors, Abby Harcourt and Jacob Standish, find themselves with a suspect list as unwieldy as it is perplexing.

When their investigation leads to the nearby Gilded Bean coffee house, frequented by fervently royalist members of parliament, it becomes clear that a dangerous political game is afoot. Abby and Jacob face their most audacious challenge yet:

To break into Westminster Palace, at the very heart of English politics. The penalty, if discovered – is death.

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Ellis Blackwood fell in love with the writings of Samuel Pepys, and the 17th-century England he inhabited, through the great man’s published diaries. The Samuel Pepys Mysteries are the result of that literary love affair.

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My thoughts: I really like this series, it’s a lot of fun and brings the hubbub of 17th Century London to vivid life.

The coffee shops were a new concept and where the great and good (and not so good) would meet to talk, boast and scheme. They were male only spaces much of the time and Pepys would have been very familiar with them.

When Pepys asks his two inquisitors to locate his missing pocket watch, which he thinks may be in one of those very coffee shops, they stumble into murder and intrigue, just round the corner from Jacob’s house.

Abby as always, is quicker off the mark and starts to untangle the relationships between the coffee house denizens, the wits who spend their days writing pretty terrible poetry and the politicians who pontificate and squabble just round the corner.

The plot the pair discover threatens the King himself, Charles II, and the heart of government, much like the Gunpowder Plot that almost killed his grandfather.

Clever, entertaining and enjoyable, each installment of this series gets better and better.

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