Nice, France — Retired CIA agent, Cain, is living a quiet life, trying to stay out of trouble.
But he can’t turn off his old instincts like a lightswitch.
When an unsuspecting American woman becomes the target of criminals, he can’t sit back and do nothing.
What starts as one good deed puts Cain in the sights of highly-trained mercenaries, brings him to the attention of INTERPOL, and puts him on a collision course with evil personified.
With no one he can trust, in a land of double-crosses, Cain must rely on his wits to survive.
My thoughts: Cain is a complicated character, a former agent of some sorts, definitely a killer, but also seemingly a nice man. He wants to help people, either as a sommelier suggesting the perfect wine, or when a wedding gets shot up by terrorists, by hunting down the bad guys and putting a stop to them.
In this case he gets entangled with the Interpol agent who should really be arresting him, and a supposedly dead man. Known as The Devil, he’s an African warlord, terrorist and somewhere in France is his army. And they want someone from that wedding. Cain goes after the kidnap victim, and winds up in a whole heap of trouble.
I was hooked from the get go. A one night stand leads to his wedding invite, which he engineered because of something he’d overheard. He gets himself involved, when he could just go back to his nice quiet life. I think he misses being an international man of mystery. With his trusty and beloved car, he won’t let anyone else drive, he’s chasing after blacked out trucks full of crazy men with guns, relying mostly on his wits. Cracking stuff.
Currently available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited on Amazon. This is the sequel to The Florentine – also available now.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for writing a review. All opinions remain my own.
Winner of the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of 2020 Shortlisted for the Glass Key Award
A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then the first body appears…
Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjörður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah.
Jenny Lund Madsen is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed scriptwriters (including the international hits Rita and Follow the Money) and is known as an advocate for better representation for sexual and ethnic minorities in Danish TV and film. She recently made her debut as a playwright with the critically acclaimed Audition (Aarhus Teater) and her debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, first in an addictive new series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year and was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award. She lives in Denmark with her young family.
My thoughts: come with me to an Icelandic village in the middle of nowhere, in winter, where writer Hannah is attempting to write a crime novel in 30 days to win a bet. When there’s a murder, which she gets involved in and puts her safety at risk. She doesn’t speak the language, forcing others to have to speak English or Danish, she doesn’t know the people, but she’s pretty sure she can catch the killer. As you do.
I found Hannah a bit grating, she pushes her way into people’s lives and business with little regard for their feelings and clearly thinks very highly of herself. Her career is stalling as not many people seem that keen on her literary fiction – preferring crime writers like her nemesis Jørn. Which is why she boasts she can write a whole crime novel in a month. This tickled me, I do love it when writers poke fun at the industry and their own genre.
Especially when the book is so good, like this one. Jenny Lund Madsen has written a cracking crime thriller, with all the good ingredients – remote location, nosey outsider, secrets that have been buried for years, lots of possible suspects, a conflicted community, a lone policeman, and winter closing in. Iceland’s unique geography and the fact that the sun isn’t in evidence for much of the winter adds to the sinister atmosphere – snow bound crimes are always a bit more macabre than sunny ones. The winter darkness adds to the sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, someone here is a killer. They can’t leave, but neither can anyone else.
Full of suspense, intrigue and horror, this dark and twisted tale of murder and tragedy is absolutely perfect for a dark and stormy night’s reading. Or not, if you don’t want to stay up all night!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
My life was perfect until she came along. Norah. Younger, prettier and about to marry my own ex-husband, they are a walking cliché. I hate her. I hate them both. She’s taken everything from me – my husband, my life, my home – but I refuse to allow her to take Cassie, my beautiful daughter. That’s a step too far. Now I’ve discovered that Norah plans to have a baby of her own and that causes me no end of problems. She could destroy everything and reveal my deepest, darkest secrets. That can never be allowed to happen. No matter what it costs… A brand new psychological thriller that will keep you guessing till the end! Perfect for fans of Sue Watson, Nina Manning, Shalini Boland Purchase
Amanda Ashby and Sally Rigby are a crime writing partnership. Both authors live in New Zealand, have been friends for eighteen years and agree about everything (except musicals). They decided to collaborate on a psychological thriller which they then entered into a competition, run by Boldwood, and which they won!
My thoughts: this was another clever, assured thriller from the writing team of Sally Rigby and Amanda Ashby. Family dynamics are at the heart of this book. Those of parents, children, couples and siblings.
