Tag: crime fiction

DI Kate Young’s team is hunting for a killer. What they don’t know…is that the killer is her.

DI Kate Young has known for years that her boss, Superintendent John Dickson, is a violent and evil man. But when she finally confronts him and accidentally shoots and kills him, she’s forced to cover her tracks before anyone can pin his death on her. With revelations about his corruption soon to become public knowledge, Kate sets up a trail of evidence to make it seem that Dickson has conveniently vanished…

But Kate knows the corruption doesn’t end with Dickson. As she heads up the team investigating his supposed disappearance, she also pursues other loose ends. Stanka, the sex worker who supplied the evidence against Dickson, leads her to crucial information on another corrupt officer, DI Harriet Khatri, and her dubious involvement with sex traffickers.

As the noose starts to tighten on Kate, she finds herself targeted by traffickers, the bent cops on her force and even her own team of detectives. Can she stay one step ahead of them all and bring Harriet to justice? Can she trust anyone around her? And can she possibly get away with murder?

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USA Today bestselling author and winner of The People’s Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer’s crime novels have sold over one million copies and been translated into nine languages. 

A move from humour to the ‘dark side’ in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in Little Girl Lost and proved that Carol had found her true niche.

February 2021 saw the release of the first in the much-anticipated new series, featuring DI Kate Young. An Eye For An Eye was chosen as a Kindle First Reads and became the #1 bestselling book on Amazon UK and Amazon Australia. 

Carol has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’, featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and the Huffington Post. She’s also been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ”Irritable Male Syndrome’ and ‘Ageing Disgracefully’ and on BBC Breakfast television.

She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr. Grumpy… who is very, very grumpy. When she is not plotting devious murders, she can be found performing her comedy routine, Smile While You Still Have Teeth.

To learn more, go to http://www.carolwyer.co.uk, subscribe to her YouTube channel, or follow her on Twitter: @carolewyer

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My thoughts: this series just gets better and better, my heart was in my mouth as Kate digs herself in deeper, putting everything at risk to bring down the syndicate and stop Superintendent Dickson and his cronies. Although now she’s got her own neck in the noose.

She’s having to put her trust in a lot of people, and some she barely knows. Like Stanka, a young woman who’s been trafficked and wants to rescue her little sister from the same criminal gang. She needs Kate’s help and Kate needs hers.

The person Kate thought she could trust perhaps isn’t the one she should, as secrets come tumbling out of various closets.

I was totally hooked once more, Carol Wyer has created characters that just pull you in and Kate is chief among them. I was rooting for her but also wondering how long she could stay out of the suspicions of some of her colleagues.

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

D/C Mike O’Shea, a young cop with a knack for working hard and following hunches, is on the verge of cracking a prostitution ring when an undercover from another unit burns him. 

With only days left before their pimps shuttle the girls out of the country, Mike pushes his team into overdrive. Hours later, with too little information, sleep, or luck, the unthinkable happens.

And now, the chase is personal.

In the first of the Mike O’Shea Series, 10-33 Assist PC draws us into the dirty world of human trafficking through the eyes of the cops who put their lives on the line every day to shut it down.

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Born and raised in Toronto, Desmond P. Ryan graduated from UofT and joined what was then the Toronto Police Force. He has been a front-line officer, a beat cop, a patrol sergeant, an instructor at the Toronto Police College, and a detective over the almost thirty years of his career.

Whether as a beat cop or a plainclothes detective, Desmond dealt with good people who did bad things and bad people who followed their instincts. Now a retired detective, he writes crime fiction. Des is presently working on the Mike O’Shea Series and the Mary-Margaret Series, both published by Level Best Books.

Desmond lives in the Toronto neighbourhood known as Cabbagetown, where he can be seen wandering about, considering his next plot point or on his way to the pub.

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My thoughts: the team that are the the focus of this book are the good guys, tough, wise cracking cops who deal with one of the worst crimes – sex offences, in this case human trafficking, involving minors. The underage teenage girls Mike and his colleagues are looking for have been tricked, kidnapped, raped and abused. But that doesn’t mean everyone has given up on them.

Unfortunately a tangle with another team means their cover’s blown and now the risks are worse, the danger becomes personal when Mike’s partner is hurt and Mike determines to stop at nothing to get these young girls home and safe, bringing down the ring and locking up the cruel men involved.

