Tag: crime fiction

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: White as Snow – Lilja Sigurđartóttir, translated by Quentin Bates

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On a snowy winter morning, an abandoned shipping container is discovered near Reykjavík. Inside are the bodies of five young women – one of them barely alive.

As Icelandic Police detective Daníel struggles to investigate the most brutal crime of his career, Áróra looks into the background of a suspicious man, who turns out to be engaged to Daníel’s former wife, and the connections don’t stop there…

Daníel and Áróra’s cases pit them both against ruthless criminals with horrifying agendas, while Áróra persists with her search for her missing sister, Ísafold, whose devastating disappearance continues to haunt her.

As the temperature drops and the 24-hour darkness and freezing snow hamper their efforts, their investigations become increasingly dangerous … for everyone.

Bestselling crime-writer Lilja Sigurðardóttir was born in the town of Akranes in 1972 and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright, Lilja has written ten crime novels, including Snare, Trap and Cage, making up the Reykjavík Noir trilogy, and her standalone thriller Betrayal, all of which have hit bestseller lists worldwide and been long- and shortlisted for multiple awards. The film rights for the Reykjavík Noir trilogy have been bought by Palomar Pictures in California. Cold as Hell, the first book in the An Áróra Investigation series, was published in the UK in 2021 and reprinted twice, and was followed by Red as Blood, a number-one digital bestseller. Lilja lives outside of Reykjavík with her partner and a brood of chickens.

My thoughts: a terrible crime scene inside a shipping container, the bodies of several young women, buried underneath them, a survivor. After surviving a harrowing journey, she could provide the key evidence to stop a human trafficking ring run by Russian gangsters in Iceland.

Is there a connection between this awful case and Daniel’s ex-wife’s new boyfriend? Àróra is looking into him, as she turns out to be related to the woman in question too – is Iceland really that small?

This is an incredibly awful crime – Bola has been through a horrific experience but maybe now, with Helena’s help she might be able to start to recover and find a safe place to begin her life again.

Written with great sensitivity and detail, this might be Daniel’s hardest case yet, and his children are staying too. Luckily he has a marvellous helper in the drag queen who lives in his garden.

It also means Àróra has to put the search for her sister on hold – there’s just not enough evidence and the trail grows colder. This case could bring her and Daniel closer together, as there’s nothing specifically personal about it.

Another masterful and compelling addition to the series, once again tackling complex themes and injustices.

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

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Blog Tour: Blackmail in Bloomsbury – Anna Sayburn Lane

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A bohemian party, a handsome artist – and murder.

London, October 1922. When Marjorie Swallow attends her first Bloomsbury party, she worries the conversation will be over her head. But when the night ends in murder, she has more pressing concerns.

Was the culprit really the handsome young artist she danced the night away with? And why did so many people want Betty Norris dead? From the garden squares of Bloomsbury to the smart restaurants of Piccadilly and the seedy backstreets of Soho, apprentice detective Marjorie goes on a perilous hunt for the killer.

Blackmail in Bloomsbury brings 1920s London to life in a classic murder mystery.

Anna is a writer and journalist, living by the sea on the Kent coast.

Blackmail In Bloomsbury marks a new direction for Anna’s writing, switching from contemporary thrillers with a historical back-story into cosy historical mysteries. Anna is fascinated by the 1920s, a period of enormous social change that can seem both very modern and more than 100 years ago.

Anna enjoys research in the British Library, coastal walks, summer swimming and yoga on the beach. Blackmail In Bloomsbury is her fifth novel.

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My thoughts: I must confess that I am on Anna’s ARC reader list, so I have read this delightful book several times now. But even if I wasn’t, this is a book that’s right up my street.

Historical crime fiction with a quirky and delightful female protagonist and her eccentric private investigator employer. Absolutely aimed at someone like me.

Bringing London in the 1920s brightly to life, with the fashions and cocktails of the age, as naive but determined to succeed Marjorie sets about investigating.

This series is only just beginning, and I am so excited to see where it goes. I love Marjorie, she’s naive about a lot but does understand people and it helps her get to the bottom of things. She’s a natural detective and her skills can only improve.

You can get a free short story about Marjorie and how she got her job if you sign up to Anna’s mailing list, which I also recommend.

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

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#TeamScilly Blog Tour: Double Review – Devil’s Table & The Brutal Tide – Kate Rhodes

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A MISSING CHILD
St Martin’s is shrouded in bitterly cold fog when Jade Minear and her twin brother, Ethan, are attacked in a field, late at night. Ethan manages to return home but the shocking events of Jade’s disappearance have rendered him mute.