It’s a tangled mess and a teenage daughter – with a dodgy boyfriend, doesn’t help. As Alice tries in vain to get over her ex, Mark, with his new fiancée Norah a source of huge envy, and co-parent seventeen year old Cassie. Norah only has her brother for support.
And yes, Alice goes too far in basically stalking Norah. But did she kill her? There’s secrets upon secrets here, some of which could ruin lives. Knotty and with some twists that’ll make your jaw drop, this is a brilliant and absorbing read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Cairo. December 1917. Following a tip-off from notorious spy Fredrick Fredricks, Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane of British Intelligence find themselves in the hustle and bustle of Egypt. But ancient mummies aren’t the only bodies buried in the tombs of Cairo. When a young French archeologist is found dead in a tomb in the desert with his head bashed in, and an undercover British agent goes missing, the threat moves closer to home. As they dig deeper, soon Fiona and Kitty uncover a treasure trove of suspects, including competing excavators, jealous husbands, secret lovers, and belligerent spies! Fiona wonders if the notorious Fredrick Fredricks could be behind the murders? Or is the plot even more sinister? One thing is clear – If Fiona and Kitty can’t catch the killer, they might end up sharing a sarcophagus with Nefertiti. With humor as dry as the Arabian desert, and pacing as fast as a spitting camel, Fiona and Kitty are back in another sparkling adventure, this time in WW1 Egypt. Purchase
Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is bringing new titles in the Fiona Figg series to Boldwood, the first of which, Chaos in Carnegie Hall, was published in November 2022.
My thoughts: we’re in British occupied Egypt in 1917, Lord Caernarvon, Howard Carter, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Gertrude Bell are all present when Kitty and Fiona arrive (with chauffeur/chaperone Clifford and pooch Poppy in tow). They’re on the trail of the ever annoying Frederick Fredericks and a missing British agent.
The army is in town, with soldiers travelling back and forth to the Western Front, unlike WW2 where fighting took place in North Africa (my great-uncle was a Captain of a tank at the time), there’s no fighting in Egypt but as a British territory, there’s certainly a lot of war related activity. So of course there are spies, and undercover Germans (officially they’d been expelled from the country) as well as unhappy natives who wanted all of the Europeans gone. Then there’s the archaeologists and crooks stealing ancient artifacts to either sell on the black market or send home to museums.
With all this going on, Fiona and Kitty need to locate the agent, arrest Fredericks, hunt down black market smugglers, ensure the Suez Canal is in one piece, oh and Fiona would quite like to find Archie too. Easy. Armed with their collection of costumes, assistance from the local British intelligence bureau, Kitty’s array of skills (definitely not learnt in a French boarding school) and Fiona’s nose for trouble, they’ll be done in no time. Just a few balls, murders and kidnappings first.
It’s more like chaos in Cairo, as a French archeologist is murdered, they both get kidnapped several times, a British agent is poisoned, Fredericks appears and disappears, they hob nob with the local British celebrities and functionaries, and Fiona eats a lot of toast (local cuisine not suiting her). Tremendous fun and a bit silly, even with a war raging away in the background, Fiona even gets to dig out her beard and mustache collection.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own .
State Prosecutor Chastity Riley faces her most challenging case yet, with a violent serial killer at large, who might just be uncatchable…
A serial killer is on the loose in Hamburg, targeting dancers from The Acapulco, a club in the city’s red-light district, taking their scalps as gruesome trophies and replacing them with plastic wigs.
Chastity Riley is the state prosecutor responsible for crimes in the district, and she’s working alongside the police as they investigate. Can she get inside the mind of the killer?
Her strength is thinking like a criminal; her weaknesses are pubs, bars and destructive relationships, but as Chastity searches for love and a flamboyant killer – battling her demons and the dark, foggy Hamburg weather – she hits dead end after dead end.
As panic sets in and the death toll rises, it becomes increasingly clear that it may already be too late. For everyone…
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, with The Acapulco out in 2023. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.
My thoughts: Chastity Riley is back. After her travels to Scotland, she’s back at work investigating crimes in Hamburg as a prosecutor, aided by detectives from the local police. Murdered pole dancers are being found in the streets, scalped and wearing cheap wigs. They’re all young, and work in the same club – The Acapulco.