There’s time for humour in amongst the grimness of their jobs, teasing their partners, asking for new ones, winding up the boss. There’s Sal, with his horrible sunflower seed habit, Julia and her Italian swearing. There’s even time to drop by Mike’s mother’s house for family dinner – even cops have to eat. Until it turns deadly, then everyone becomes laser focused.

A solid new police procedural set in Toronto, with realistic characters and intelligent plotting. This series should be really enjoyable if this first book is anything to go by.

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

Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’ work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth

My thoughts: this is very, very funny. Not exactly a surprise from the author of Dial A For Aunts and Four Aunties and a Wedding. Vera owns a small tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown and her life is pretty quiet until she finds a dead body in her shop one morning.

Gathering her suspects up, and building a found family along the way, she investigates the death, much to the irritation of Officer Grey at the local police station, who would rather she leave it alone.

Vera is delightful but you definitely don’t mess with her and she’s impossible to say no to. Everyone tries to, but somehow this Chinese Miss Marple bowls you along with her. It might be the mountains of food she keeps making, or just the way she carries on as though no one else spoke, but her determination to solve the mystery of the dead man in the tea shop is compelling.

The people she draws into her orbit, her suspects, slowly come to love her and bond with each other as they’re all lonely. Vera gives them advice and encouragement as well as keeping them very well fed (I was so hungry by the end of this book) so they become less alone and closed off. But does she solve the case? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out!

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

When mother-of-two Louisa doesn’t return home from work one night, her husband raises the alarm. Investigating the workshop where she ran her mail-order business reveals signs she was taken by force – and DCI Warren Jones is put on the case.

As Warren and his team begin to dig into the missing woman’s life, a complex network of relationships emerges. Who is Louisa’s husband talking to on his second, secret phone? What’s the truth about her relationship with the convicted criminal who works next door? And what happened to Louisa’s university housemate a decade ago?

Can the team break through the lies and get to the truth?

Paul Gitsham started his career as a biologist working in Canada and the UK. After stints as the world’s most over-qualified receptionist and a spell ensuring that international terrorists hadn’t opened a Child’s Savings Account at a major UK bank (a job even duller than working reception) he retrained as a Science teacher.

My thoughts: another cracking case for DCI Warren James and his team. Louisa seems to be a regular mum of two, running her own small business, renting a lock up to do so, although the walking home at 2am seems a bit off. Her husband also seems a bit strange, and the team dig into him and his past. He’s not exactly been faithful and he seems to be keeping secrets.

The couple’s friend went missing when they were at uni, is that significant? And what of their other housemates, which included Louisa’s sister? Who is lying about what? There’s a lot to untangle to get to the truth, where is Louisa and is she still alive?

A lot happens and there’s plenty of juicy stuff to get into, the brilliant twists and turns at the end, just when they think they’ve solved it, but something still feels wrong. Excellent.

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

Meet the craft group swapping decoupage for deception and glues for clues…
Violet Brewer is the owner of Rooney-at-Burrow’s charming wool shop, Brewer’s Loop, and the organiser of its weekly crafting group. Nothing much usually happens in the sleepy little English
village. Until now.
But when Sir Buster Burniston, much-loved owner of nearby Burrow Hall, is found dead, a cloud of mystery lingers in the village air. Or at least it does for Violet and her fellow craft mates in Team C.R.A.B – the Crafters of Rooney-at-Burrow. They are certain that the old man’s death might
not be as cut and dried as Violet’s police officer nephew, Samuel, seems to think. Violet has lived in the village for over sixty years, and something tells her and her creative pals that there is more behind Sir Buster’s sad demise. Violet and her friends are determined to turn detective, despite
what her nephew says. And soon murder is on the cards at their meet and make sessions as they discover a mystery that needs to be unpicked stitch by stitch…