A LONG-HELD GRUDGE
On a small island where there are few places a child can hide, DI Ben Kitto must battle the elements to search for Jade. When his investigation reveals that the Minear family have many enemies on the island, Kitto grows increasingly worried that Jade is in danger.

A KILLER HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT . . .
Meanwhile, someone on the island knows exactly where the girl is. Someone with a deep-seated hatred of Jade’s family. To find the truth, Kitto must investigate the lives of the people he has known all of his life. Because one of them is lying – and it isn’t long until a body is found . . .

My thoughts: families aren’t always the safe place they should be, and when Jade, one half of the Minear twins, goes missing at the height of her family’s busy flower harvest, secrets and suffering inside the family threatens to overflow.

Ben’s investigating brings him into close contact with Jade’s twin, Ethan, who communicates mainly through music, as Jade was his voice. Can Nina bring him out of his shell and help him tell Ben what happened and where his sister is?

Someone holds a grudge against the family, and Ben has to work through each member and their secrets, trying to find out who and why they hate the Minears so much. It gets pretty dark as more members come under attack, and the final revelation shatters some. But once again, Ben and his team work together to break through the tough hard knit community prejudices to solve a terrible crime, with reverberating consequences for the island.

REVENGE
DI Ben Kitto made many enemies in his time working as an undercover officer for the Met police, none more ruthless and calculating than gang leader Craig Travis.

IS WORTH
Travis has longed to make Kitto pay for his role in getting him convicted – and that day has finally arrived. Now, a dark and twisted killer is heading for the Scilly Isles, one who has waited a long time for revenge.

WAITING FOR . . .
With Kitto busy investigating the discovery of a body on the islands and distracted by the imminent arrival of his first child, his defences are down. He has so much to lose.

And Travis will stop at nothing to take it all from him.

My thoughts: before Ben returned to the Scillies, he worked undercover bringing down a criminal gangster, who is now dying in prison. The one person who loved that man the most is his daughter, and taking the lessons her father taught her, she has decided the time has come for revenge on those, like Ben, who betrayed him.

As she ticks off her list, travelling across England, with Ben last in her sights, she comes to the attention of the police. They want Ben on the mainland, but he knows he’s safer tucked away on an island, or is he?

Can he stop the killing, and will a different way of life stop Ruby from making any more mistakes?

This is definitely the most personal case Ben has investigated yet, the islanders have nothing to do with it, he’s brought this to them and with Nina and Shadow also potential victims, he has to stop the violence before they are harmed, or he is. The tension is incredible and the fact is that while being isolated on an island can be protection, it can also make you more vulnerable, cut off from help.

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

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Blog Tour: You’d Look Better as a Ghost – Joanna Wallace

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I have a gift. I see people as ghosts before they die. Of course, it helps that I’m the one killing them.

The night after her father’s funeral, Claire meets Lucas in a bar. Lucas doesn’t know it, but it’s not a chance meeting. One thoughtless mistyped email has put him in the crosshairs of an extremely put-out serial killer. But before they make eye contact, before Claire lets him buy her a drink, even before she takes him home and carves him up into little pieces, something about that night is very wrong. Because someone is watching Claire. Someone who is about to discover her murderous little hobby.

The thing is, it’s not sensible to tangle with a part-time serial killer, even one who is distracted by attending a weekly bereavement support group and trying to get her art career off the ground. Let the games begin…

Dexter meets Killing Eve in this superb thriller, perfect for fans of How To Kill Your Family and My Sister the Serial Killer.

Joanna Wallace worked as a solicitor until an autoimmune condition took away some of her sight. She now volunteers at a charity helpline and runs a family business with her husband. She was partly inspired to write You’d Look Better as A Ghost following her father’s diagnosis of early onset dementia. Joanna lives near London with her husband, four children and two dogs.

My thoughts: there’s a particular sub-genre of pitch black humour that really appeals to me, and this book has plenty of that. Is it the serial killer narrator? Is it the fact that her killings have no real overarching reasons? I don’t really know. I think I just enjoy the twisted darkness of these books a lot.

Claire kills people, people who annoy her, people who get in her way, there’s a man’s head in her fish tank, there’s probably several bodies in her garden. And the thing is, I get it. I have often become irrationally annoyed with people and wanted to kill them. I just haven’t acted on that impulse. Claire however, has no such qualms.

Unfortunately someone has been watching her, and so now they must die. And anyone involved in their scheme. Claire can’t have the police popping round.

Dark as Marmite and very much a book some people will hate, but I loved it. Yum.

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

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Blog Tour: I Spy With My Little Die – Helen Golden

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Uncovering a web of conspiracy that intertwines past and present, can Lady Beatrice and DCI Richard Fitzwilliam catch a killer and unveil the truth of her husband’s death at long last?

