Tag: crime fiction

On a summer’s day, a baby vanishes. The mystery is never solved, leaving a young
mother lost in grief.

Twenty-one years later, ex-police detective Dan Hennessy is struggling with his own
tragic loss, and when a neighbour disappears and a body turns up at the solar farm, he is desperate for answers.
The haunted landscape is keeping secrets, and there are dangers lurking in the Brecks.

Dan must find the truth.

Can he offer hope to the grieving mother, and also save himself?

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Elspeth Latimer is an associate tutor on the prestigious  University of East Anglia MA in Creative Writing Crime Fiction, and also the author of Writing the Detectives, an academic study of the protagonist in the contemporary crime fiction series, published by Cambridge University Press.

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My thoughts: Dan is a former police detective who quit after his fiancée was killed in a horrible accident, he’s still struggling. Having moved to a caravan park where he’s supposedly in charge of security in exchange for a place to live, he becomes involved in the murder of a man on the solar farm next door. His landlady also asks him to look into the cold case of her missing son, who vanished as an infant over twenty years ago.

His former colleagues aren’t happy with his involvement with the murder case, and he keeps his PI activities a secret from them, knowing it won’t go well if anyone finds out he’s digging in a case the police never closed.

His grief is causing him to do strange things, and he’s losing time. But by focusing on the cases he’s able to give his days a little more meaning. He still needs to sell the house he and Beth bought before she died, and decide what to do with her ashes. But it all seems too much, instead he’d rather hunt for a missing caravan renter and the long lost baby Felix, wading into a past some would prefer to forget.

Clever and intriguing, the cases that are helping Dan somehow, weave around each other in his head and in the story, there’s some strange things that he sees and his friend Cassie, now in his old job, gets frustrated with him a fair bit. He hasn’t lost his instincts as a detective, and digs away at things, even when officially told not to. He’s an interesting character, the reluctant detective, who wants to shut out the world but can’t resist a mystery.

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

Edinburgh, Christmas Eve, 1936. A gruesome double murder. A white-faced killer. A mysterious stranger…

Still haunted by his recent past, Professor Finlay MacBeth is called in to assist the police following an horrific double murder. Traces of greasepaint and white cotton lead MacBeth and Inspector
Callaghan to the Christmas Circus, but while they search for clues, someone else is watching them.

Meanwhile, bent cop Kilmartin still has MacBeth in his sights…

In this thriller series set in Edinburgh, Overkill is book #2 in the Finlay MacBeth series.

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Colin Garrow grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland. He has worked in a plethora of professions including taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate.

He has published more than thirty books, and his short stories have appeared in several literary mags, most recently in Witcraft, and Flash Fiction North. Colin lives in a humble cottage in Northeast
Scotland where he writes novels, stories, poems and the occasional song.
He plays several musical instruments and makes rather nice vegan cakes.

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My thoughts: Professor MacBeth is settling in for Christmas Eve, when Inspector Callaghan calls, a couple called McDuff have been murdered (which made me grin, any other survivors of reading The Scottish Play at school will know why).

They’ve been savagely butchered and some of their organs are missing, and the police are at a loss. As MacBeth and the inspector hunt for the killer, they find themselves directed towards the circus, in town for the festive season.

There a performer mentions being scared by a man with a strangely pale face – and striking blue eyes. Could he be their killer? The traces of greasepaint at the scene suggest a link.

More bodies turn up as the police work, also brutally slaughtered. But there’s another killer lingering in the wings with his own plans and a personal vendetta against the professor.

Absolutely gripping and sinister, I really enjoyed (if that’s the right word for a book about a murder) this book. I like MacBeth, Rhona and Johnnie, his little found family. Looking forward to seeing where this series goes next, the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger.

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

Suzannah is pregnant with her third child. The first is in prison.
The second is dead. How far will she go to keep her unborn baby safe?

When Suzannah learns she is pregnant, she feels like safety and happiness are finally within reach. Her handsome, successful fiancé, Alec, is over the moon about the baby. He proposes and pampers her. He thinks this is Suzannah’s first marriage and first child, but she’s keeping a few secrets.
Actually, a lot of secrets.

And they are dangerous…putting Suzannah in a position where she must
choose who and what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her baby and her
freedom.

Drowning in her lies, Suzannah is desperate to bury her past, but her ex-
husband, who abandoned her years ago, returns, stalking her and demanding to know what really happened to their daughter.

When the imprisoned serial killer who lured and groomed her son, threatens to sell his story to the press, Suzannah feels like the life she’d built and the precious one she’s growing, teeter on a precipice. Now the two children she’s hidden from Alec may be the least of her worries.

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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.

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My thoughts: Suzannah’s whole relationship with her fiancé is about to fall apart because of the many, many secrets she’s been keeping. She hasn’t told him about her previous marriage, her children,  their fathers, or where she goes every few weeks.

She’s hoping she won’t have to, until an unwelcome blast from the past forces her to. Now things are falling apart completely, because she just can’t seem to tell the whole truth, and Alec’s patience is getting short, he’s worried about her mental state and whether their baby’s safe.

Suzannah’s an unreliable narrator, even to herself she keeps up the pretence and doesn’t share the full truth.

There are plenty of shocking things that come out and more that happen as Suzannah scrambles to stop some of the secrets from spilling out and destroying her life.

*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 curious case of a disappearing pig. A murdered historian. A sassy senior sleuth.

