Tag: crime fiction

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Time Marked Warlock – Shami Stovall

ramblingmads

Adair Finch is the most powerful warlock in the world, and one of the best
private investigators for hire. He has dealt with corporate vampires, murderous werewolves, and even fae royalty. Everything was perfect until he lost one case—the case where he also lost his brother.

So Finch retired. From magic. From PI work. From everything.

Bree Blackstone, a twelve-year-old witch, doesn’t know or care about any of that except Finch’s reputation. In the middle of the night, she bangs on Finch’s door. Her mother has been murdered, and now the assassin is after Bree as well.
Reluctantly, Finch agrees to help, only to discover something sinister has been brewing in town while he ignored the world… He’ll need to dust off all his old skills and magic before it’s too late.

Goodreads

Shami Stovall is a multi-award-winning author of fantasy and science fiction. Before that, she taught history and criminal law at the college level, and loved every second. When she’s not reading fascinating articles and books about ancient China or the Byzantine Empire, Stovall can be found  playing way too many video games, especially RPGs and tactics simulators.

If you want to contact her, you can do so at the following locations:
Website Twitter Facebook
Email: s.adelle.s@gmail.com

My thoughts: with a mix of The Dresden Files, Bane from the Shadowhunter books and a sarcastic sidekick in the form of a shape shifting mischief spirit (maybe Calcifer from the Studio Ghibli version of Howl’s Moving Castle, the closest I can think of), this was a fun, entertaining and funny crime busting adventure.

Adair Finch can manipulate time, which comes in very handy when investigating a murder, a kidnapping, police corruption and a witch coven war. Which is what he finds himself doing after a child appears on his doorstep and shakes him out of his grief malaise.

With her help, and that of the aforementioned mischief spirit, Finch digs into the case of Bree’s parents’. Her mother was a witch and her dad is a minor  warlock. Bree is the only witness – she saw someone kill her mother and abduct her father. But her mum knew Finch, and told her daughter if anything ever happened to find him.

What Finch and Bree find is so much bigger than it seems – and with his ability to manipulate time he can relive the same time over and over again, changing things in order to solve the crimes, and rescue a dog, unlock a door and other very important things.

It’s a really fun adventure and I loved the characters, Finch is so grumpy and can’t deal with Bree’s irrepressible nature and endless questions, especially when they’ve actually been solving the crime for multiple iterations of the same day. Hopefully this unstoppable team will be back with more adventures.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Jagged Scar – Nick Rippington

ramblingmads

The Jagged Scar is a spin-off from Nick Rippington’s much-acclaimed Boxer Boys series. 

Troubled schoolgirl Red and her best friend Marc visit London for a Valentine’s party but they get separated and she ends up in a police cell.

While behind bars the teenager befriends mysterious glamour girl Kat who negotiates her release and invites her to a 70s Soho awash with strip clubs, porn shops, shady characters and bent cops.

Unhappy with her home life back in Wales, she opts to stay and lands a job in the nightclub empire of former stripper Blaize and her porn king husband Jack.

Before long she has made friends, settled into the lifestyle and forgotten all about the problems at home.

That is until her world is turned upside down by a sequence of tragic events. It leads her to question those around her and brings her to the notice of some leading players in London’s dark underbelly who will stop at nothing to keep their unlawful activities under wraps.

And as she closes in on the truth, Red is about to make the shocking discovery that her new life is inextricably linked with the past she’s so desperate to leave behind.

Goodreads  Buy Links 

Nick Rippington would like it to be known that although he once worked for the News of the World he has never hacked a mobile phone. For that matter, most of the time he can’t even remember his own passcode.

 A national sports journalist with a wealth of experience, Nick took the plunge and began writing crime thrillers when Rupert Murdoch shut down Europe’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in 2011 as a result of the phone hacking scandal.

 His debut novel Crossing The Whitewash came out in 2015, receiving an honourable mention in the Writers’ Digest Self-publishing eBook awards.

 That launched the Boxer Boys series, which has found a niche in the growing UK gangland market. To date, there are four books in the series – Crossing The Whitewash, Spark Out, Dying Seconds and Bare Lies.