The team look into their lives and the customers at the club. Someone really wants to humiliate these women – taking their hair and scalp, replacing them with gaudy wigs that you could buy anywhere. And is there a connection to a murdered pimp?
Chastity’s relationship with her neighbour has also stepped up a notch, spending nights in each other’s beds. Then there’s the theatre director, is he connected to the killings or just after Chastity? And her best friend, possibly her only friend, is acting a bit strange. Can she solve that mystery too?
I really like Chastity, she’s a complicated person, with a weakness for drinking and staying out all night, at odds with her professional life. She doesn’t let many people in and she takes too many risks. Faller and the other detectives worry about her, but she even shrugs them off. She’s put herself in danger before and probably will again.
This was another dark, twisted, clever thriller, looking deep into the heart of the nightlife in this district of Hamburg, itself a city of many faces. I enjoyed learning more about the area and the culture, and the passion for football that a lot of the characters share. This series gets better with each book and you learn a little bit more about Chastity each time too.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
A brutal double murder on a Norfolk beach horrifies the town of Cromer. The way the victims died is chilling and so Norfolk’s Major Investigation Team task DS Ashley Knight to manage the case. It soon becomes clear that the murders were carefully planned and the finger of suspicion points to an organised crime gang, but as the evidence mounts, a far more sinister theory emerges. Ashley has been allocated a young but opinionated partner in Hector Fade, and sparks soon fly. Annoyingly for Ashley, Hector is no pushover and looks destined for great things. When the pair delve into the case, they struggle to understand who would inflict such suffering on their victims and hope the crime is a one off from a deranged and dangerous individual. But then another body is found. There’s a killer on the loose who wants them to believe that the beach has a memory. They must be caught, or others will meet their end by the sea. Purchase
Ross Greenwood is the author of crime thrillers. Before becoming a full-time writer he was most recently a prison officer and so worked everyday with murderers, rapists and thieves for four years. He lives in Peterborough.
My thoughts: a new series from Ross Greenwood and he’s moved on to Norfolk, a place that seems very popular with crime writers, despite its sleepy reputation. I know that Cromer is famous for its crab, and indeed one of the characters is a crab man. When a severed head and a buried woman are found by an older lady walking her dog on the beach, the local CID spring into action.
The victims are a pair of local drug dealers, and hippies, mostly harmless. But they’re connected to a tragedy years before. As is the next victim, and there’s some strange graffiti that seems to be linked to these deaths.
While the Norfolk tourist board might not enjoy this book, I certainly did. I liked the relationship between Ashley and her newbie Hector, on the fast track to management, if he survives his training.
Ashley is experienced and dedicated, if a bit frazzled. Her personal life’s falling apart but she’s sure she can close this case and stop the killer. She just needs to work out the link between the victims, oh and find out how her boss is connected.
Clever, with plenty of twists and turns, and some entertaining characters, I think this is going to be a good 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.
When hundreds of birds fall from the sky into Slayton’s lake in a terrifying freak event, the waters are dredged – revealing a dark, long-held secret.
An old pram is pulled from the depths, with the bones of a baby still strapped inside.
It’s the moment that new mother, Cora, has been dreading since she moved to Slayton – because someone knows, and is going to make her pay.
With the help of forensic anthropologist Sophia Hudson, and the extraordinary young Elliott Carter, Detective Sarah Noble gets to the bottom of a cold case that refuses to stay in the past. Will she survive the secrets of the bone house?
My thoughts: poor Cora, her childhood was pretty awful, her stepfather was a monster, and then in care, she was abused. She’s trying to start over, to rebuild her life with her baby daughter Millie, and her bookshop. But someone knows about her tragic past and is willing to expose her secrets.
Thankfully the police are more or less helpful and compassionate. At least Sarah is, she wants to help Cora, to punish the people who hurt her and protect her and Millie from harm. Can the two women triumph over the darkness that seems to have been following Cora her whole life?
The story goes to some dark and horrible places, filled with collections of bones and stories of witches and madness. There’s several really horrible deaths and some nasty people who don’t seem remotely sorry for the terrible things they’ve done. Cora isn’t one of them, I felt sorry for her, she’d been punished enough. Sarah is a great character, filled with righteousness and compassion, she’s kind and genuinely wants to help people. From the homeless man in the police station reception to her friend’s son Elliot. And now Cora.
