Tag: crime fiction

There is excitement in the air as the travelling theatre arrives in Seal Bay.
When The Spriggan Travelling Theatre Company arrives in Seal Bay to perform a Cornish version of King Arthur the locals flock to be entertained. But for Morwenna Mutton, sexagenarian librarian, wild swimming enthusiast and amateur sleuth, the theatre brings intrigue too.

Actor and director Daniel Kitto is not the most popular member of the cast and unbeknownst to him, his role of Uther
Pendragon on the opening night is to be his swansong.
In front of a horrified audience, he collapses during the dying moments of the performance in a pool of fake blood, and although the police are content that the causes of his death are natural, Morwenna isn’t so sure. And once it becomes clear that there are a number of people who stand to gain from Daniel’s death, Morwenna’s investigation takes a dangerous turn.

If you love Miss Marple and The Thursday Murder Club, then you’ll love The Morwenna Mutton mysteries.

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Judy Leigh is the USA Today bestselling author of The Old Girls’ Network and Five French Hens and the doyenne of the ‘it’s never too late’ genre of women’s fiction. She has lived all over the UK from Liverpool to Cornwall, but currently resides in Somerset.

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My thoughts: Morwenna is back with more murder in a Cornish village. When the owner and director of a small theatre company drops dead on the stage during a version of the story of King Arthur, the police initially believe it to be a heart attack, he was 82.

But Morwenna suspects there’s more to it than that, he wasn’t a popular man, although her mother Lamorna knew him years before. His own actors all have reasons to dislike the man, but did they kill him? And who benefits? An important question as it appears that Daniel Kitto had quite a few secrets.

But someone doesn’t want Morwenna investigating and is willing to go to some lengths to get her to back off. But they didn’t count on how determined she can be, and nothing deters her from finding the truth.

Another great fun read set in my beloved Cornwall, with Morwenna’s quirky family and friends on hand to help and sometimes hinder her investigations.

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

DI Barney Mains blames himself for the grotesque murder of a top banker in France.
He’s obsessed with the belief that he allowed a near-mythical assassin to escape certain death to kill again.
And when a duplicate murder is reported 1000 miles away in Barney’s home town in Scotland, the guilt drives him ever closer to the edge.
How many more must pay the ultimate price for his failure?
But then death comes closer to home. He is left with no choice but to face his demons, before a shocking confrontation which will change everything…

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Jim McGhee is a former award-winning environmental journalist.
Formerly based in East Lothian, near Edinburgh, Scotland, he now resides in the South of France, the main setting for his DI Barney Mains series.

After a full-on career as a campaigning newspaper reporter, he and wife Jean launched their own recruitment company in central Edinburgh and for twelve fun-packed years worked closely together
alongside their brilliant team – without spilling a single drop of blood.

The Alpes-Maritimes and Var departments, on the other hand, have provided a host of dramatic locations just perfect as inspiration for the odd spot of fictional gore.
Locals, blessed with scenery ranging from unspoilt mountain villages to the classic palms-and-marinas coast, claim that they can be swimming one moment and ski-ing a little over an hour later.
It’s a claim not yet put to the test!

Besides, when not writing or travelling, Jim’s more likely to be off on a hike in the hills with his ever-ready buddy, Jack the Irish Terrier.

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My thoughts: Barney, a Scottish DI on loan to the French police is furious with himself for letting a killer, the Ghost, potentially escape, but another murder in Nice bears his signature, as does a murder in Edinburgh, being covered by his niece, crime reporter Abbey.

But when the Ghost himself gets in touch with Barney, the case takes a turn. Determined to stop the killer for good this time, despite being on administrative leave, Barney goes rogue, investigating on his own, despite his French counterpart warning him off.

This is fast paced, gripping crime drama, the investigation moves quickly and both Barney and Abbey have to keep up with all the twists and turns as both the French and Scottish cases race towards a shocking confrontation on the high seas for Barney and a potential change of direction for his life and career.

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

When famous TV chef Matteo McLeish turns up at the Old Forge Café and
offers chef Charlie Hunter a place in his kitchen for the duration of Hampden
Green’s local opera festival, she thinks it’s because he rates her cooking skills. In
fact it’s because he’s heard she’s good in a crisis. The wholesome star of Nonna’s
Kitchen is being blackmailed by one of his team.
Tempted by an improbably large pay cheque and the boost to to her CV, Charlie
accepts his offer. Does the threat lie close to home, or back in Italy with
Matteo’s culinary roots? And can Charlie find the blackmailer before she’s
swept up in an avalanche of death and scandal?

Alex Coombs was born in Lambeth in South London and studied Arabic at
Oxford and Edinburgh Universities. Murder on the Menu was his first book in the new series: the Old Forge Café Mysteries. Alex lives in the Chilterns.