 Nick’s creation of the notorious Dolan family, their associates and enemies has been greeted with acclaim by some of the country’s most prestigious book bloggers.

 Meanwhile, his standalone psychological thriller Rabette Run has been described as ‘Alice in Wonderland… with tanks and guns’ with a twist you didn’t see coming. Rabette Run (published by Red Dragon) and Crossing the Whitewash are both available as audio books while the first three novels in the Boxer Boys series are available in digital format with Amazon as a box set.

 The Jagged Scar, Nick’s 6th novel, is a spin-off of the Boxer Boys which can be read as a standalone, as can all his books. It is based in 1970s Soho, London, and you may notice a few characters that appear much later in the saga.

 Nick has now moved out of East London to the wilds of Suffolk with wife Liz and daughter Livvy.

 Instagram Facebook Twitter Website

My thoughts: two teenagers run away from a small Welsh village to London in the 70s. Separated they follow their own paths – Red finds work in a Soho club as the assistant to the owner, Blaize. She’s naive and doesn’t really understand what business her new friends are in.

Things take dark turns and her naivety is soon worn away, and after a friend is killed in police custody, she vows revenge.

Meanwhile, the siblings the friends left behind in Wales start looking for them, following tiny clues to track down their beloved sister and brother.

This was a really fascinating and gripping look at the dark side of 70s London life through the lens of several young and innocent souls. There’s a lot that happens to them and some shocking, terrible things come to light. Red in particular goes through an enormous amount and Marc’s story was heartbreaking.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

#TeamLyons Blog Tour: Last Witness – Lucie Whitehouse

ramblingmads

One murder, three families destroyed
And a detective guilty of a crime of her own

When 18-year-old Ben Renshaw is found dead in city woodland, DCI Robin Lyons is plunged into one of Birmingham’s most controversial cases.

Months earlier, Ben and his best friend gave testimony that sent a former classmate, Alistair Heywood, to prison for a vicious sexual assault. Before the trial, the boys and their families endured months of brutal witness intimidation, for which the Heywoods, a privileged and influential local family, faced no legal repercussions. Instead, they vowed revenge.

Is Ben’s murder the fulfilment of that vow, the beginning of a bloody new chapter that will go on claim lives on all sides? Or is the truth – as the Heywoods claim – something entirely different?

To solve the case, Robin has to negotiate the city’s networks of power while walking a dangerous line: her own daughter, Lennie, has a secret that could threaten her liberty – and, if it comes out, Robin’s, too. Before long, Robin comes to question whether she knows what justice is at all.

About the Author

Lucie Whitehouse grew up in Warwickshire. After studying Classics at Oxford, she moved to London where she worked briefly in journalism before finding her niche in publishing. She writes full time and has contributed features to the Times, the Sunday Times, the Independent, Elle and Red Magazine. Lucie now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

My thoughts: While the Lyons family wait for her brother’s trial, Robin has a complicated and heartbreaking case to deal with. Ben Renshaw, 18, an A Level student who set up a website for victims of rape and sexual assault after his friend was raped, was found murdered in the woods. 

During the trial against his friend’s rapist, he, and another friend, Theo, were targeted, supposedly by the perpetrator’s family. But as Robin and her team dig into the case, and following another murder, it seems much more complicated than it appears and dates back to a previous generation whose pain and guilt have carried through.

This is probably the most complicated and upsetting case for Robin and her team, involving as it does teenagers only a few years older than Lennie, and the sins of the father. And with Luke’s case hanging over her, Robin is tense.

But she never takes her eye off the ball and while justice is hard and the truth brutal, destroying several families, the team do find it, even with the hours and hours of CCTV they had to trawl through. 

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Back From the Dead – Heidi Amsinck

ramblingmads

A Missing person … a headless corpse … Jensen is on the case.

June, and as Copenhagen swelters under record temperatures, a headless corpse surfaces in the murky harbour, landing a new case on the desk of DI Henrik Jungersen, just as his holiday is about to start.