BREAKING NEWS

Second Senior Police Officer Dies Within a Week
A senior officer from the Protection and Investigations (Royal) Services died unexpectedly yesterday.
His death comes hot on the heels of Detective Inspector Ethan Preece (43) from City Police, who died of a suspected heart attack last week. Although he’s not yet been named, the dead officer was a
greatly respected public figure, who had served in policing for over thirty years. A PaIRS spokesperson has confirmed that ‘neither men’s death is being treated as suspicious at this time’.

With the senior PaIRS officer dead, so is any hope of reopening the inquiry into Lady Beatrice’s husband’s accident fifteen years ago. Unless, of course, there is something that links the two men to
the earl’s fatal car crash?
Can she and Fitzwilliam, along with their friends, work together to unravel the mystery and catch a killer before the truth is buried forever?


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Hello. I’m Helen Golden. I write British contemporary cozy whodunnits with a hint of humour. I live in a small village in Lincolnshire in the UK with my husband, my step-daughter, her two cats, our two
dogs, sometimes my step-son, and our tortoise.
I used to work in senior management, but after my recent job came to a natural end I had the opportunity to follow my dreams and start writing. It’s very early in my life as an author, but so far I’m loving it.
It’s crazy busy at our house, so when I’m writing I retreat to our caravan (an impulsive lockdown purchase) which is mostly parked on our drive. When I really need total peace and quiet, I take it to a
lovely site about 15 minutes away and hide there until my family runs out of food or clean clothes

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My thoughts: this series just gets better and better, and finally Lady Bea might just get some answers to the mysterious death of her husband fifteen years ago – or not. As two of the police officers with links to the case die one another the other – of suspected sudden heart attacks but DCI Fitzwilliam doesn’t believe in coincidences.

Digging into the deaths, and armed with some interesting ideas from the autopsy, he’s pretty sure there’s foul play afoot. But does it have to do with the investigation into the past or is it something else?

Bea is also dealing with moving back into the Dower House, the home she left pregnant and widowed, for her parents’, but now, with her son away during the week at school, it’s time. Or so she thinks, she just needs a spot of redecorating with Perry’s assistance and hopefully it will feel like home again, but minus any bad memories.

Another brilliant book and the title made me laugh. Intelligent and enjoyable, I can’t wait for the next one.

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

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#TeamDaniels Blog Tour: Double Review – Deadly Deceit & Monument to Murder – Mari Hannah

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A gripping thriller starring Kate Daniels, who must make the connection between two seemingly unrelated grisly accidents…which may not be accidents at all.

Four a.m. on a wet stretch of the highway: a driver skids out of control. Quickly arriving on the scene, detective Kate Daniels and her partner, Hank Gormley, witness a horrifying display of carnage and mayhem that proves to be one of the worst traffic accidents in Northumberland’s history. But as the casualties mount, they soon realize that not all of the deaths occurred as a result of the accident …

At the same time, on the other side of town, a house goes up in flames and its two inhabitants become charred corpses. Except for the timing, there is no evidence to connect this incident with the traffic accident. But it soon becomes apparent that all is not what it seems, and that Kate and her colleagues are always one step behind a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

My thoughts: a terrible accident on a wet road, a fire ripping through a family home, a man dropping dead of a heart attack. How can these be connected? DCI Kate Daniels and her team have their work cut out for them as the killer starts targeting the one witness who can link them to at least one or possibly more of these terrible crimes.

They’re looking for a chameleon – someone who can change their appearance at will, with dozens of aliases and absolutely no concern for other people. Totally ruthless, willing to kill an old lady in a car accident to steal a lottery ticket, manipulative and cruel. And worse of all, they wear a uniform – they could be a cop, a paramedic or in the fire service, one of their own.

It’s a race against time to find their suspect and bring them to justice, before they disappear and possibly to somewhere with no extradition treaty. They are happy to kill anyone that stands in their way. But Kate has to do this by the book. Will her one witness tell her who to look for?

Another heartpoundingly good case for the MIT as a series of apparently unconnected crimes all start to come together and bring the team to focus on one person, if they can get the evidence together to prove it.

Plus Kate’s messy personal life comes to the fore, as Jo issues an ultimatum and prepares to move on in her job if Kate can’t come out and be with her publicly. Then there’s the glamorous, no strings, artist she’s been flirting with. Can Kate choose love or will she loiter in the closet?