If Cat Caliban’s not your favorite crime-solving grandma, you just haven’t met her yet!

Meet Cat Caliban — sixty-something widow, proud cat lady, and budding private eye.
She’s traded in her old life as a housewife for something far more exciting: solving
crimes.
But nothing in her sleuthing career has prepared her for this.

When a local historian begs Cat to find the villain who stole her beloved pig — Gertie,
a cupcake-loving micro-mini with a mischievous streak — Cat figures it’s a simple petnapping. Sorry, pignapping. Until the trail leads to a dead human body.

With the city gearing up for its bicentennial celebrations, Cat finds herself tangled up in a complex mystery involving missing historical papers, a children’s book about a detective with trotters . . . and a cunning killer who’s determined to keep the past buried.

Cat must crack the case, bring home the bacon, and catch a murderer, before she
becomes the next victim of Cincinnati’s deadliest – and oinkiest – celebration.

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D. B. Borton is the author of two mystery series—the Cat Caliban series and the Gilda Liberty series —as well as the standalone mystery novels Smoke and Bayou City Burning and the humorous science fiction novel Second Coming.

In graduate school, Borton converted a lifetime of passionate reading and late-night movie-watching into a doctorate in English. She is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Borton currently lives with Zoe the cat in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she gardens,
practices aikido, a martial art, and, of course, reads.

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My thoughts: I really like this series, I love Cat and her rag tag band of associates, from Kevin the bartender to Winnie the dog, Moses the former cop and Leon the purveyor of terrible greetings cards.

This is probably the most shocking case Cat has taken on so far. From a pignapping, she follows the clues to a terrible piece of local history via a writer whose husband (and possibly her brother) had her committed to an asylum, possibly in order to keep her quiet.

The revelations Cat and Moses uncover have repercussions for modern day residents of Cincinnati, which may have lead to a murder as well as the pignapping.

The blend of humour, crime and history is intriguing and interesting, I was hooked from the off, it was such a compelling case.  This series just 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.

Reader beware; this story tackles serious themes and does not flinch from them.

Fed up with female characters playing the victim? Like a bit of a laugh with your pitch black drama? Then ‘A Murder of Crows’ could be right up your alley.

At nineteen-years-old Jade Crow is fed up being the victim, so gives her abusive boyfriend a hand down some steep stairs. She gets away with it.

With the help of a rather flamboyant mentor… and Felice is a woman with her own incredible backstory, Jade embarks upon a very successful career in stage-managing ‘accidental deaths’.
Until she kills the wrong man.

Then Jade finds herself in a kitchen, somewhere in France, fighting for her life and the chance to escape to paradise with the man she loves.

As dark as it is funny, this thriller is not for the faint hearted.

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B C Harris lives in Dumfries & Galloway with her husband and their two dogs. Surrounded by hills and forests, she has plenty of space for walking, and plotting new and interesting ways to murder her characters. Conspiracy of Cats, published in 2021 was her first book. In 2023 she
followed that up with Making Sacrifices. A Murder of Crows is her latest release.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this, I liked Jade and I loved the outrageous Felice. This is very funny and very entertaining, although if you don’t find jokes about murder and mayhem funny, it might not be for you.

Jade Crow has survived a horrible childhood in care, and is stuck in a wretched relationship with an abusive thug. She works as a home carer, her only highlight is visiting her client Felice, an elderly woman who has lived quite a life.

Felice is worried about Jade and after she dies unexpectedly, comes back as a ghost, to begin with only Jade can see her. And together they embark on a new life for Jade, with some help from Felice’s old life.

Years later, Jade has been very successful in her new career with Felice as her very own secret weapon. But unfortunately her last job has got her onto the radar of the security services and that brings with it consequences that Jade might not be able to escape this time.

I won’t spoil things for you, but I wasn’t happy with the ending, I think I even boo’d. Out loud. Like a lunatic. I had enjoyed it that much and liked the characters enough that I wanted more adventures for them.

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

Inspector Henry Tibbett is taking a much-needed holiday from his job at Scotland Yard with his wife Emmy. Headed for a spot of skiing in the Italian Dolomites and some first-class people-watching, Tibbett’s worries blissfully melt away. That is, until a fellow guest who boards the ski lift alive at the top of the mountain is found dead when the lift touches bottom. Another dead body turns up, and then another, and it becomes clear that Murder has come to the mountain.

Patricia Moyes (1923-2000) was an acclaimed British mystery novelist, best known for her long running series featuring Inspector Henry Tibbett. The tenth book in the series, Who Saw Her Die?, was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award, and Moyes was inducted into The Detection Club, presided over by Agatha Christie, in the same year. Her early career also included work as a radar operator in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force; as a screenwriter – with credits including the Robert Hamer film School for Scoundrels and Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected –; as an assistant editor for Vogue magazine; and as a translator.

My thoughts: This was a lovely classic crime story, set on a mountain in Italy. Asked to assist when one of his fellow travellers is murdered, DI Tibbett and his wife Emmy start investigating the other hotel guests. Among the people on the mountain is a murderer.

Uncovering all sorts of other dodgy goings on in this supposedly quiet and peaceful place, Tibbett sets a trap for the killer, he’s pretty sure he’s worked it all out.

Highly enjoyable and at times quite funny, I particularly liked Emmy, I can’t wait to see how crime ruins the Tibbetts next holiday.

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