Elsewhere in the city, Syrian refugee Aziz Almasi, driver to Esben Nørregaard MP has vanished. Fearing a link to shady contacts from his past, Nørregaard appeals to crime reporter Jensen to investigate.

Could the body in the harbour be Aziz? Jensen turns to former lover Henrik for help. As events spiral dangerously out of control, they are thrown together once more in the pursuit of evil, in a case more twisted and, more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.

Heidi Amsinck won the Danish Criminal Academy’s Debut Award for My Name is Jensen (2021), the first book in a new series featuring Copenhagen reporter sleuth Jensen and her motley crew of helpers. She published her second Jensen novel, The Girl in Photo, in July 2022, with the third due out in February 2024.

A journalist by background, Heidi spent many years covering Britain for the Danish press, including a spell as London Correspondent for the broadsheet daily Jyllands-Posten. She has written numerous short stories for BBC Radio 4, such as the three-story sets Danish Noir, Copenhagen Confidential and Copenhagen Curios, all produced by Sweet Talk and featuring in her collection Last Train to Helsingør (2018).

Heidi’s work has been translated from the original English into Danish, German and Czech.

My thoughts: at first the case of the headless body that washes up in Copenhagen and the missing driver seem to be connected, but when the body isn’t the missing man, they appear to diverge.

But as Henrik and Jensen follow their investigations, strange things seem to connect the two, and then Jensen’s politician friend Esben admits that he’s been receiving death threats, serious ones, and finds footage of Aziz’s abduction on his CCTV system.

As the detectives close in on the killer and Jensen digs into who could be behind the kidnappings, things take a dangerous turn as a notorious figure drops in on Jensen and dangerous events take place.

Gripping, intelligent crime writing, with likeable characters and a clever, twisting plot that kept me 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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Kitchen – Simone Buchholz, translated by Rachel Ward

ramblingmads

When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg
State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing
investigation.

As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history
of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in
society’s best interests to catch the killers.
But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in
tracking down the offender, Chastity takes matters into her own hands and as a
link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s
own moral compass … and put everything at risk.

The award-winning, critically acclaimed Chastity Riley series returns with a slick,
hard-boiled, darkly funny thriller that tackles issues of violence and the
difference between law and justice with devastating insight, and an ending you
will never see coming…

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied
Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to
be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg.

In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena and River Clyde all followed in the Chastity Riley series. Hotel Cartagena won the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger in 2022. The
Acapulco (2023) marked the beginning of the Chastity Reloaded series, with The
Kitchen out in 2024.

She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

My thoughts: Chastity is prepping a case for court when she gets a call about body parts being found all neatly packaged up, just the hands, feet and head. It’s weird and when a second package is found, the team think they might be looking for a serial killer.

At the same time Carla, Chastity’s best friend, is the victim of a horrific assault which leaves her reeling, and Chastity at a loss as to how to help, the police aren’t getting far with their investigation and Carla doesn’t want to talk about it.

So Chastity focuses on the case, trying to find the link between the victims, and perhaps lead to the killer. After meeting a new friend of Carla and spending an evening at a fancy restaurant, she’s putting the dots together, in a really quite gross solution that’s pretty shocking too.

Chastity is still pretty bad at the personal life stuff, keeping people at arms length, even when she knows deep down that she needs them. I still really like her, even though she is deeply dysfunctional and a bit messed up.

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

blog tour, books

Blog Tour: Sin and Betrayal – Sienna Snow

ramblingmads

SinandBetrayal copy

We’re celebrating the release of Sin and Betrayal this week, and we think you’re going to want to read this one. Especially if you like enemies to lovers, mafia and dark romance, and anti-heroes!

SinandBetrayal

Sin and Betrayal (Sin and Lies Book 1)

Expected Publication Date: April 11

Genre: Mafia Romance/ Dark Romance/ MMF

  • Mafia
  • Dark Romance
  • MMF
  • Bodyguard
  • Antiheroes
  • Second chance
  • Hurt you to save you
  • Enemies to Lovers
  • Touch her, and you 💀
  • Boss’s wife
  • Forced Proximity
  • Hate to love you
  • Suspense
  • Forbidden Love
  • Super spicy
  • Voyeurism
  • Bondage

Princess in a Tower
Captive in a Cage.
There is no Power.
Only Rage.