The next gripping novel by Mari Hannah. When the body of what appears to be an adult female is found on the Northumberland coastline, it is DCI Kate Daniels and her murder investigation team that are first on the scene. Then another body is discovered sitting side by side with the first, and suddenly everything changes. Why have they been placed together in such a desolate area beneath the walls of an imposing castle? Meanwhile prison psychologist Emily McCann is just returning to work after the death of her husband only to find herself the fixation of convicted sex offender Walter Fearon. As his mind games become more and more intense could it be possible what’s happening on the outside has something to do with his murderous past, and as his parole approaches what exactly does he plan for Emily? As Daniels’ investigation runs down dead end after dead end it becomes apparent that nothing is quite as it seems, and someone is hiding more than one deadly secret…

My thoughts: this starts with a strange discovery on a quiet beach, and requires a delve into the past for Kate and the team to find some answers, do the outfits the victims are wearing have anything to do with why they were killed?

Meanwhile Emily, a psychologist colleague of Jo’s at the prison is having something of a crisis, an inmate is due for release, and he’s obsessed with her, sending her into a tailspin. Does she have reason to be afraid?

As the two cases unfold and become more complicated, can the team solve them and continue their run or successes in keeping killers off the streets?

Another intelligent and complex crime thriller, with lots of twists and turns that hooked me and drew me back into Kate’s world.

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

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Blog Tour: The Opposite of Lonely – Doug Johnstone

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EVEN DEATH NEEDS COMPANY…

The Skelf women are recovering from the cataclysmic events that nearly claimed their lives. Their funeral-director and privateinvestigation businesses are back on track, and their cases are as perplexing as ever.

Matriarch Dorothy looks into a suspicious fire at a travellers’ site, and takes a grieving, homeless man under her wing. Daughter Jenny is searching for her missing sister-in-law, who disappeared in tragic circumstances, while grand-daughter Hannah is asked to investigate increasingly dangerous conspiracy theorists, who are targeting a retired female astronaut … putting her own life at risk.

With a body lost at sea, funerals for those with no one to mourn them, reports of strange happenings in outer space, a funeral crasher with a painful secret, and a violent attack on one of the family, The Skelfs face their most personal – and perilous – cases yet. Doing things their way may cost them everything…

Doug Johnstone is the author of sixteen novels, many of which have been bestsellers. The Space Between Us was chosen for BBC Two’s Between the Covers, while Black Hearts and The Big Chill were longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year. Three of his books – A Dark Matter, Breakers and The Jump – have been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize. Doug has taught creative writing or been writer in residence at universities, schools, writing retreats, festivals, prisons and a funeral home. He’s also been an arts journalist for 25 years. He is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club and lives in Edinburgh with his family.

My thoughts: Skelfs, Skelfs, Skelfs, they’re back!!

OK, so this is one of my favourite series and I get super excited to read each installment. And this one is excellent.

Each Skelf is on a case of their own, and still running the funeral home, which is going green under Indy’s lead. Buying a plot of land for green burials and using a water based process to break down remains.

Dorothy is looking into the arson attack on a local travelling community, is it simply a local who hates them or is there something more sinister going on?

Jenny is still dealing with her ex-husband Craig’s trail of chaos and looking for his sister, who was last seen making off with Craig’s body. Her former mother-in-law is dying and wants to say her farewells.

Finally Hannah has come up against the old adage about never meeting your heroes, when she gets drawn into the lives of a female astronaut and her wife. Indy is a bit worried, and not without reason.

There’s also a potential new employee at the funeral home, some fab gigs for Dorothy’s band, Jenny and Archie’s friend dates, while Schrodinger the cat gets plenty of love from everyone.

It’s another brilliant, funny, clever book about these incredible women and their work. The ghost phone in the garden is proving popular, helping the grieving to deal with their feelings and share what they need to say to their loved ones.

Can’t wait to see what happens to them next, have they finally reached a good place as a family and as a business?

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

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Blog Tour: Roman Nights – Dorothy Dunnett

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If Ruth had stayed on leave, none of it might have happened…

An astronomer working at the Maurice Frazer Observatory, Ruth Russell is enjoying her time in Rome. That is until Charles Digham, top fashion photographer and Ruth’s lover, has his camera stolen and the thief ends up a headless corpse in the zoo park toletta.

When Ruth meets the enigmatic Johnson Johnson, in Rome to paint a portrait of the Pope, she’s confident he’ll help unravel the mystery. But as they begin the search for clues it soon becomes clear that more is at stake than the secrets of a couture house … something far more deadly.

Dorothy Dunnett (1923-2001) gained an international reputation as a writer of historical fiction. She moved genres and turned to crime writing with the acclaimed Dolly books, also known as the Johnson Johnson series. She was a trustee of the National Library of Scotland, and a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. In 1992 she was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. A leading light in the Scottish arts world and a renaissance woman, Dunnett was also a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions.