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About the Author
Nigel to no stranger to the worlds of both publishing and crafting. He has published seven previous novels – six glam fiction blockbusters such as Trinity, Addicted and Revenge, which saw him gain fabulous reviews and nicknamed as the ‘UK’s male Jackie Collins’, and a gripping psychological thriller called The Girl Unknown. Quilling Me Softly is his first foray into the cosy crime world.
Crafting is very close to his heart as he has been working as a TV presenter on the UK’s biggest crafting TV channel, Create & Craft, for over 16 years, and he has launched his own successful craft
range, A-May-Zing, as well. He was named top Male Personality Of The Year in the Crafts Beautiful Awards in 2021.
As well as writing and telly hosting, Nigel presents a weekly national radio show on Gaydio, interviewing celebrities from the worlds of TV, film and music. He lives in Brighton and his obsessions include Eurovision, all things 80s, flea markets and juicy reality TV.
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THE HUGE QUILLING ME SOFTLY CRAFT GIVEAWAY (Open Int)
Seeing as Quilling Me Softly is based around the members of a fabulous craft group and Nigel also works in the world of craft it only seems right that the launch of Quilling Me Softly should come with
a massive crafty prize giveaway! Nigel has teamed up with one of the craft world’s most inventive companies, the incredible Lisa Horton Crafts to give away a bumper bundle of crafting goodies worth over £150. Included in the prize bundle are loads of inspirational layering stencils and embossing folders plus the worldwide crafting smash that is the Ulti-Mate Multi Tool – it’s the perfect crafting tool for everyone when it comes to stamping, stencilling and blending.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this, can I join Team C.R.A.B? I’m not very crafty but keen to learn, I’m thinking crochet, and I have loads of inkpads and stamps already.

When local dignitary Sir Buster is found facedown in his own lake, it looks like a heart attack. But someone has been sending him threatening notes. And he was very healthy. Could it be murder? Another body seems suspicious and with the local crafting/crime club looking for clues too, the police have plenty of evidence.

I of course love a book with a crime busting pet, but despite belonging to PC Paula, Mr Bublè the ginger tom didn’t do much to solve the case and ginger cats are problematic in my house (Ted, my black cat and boss, has a rival ginger tom he keeps squabbling with!) so although it was of course good to see a cat making himself well known in the village, I’m not allowed to be a fan!

The cast of villagers and Crafters were a total delight, I want Pearl to cook me dinner and Violet and Margaret to tell me all the gossip before I go and rub the ears if Jimmy’s pigs. Delightful. And very good at gathering evidence and solving a much more complex case than it appeared at first glance. More please!

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

**Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will
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Some debts can only be paid in blood.

A rich socialite is found hacked to death in her Dublin home. It’s the beginning of a killing spree that leaves five apparently unconnected people brutally slain. 

Kate Hamilton, a brilliant and ambitious detective sergeant, is assigned to the case and soon uncovers the connection between the victims – they were all involved in an illegal adoption scheme which was running in Ireland up to the 1980s.

In a deeply traditional society, unmarried mothers were shamed by their families, forced to give birth in secret and surrender their newborns for adoption, fuelling a lucrative and cruel baby trade. 

Now, decades later, it seems someone is taking bloody revenge on those who played a part in the adoption racket.

With each day bringing a new victim, Kate and her team race to stop the bloodshed. But when she discovers she has a personal link with both victims and murderer, Kate realises her own life is in danger as never before.Blood Mothers – the first in the gripping new series featuring DS Kate Hamilton

Gaye admits to a lifelong obsession with crime, and a keen interest in psychology and social history. She credits her parents, who were avid readers, with her love of fiction. When she graduated from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie at age nine, so began a life of crime… reading.  

She enjoyed an award-winning career as a TV Producer/Director working for the BBC, ITV and RTE. She’s always written in her spare time, and during lockdown, when her husband built himself a workshop at the end of the garden, she seized control (peacefully) and renamed it her writing cabin.  The result was BLOOD MOTHERS.  

Now a full-time writer, she has three adult children and one adorable granddaughter. She lives in Dublin with her husband, to whom she now owes a workshop, two of her grown up kids and two rescue dogs who are not at all grown up, but make for great company at the bottom of the garden.  

Blood Mothers is Gaye Maguire’s first book with Inkubator Books. 

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My thoughts: this was a cracking start to a new crime fiction series, featuring DS Kate Hamilton. The case has a personal connection but not one Kate is immediately aware of.

A series of incredibly brutal killings lead to a private mother and baby home run by the Catholic Church. Someone is taking revenge for the actions of those involved years before, although not on the people directly involved but those more on the periphery, people not carefully protected. The nuns and the Bishop who facilitated the cruel system of forced adoptions are free to carry on their lives, but the victims of this killer are not.

The saddest death is that of Billy, a sweet man with learning disabilities, who worked at the home as the odd job man and bookkeeper, writing down the young women’s details and the births. He’s an innocent, just a little cog in the machine, and has been all but abandoned himself.

But Kate and her colleagues are working through the clues and the mysterious American has left plenty of evidence behind. But the final piece is Kate’s own history, it leads her to the killer and a tense standoff.

Dark, clever, twisting and rather heartbreaking at times, this is an intelligent and compelling read. Looking forward to 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.