They promised me love and devotion,
And left me with shattered dreams.

They’re back expecting forgiveness.
But my price is very steep.
Betrayal is a risky business,
Now that I’m the Queen, they wish to keep.

NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

About the Author

Inspired by her years working in corporate America, Sienna loves to serve up stories woven around confident and successful women who know what they want and how to get it, both in – and out – of the bedroom.

Her heroines are fresh, well-educated, and often find love and romance through atypical circumstances. Sienna treats her readers to enticing slices of hot romance infused with empowerment and indulgent satisfaction.

Sienna loves the life of travel and adventure. She plans to visit even the farthest corners of the world and delight in experiencing the variety of cultures along the way. When she isn’t writing or traveling, Sienna is working on her “happily ever after” with her husband and children.

Sienna Snow

Book Tour Organized By:

RRBookTours Button

R&R Book Tours

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Bloodshed on the Boards – Judy Leigh

ramblingmads


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.

Purchase


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.

Facebook Twitter Instagram Newsletter

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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Edge – Jim McGhee

ramblingmads


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…

Trailer

Amazon UK Amazon US


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.

Facebook Twitter Instagram

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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: A Prayer for Junie – Fran Clark

ramblingmads

“A Prayer for Junie is a compelling and atmospheric story about friendship, love and the lengths people will go to in order to save those they care about.” Caroline Bishop, The Other Daughter, The Lost Chapter

Newly married Junie has found love but she has no idea who her husband really is. When her life is in danger, there is only one way this relationship can end.

Philomena has known Junie’s abusive husband, Gregory, since they were children and has grown to fear him. Set apart from the rest of the village community on a secluded plain, the women develop a strong bond. While Philomena plots to run away with her, Junie hopes the child she is carrying will change her husband’s violent behaviour.

When Philomena’s friendship is put to the test, she soon discovers how far she will go to protect her friend. Now a death on the plain and Junie’s disappearance has the whole village talking.

Can Philomena live with what she has done and will she ever let go of Junie’s memory?

In this powerful novel of lies, love and compassion a mystery unravels.

 Goodreads Buy Links

Fran Clark writes Women’s Fiction, both contemporary and historical. Her first novel was published by Indigo Dreams in 2014. In the same year she achieved a Distinction in her Creative Writing MA from Brunel University. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. In February 2024, her Island Secrets Book Series will be published, starting with Holding Paradise Book 1.

Originally from London, Fran moved to the English countryside with her musician husband. A musician herself, Fran teaches vocals and leads a local choir. She has two sons.

Fran also writes under the pseudonym, Rosa Temple, writing contemporary fiction and published by HQ Digital and Simon & Schuster UK

 Instagram Facebook Twitter Website

My thoughts: set in 1950s Dominica, this is a love story, a story about survival, about a crime and about finding a way out.

When Philomena meets Junie, brought to her village by the glowering boy next door, Gregory, a man who has never cared for his neighbours, there’s an instant connection between the two women. But Gregory, violent, drunk and insanely jealous doesn’t like the friendship between them and uses his fists to control his wife.

Philomena is determined to save her friend, to help her get away from the abuse and fear she lives in. Her own life, marriage to her colleague at the school and plans to move to New York, offer a possible way out for Junie.

As Gregory seems to get worse, becoming more aggressive and controlling, landing Junie in the hospital, Philomena realises her feelings are deeper than friendship for Junie, and that she would do almost anything for her.

Things take a darker turn and Junie vanishes, leaving Philomena frantic. But she’s due to leave for the US and can’t find her friend anywhere. She may never know what happened to Junie.

Moving, intelligent writing with compelling and interesting characters, A Prayer for Junie is timeless and powerful story telling.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Death in Nonna’s Kitchen – Alex Coombs

ramblingmads

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.