Gripping and creepy, this was hugely enjoyable and with just the right amount of horror. Although I will be skipping Slayton on any holidays I take.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
A vicious killer is on the loose . Victims targeted include an academic and members of Edinburgh’s high society.
When the Murder Investigation Team find out that the killer is connected to her past, DS Jane Renwick is banished to the side-lines and forced to look on as the manhunt ramps up at a ferocious pace.
Has someone from Jane’s birth family returned to haunt her? Is one of her relatives involved?
Where will the killer strike next?
This gripping police procedural is set in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The exciting novel is the first in Val Penny’s new series of Scottish thrillers.
Val Penny has an Llb degree from Edinburgh University and her MSc from Napier University. She has had many jobs including hairdresser, waitress, banker, azalea farmer and lecturer but has not yet achieved either of her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or owning a candy store.
Until those dreams come true, she has turned her hand to writing poetry, short stories, nonfiction, and novels.
Val is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and their cat.
My thoughts: this was a really clever, gripping police procedural. Sidelined after a familial DNA match, DS Jane Renwick won’t just go home and twiddle her thumbs, she’s determined to find out whether her estranged brothers are out there – and which one of them’s a killer. She’s also picked up a stalker, is he her brother too?
The rest of the team are hard at work, looking for connections between the victims, trying to work out how the killer picked them and why, so they can stop him. Armed with Jane’s information, they’re also looking for her brothers. All three might be killers – their jobs suggest as much – as long as they’ve got the right Smiths!
I liked the characters of Jane and Rachael, their friends and colleagues, the way that even amidst terrible crimes they find time to banter and joke, stop for fish and chips, but always with half a mind on the investigation. I think this could be a really great series.
Click on the image for more about the tour
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own
Within hours of arriving in Montego Bay, Eddie Barrow and his friend Corey Stephenson witness a gruesome murder outside a bar. When the victim’s sister reaches out for help, they learn of machinations to conceal foreign corporate corruption and a series of horrific sex crimes. However, Barrow and Stephenson’s commitment to solving the case is put to the test once they find themselves in the crosshairs of a ruthless criminal network—one that extends beyond the shores of Jamaica.
Russell Brooks is an Amazon bestselling author of several thrillers—Pandora’s Succession, Unsavory Delicacies, Chill Run, and The Demeter Code. If you enjoy heart-pounding thrillers with conspiracies, martial arts, sex, betrayal, and revenge, then you don’t need to look any further and see why these are among the best mystery thriller books of all time.
My thoughts: this was really good, it hooked me right from the start as Eddie and Corey get involved in the terrible death of a young gay man in Jamaica. They’re there on Eddie’s book tour but after witnessing the crime, and seeing the disinterest of the police, they can’t help but look into it. The victim’s sister shows up at the book signing and Eddie promises to help.
Unfortunately Dwayne’s tragic death is part of something much bigger, a conspiracy that crosses oceans and far more complex than the two men originally think. There’s other terrible crimes all tangled up in it too, as they pursue another witness with a sad past.
Corruption, child abuse, homophobia, intellectual property theft, police looking the other way, it’s all in there. Along the way there are some powerful allies to go along with the dangerous enemies they’ve made. Eddie and Corey put their lives on the line for the truth.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Something slightly different today, there are three books out so far in this series – book four follows in a couple of months, and I’m reviewing book one today. However I highly recommend the whole series – details for books two and three follow my review of book one – The One Who Fell.
In the seaside town of Whitecliff, everyone looks out for each other. Everyone knows your name. And everyone knows your secrets…
Moonlight falls on the figure of the girl standing on the red-tiled roof. Her white dress and blonde hair flutter in the freezing night wind. And suddenly – she is gone.
Volunteering at the local nursing home is Millie Westlake’s one escape from the rumours that swirl around Whitecliff about her past. But speaking with elderly resident, Ingrid, as they play board games, Millie gets chills at her strange story about a young girl being pushed from a roof, somewhere across the valley…
Everybody thinks Ingrid is confused: but Millie knows how it feels to not be believed. Her parents died a year ago, and the residents of Whitecliff – such a quiet place, other than crashing waves and cawing seagulls – are convinced Millie killed them.
Desperately searching for evidence to find the girl Ingrid saw, a broken roof tile could prove Ingrid was telling the truth. But when strange footprints appear in Millie’s garden, she’s certain someone out there is watching.