My thoughts: this was a fun murder mystery set in the world of quality chefs and restaurants. Matteo McLeish is a TV chef with a well known back story, and a problem. He tells fellow chef, and amateur detective, Charlie Hunter (our protagonist and narrator) that he’s being blackmailed about his wife’s dodgy history, but when the bodies start piling up, it’s clear there’s more going on, and he won’t go to the police.

Charlie is trying to make the most of working with Matteo, but he’s hardly around and for the most part she likes his team, none of them seem to be blackmailer material. She’s starting to suspect something else is going on.

Throw in an enraged female Hell’s Angel, a creepy maitre’d, a handsome ex, a very efficient front of house manager, lots of delicious food and a lot of opera too. This is lots of fun, and really enjoyable. I liked Charlie a lot, I haven’t read book one in this series, but I will do now and eagerly await the next one!

*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 GLORIOUS SHERLOCK HOLMES-INSPIRED MYSTERY FOR FANS OF NITA PROSE AND JANICE HALLETT

London, 1932.

When Harriet White rebuffs the advances of her boss at the Baker Street building society where she works, she finds herself demoted to a new position… a very unusual position. Deep in the postal
department beneath the bank, she is tasked with working her way through a mountain of correspondence addressed to Baker Street’s most famous resident: Mr Sherlock Holmes.
Seemingly undeterred by the fact that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist, letter after letter arrives, beseeching him to help solve mysteries, and Harry diligently replies to each writer with the same response: Mr Holmes has retired from detective work and now lives in Sussex, keeping bees.
Until one entreaty catches her eye. It’s from a village around five miles from Harry’s family estate, about a young woman who went to London to work as a domestic, then disappeared soon afterwards in strange circumstances. Intrigued, Harry decides, just this once, to take matters into her own hands.
And so, the case of the missing maid is opened…

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Holly Hepburn has wanted to write books for as long she can remember but she was too scared to try. One day she decided to be brave and dipped a toe into the bubble bath of romantic fiction with her first novella, Cupidity, and she’s never looked back. She often tries to be funny to be funny, except for when faced with traffic wardens and border control staff. Her favourite things are making people smile and Aidan Turner.
She’s tried many jobs over the years, from barmaid to market researcher and she even had a brief flirtation with modelling. These days she is mostly found writing.
She lives near London with her grey tabby cat, Portia. They both have an unhealthy obsession with Marmite.

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My thoughts: assigned to the basement of the Abbey Road Building Society, which for many years occupied Baker Street, including 221B – home of the road’s most famous resident – Sherlock Holmes, Harriet ‘Harry’ White, is assigned the role of answering the stacks of post sent to the detective.

For the most part she replies as his secretary, thanking people for writing and apologising that the great detective is retired, as per The Last Bow, and no longer taking on cases. However one catches her eye, involving a family from the village on her family estate, and she endeavors to investigate it.

In doing so she recruits family friend Oliver, a solicitor, to help out, dresses up in disguises and attempts to act like the famous Holmes, even if he’s fictional.

This is great fun, funny and witty. Harry is a delightful protagonist and a determined investigator. She also manages to continue to answer the stacks of letters.

Having been to the Sherlock Holmes museum in Baker Street, where these letters now go, although I don’t think they get answered these days, it was lovely to think that someone was writing back and allowing people to continue to believe that someone out there was Holmes, even though as he lived in the Victorian era, he’d be very dead by now.

This is the start of a series and based on this first book and the author’s previous work, this should be a great series. The characters are fun, the story entertaining and clever, I can’t wait!

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

After losing her sister to an overdose, Chief Superintendent Jo Howe is desperate to tackle the world of drugs that consumes the shadowy backstreets of Brighton. Operation Eradicate is her response but not everyone sees it as a positive development.

For self-made millionaire Sir Ben Parsons it is a threat to his business – his colossal empire relies on addicts who survive on Respite Pharmaceuticals’ substitute drugs. With connections in the highest levels of government, media and organised crime, Parsons unleashes a brutal counterattack on Howe.

How will she survive being caught in the line of fire?

Graham Bartlett was the chief superintendent of Brighton and Hove police. His first non-fiction book, Death Comes Knocking, was a Sunday Times bestseller, co-written with Peter James. He has since published Bad for Good and Force of Hate starring Chief Superintendent Jo Howe. Bartlett is also a crime writing advisor helping scores of authors and TV writers inject authenticity into their work.

My thoughts: Brighton is in the grip of a drugs epidemic and Chief Super Jo Howe has devised a revolutionary plan to save the users and get them into treatment and get the dealers into prison. But there are those who oppose her scheme and will do anything to stop it.

Inspired by his job as the real life Chief Superintendent of Brighton and Hove, Graham Bartlett lifts the lid on the darker side of the Sussex seaside. This is an action packed, shocking and totally gripping police procedural thriller.

Jo’s whole life teeters at breaking point and the police force is falling apart around her as her enemies dismantle the services and go after officers and their families in order to put a stop to Operation Eradicate and claw back their money and control. 

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