My thoughts: the bifocal clad painter is back in another case of international intrigue and skullduggery, this time in the Eternal City – Rome.

The strange things that have been happening at an observatory outside the city, from stolen cameras to break ins have bigger consequences that someone wanting some fashion photos.

A jaunt around the Italian coast in Dolly follows, as the various parties involved chase after each other. But who Ruth Russell, an astronomer at the observatory, trust? Is one her friends or acquaintances the one she needs to be wary of?

Another fantastic and highly enjoyable adventure, with an entertaining cast and some silly moments as well as a heady dose of danger.

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

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Blog Tour: A Disappearance in Fiji – Nilima Rao

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1914, Fiji: Sergeant Akal Singh would rather be anywhere than this tropical paradise – or, as he calls it, ‘this godforsaken island’. After a promising start to his police career in Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to the far-flung colony of Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and
embarrassed, he dreams of solving a big case, thereby redeeming himself and gaining permission to leave. Otherwise, he fears he will be stuck in Fiji for ever.

When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fiji’s newspapers scream ‘kidnapping’, the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case, giving him strict instructions to view this investigation as nothing more than cursory. But as soon as Akal arrives on the plantation, he identifies several troubling inconsistencies in the plantation owners’ stories, and it seems there is more to this disappearance than meets the eye . . .

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Nilima Rao is a Fijian Indian Australian who has always referred to herself as ‘culturally confused’.
She has since learned that we are all confused in some way and now feels better about the whole thing. When she isn’t writing, Nilima can be found wrangling data (the dreaded day job) or
wandering around Melbourne laneways in search of the next new wine bar. A Disappearance in Fiji is her first novel and she is currently working on a second.

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My thoughts: I didn’t know much about the British occupation of Fiji, other than that it happened, so this was really interesting to read, and obviously a lot of what went on was appalling. I really like Sergeant Akul Singh, a Sikh Indian police officer, formerly in Hong Kong, dispatched rather unhappily to Fiji, and sent to investigate a missing indentured Indian woman, a “coolie”, working on a plantation.

He encounters racism, sexual violence towards the women, murder and cruelty. The living quarters are horrific and so are the working conditions. Slavery might have been abolished, but this felt like it under a different name.

Akul is an educated man, his father a teacher, and he too is appalled by what he finds. Torn between the orders of his superior and the desire for true justice, he risks being sent back to India in disgrace. But he won’t be deterred and assisted by the British doctor who accompanied him, he sets about getting answers.

I felt sorry for him, the career defining mistake he made in Hong Kong was genuine – he was naive and a bit stupid, but he worked to rectify things. Hopefully as this series develops, people see that is a very good detective, and not a bumbling idiot. I look forward to reading more about him.

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

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Blog Tour: Without Trace – Leigh Russell

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With a terrifying certainty, she knew she was going to die.

DI Geraldine Steel knows people go missing all the time. So when her partner Ian asks her to look into the disappearance of his football-buddy’s girlfriend, her first instinct is to reassure him there’s no need for concern. Until she’s called to a suspected murder. The young woman has earth and fragments of twigs in her hair. It’s as if she’d been completely encased in earth. And yet she was found on the pavement, at the side of a suburban road, where she wasn’t in contact with any soil or mud.

Without a crime scene, the investigation focuses on her boyfriend. But then another young woman is reported missing. Unless he has an accomplice, they have an innocent man in custody. And Steel is running out of time . . .

A page-turning puzzle of a case with an unexpected final twist. If you’re a fan of Angela Marsons, Mel Sherratt and Karin Slaughter, you’ll love Leigh Russell.

Leigh Russell is the author of the internationally bestselling Geraldine Steel series, which has sold over a million copies worldwide. Her books have been #1 on Amazon Kindle and iTunes with Stop Dead and Murder Ring selected as finalists for The People’s Book Prize.

My thoughts: another gripping and perplexing case for DI Geraldine Steel and her team. Several young women have gone missing in a small area of York, and now another. But this time, she survives just long enough to stumble into a road and be found, only to die in hospital.

She was covered in leaves and dirt, like she’d been buried alive and clawed her way out. Was her boyfriend the one who did this to her or is something more sinister going on?

Meanwhile Geraldine has been feeling a bit off, is her relationship with Ian in trouble? Maybe she just needs a holiday.

As the case unfolds, we’re offered the killer’s obsession and his strange justification for the deaths he’s responsible for. A twisted mind that the police can’t understand.

Clever, twisted and compelling, this is another excellent book in this series.

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