Have Ingrid and Millie stumbled across something terribly dangerous? And with the town against her, will Millie have to face up to her own secrets to solve the mystery before it becomes deadly?
An utterly compelling, character-driven mystery by bestselling author Kerry Wilkinson, perfect for fans of Faith Martin, Mary Burton and LJ Ross.
Kerry Wilkinson is from the English county of Somerset but has spent far too long living in the north. It’s there that he’s picked up possibly made-up regional words like ‘barm’ and ‘ginnel’. He pretends to know what they mean.
He’s also been busy since turning thirty: his Jessica Daniel crime series has sold more than a million copies in the UK; he has written a fantasy-adventure trilogy for young adults; a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter and the standalone thriller, Down Among The Dead Men.
Sign up to be the first to hear about new releases from Kerry Wilkinson here
My thoughts: I really enjoyed the author’s previous books I’ve read so I was looking forward to this and it’s cracking. A resident at the nursing home where she volunteers tells Millie she saw a woman jump off the roof of the house opposite, and while Ingrid may suffer from some confusion, she’s positive about what she saw. Millie decides to have a little snoop and soon she’s sure something is going on in the house opposite the nursing home.
But Millie isn’t a police officer, and in an unfriendly town, where people think she’s involved in her parents’ deaths, it’s going to be hard to make anyone believe her. Retired journalist Guy might have written some nasty things about her, but he might also be the only one who will help.
Millie is a great protagonist, and the hints about her past make her more interesting – why has she stayed in a town where she’s a subject of gossip, did she have anything to do with her parents dying? She’s not entirely trustworthy, she definitely has secrets. So does Guy, and between them they’re highly likely to find things out but also put people’s backs up. Digging into things could make trouble for them both, and Millie’s either incredibly brave or just has no sense of danger, not everyone likes a nosey neighbour.
This first step into Whitecliff Bay is full of secrets and mysteries, and for somewhere where people claim to know their neighbours, an awful lot goes completely unseen and unnoticed. This series gets better and better with each book, so check out the next two below too and get reading!
In the darkness, the girl slumps against the rough tree bark. Her eyes are closed, her wrists tied. As consciousness fades, her last thought is of her best friend, and how much she regrets what she did…
Seventeen-year-old best friends Nicola and Millie were supposed to have a summer night of fun and freedom in the local park. But when dawn comes Millie realises Nicola is missing. Distraught, she searches for her alone: and finds Nicola tied to a tree, her purple Converse shoes missing, her long hair cut and scattered on the ground. With no memory of what happened, terrified Nicola begs Millie never to speak of this again…
Fifteen years later. With countless secrets and hurt between them, Millie and Nicola have not spoken in over a decade. But now Nicola has found her old purple Converse strung up in her garden. Is her attacker sending a message? Why now, after all this time?
In the small town of Whitecliff, people have long memories – but Millie is the only one who can help get answers. And, as she asks questions of their school friends, she realises one of them knows more than they should about her own family secrets…
Not knowing who to trust, and knowing Nicola’s kidnapper is still out there, Millie must ask: how far will they go to keep the truth buried forever?
Fans of Faith Martin, Ann Cleeves and LJ Ross won’t be able to put down this addictive mystery read set in the small seaside town of Whitecliff, where nothing is as it seems.
Up on the desolate moor, she tightens her coat against the bitter wind. The man she followed here points to a rock embedded in the mossy earth. ‘This is the place.’ But when they dig, what will they find?
Everyone in the small seaside town of Whitecliff knows the name Kevin Ashworth. Two boys disappeared thirty years ago – and although local teacher Kevin never admitted to knowing where their bodies are, he’s been in prison ever since.
Now, Kevin is finally ready to talk: but only to amateur sleuth Millie Westlake and journalist Guy Rushden. With the families of the boys desperate for answers, Guy and Millie are led to a lonely spot on the moors above Whitecliff. They’re on the moors expecting to find bodies… but what if they find something even more terrifying?
Reeling from their discovery, as Millie scours the local countryside and speaks to heartbroken families what she discovers changes everything she believes about Whitecliff and the people who live here. With rumours about her own dark past still haunting Millie, can she ever get justice for a decades-old wrong? Or as she gets closer to finding out who else Kevin has hurt, will she learn that some secrets are destined to stay buried?
An absolutely addictive mystery read that fans of LJ Ross, Mary Burton and Faith Martin won’t be able to put down.
ramblingmads 