Quarter to Midnight is the first thrilling novel in a brand new series by Sunday Times bestselling author Karen Rose, set in New Orleans.
Rocky Hebert walks into his death at quarter to midnight one New Orleans night.
His son Gabe cannot accept the official verdict of suicide and enlists the help of the Burke Broussard Private Investigation Agency to discover the real cause of death.
PI Molly Sutton knows what it’s like to lose a father in tragic circumstances and will go to any lengths to crack the investigation, as she tries to fight off her growing feelings for Gabe.
They soon realise Rocky was working on an investigation of his own; one that threatened to expose the deep corruption going all the way to the top of the police department. And that the key to the puzzle lies with a young witness to a murder that happened years earlier: Xavier Morrow.
Just what did Rocky know? And who might have shut him up?
As they get closer and closer to the truth, they realise that the killer is not going to stop at Rocky. And that Xavier is in very real danger. Someone will go to any lengths to protect what he witnessed that night coming out…
Karen Rose was introduced to suspense and horror at the tender age of eight when she accidentally read Poe’s The Pit and The Pendulum and was afraid to go to sleep for years. She now enjoys writing books that make other people afraid to go to sleep.
Karen lives in Florida with her family, their cat, Bella, and two dogs, Loki and Freya. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, and her new hobby -knitting.
My thoughts: I knew this was going to be good, it’s Karen Rose after all, but this was so good, so compelling. I couldn’t put it down and ended up reading the whole book in one go – and it’s not a small book.
There’s basically two investigations. The one into Rocky’s death and then into the murder case he was looking into when he was killed. They tie together nicely, as it becomes clear whoever is targeting Gabe and Xavier is responsible for the murder during Katrina.
The PI team headed by Burke, with Molly assigned to Gabe, are clever and know how to get answers, aided by Xavier and his family, I loved Willa Mae. As they dig deeper into the case, they uncover corruption in the NOPD and ADA’s office that has been hiding a killer in plain sight.
The case is so compelling, and Gabe and Molly’s romance is pretty hot too. As the start of a new series, set in New Orleans, this is a fantastic introduction to the team and to the city. I cannot wait for more.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
I am so pleased to share this gorgeous cover of upcoming release, Wedding Planned to Death by Ellie Fields! Pre-order a copy today!
Wedding Planned to Death (Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery Series #1)
Expected Publication Date: August 9th, 2022
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Cricket Creek might be off the beaten track, but it’s an idyllic place to live—a quaint town where neighbors gather at the bakery, families go back generations, and where your friends always have your back.
It’s also where introverted gardener Cicely Rue is nervously about to start her new business hosting weddings in her picturesque garden. That is, until she discovers the wedding planner dead and buried in her compost heap! With this new business, she’d expected brides and bouquets, not murder and mayhem!
Small towns mean everybody knows your name and your secrets. Secrets some would die to know . . . and others would kill to keep.
Author of The Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery Series, Ellie Fields grew up running around wild and barefoot in the foothills of northern California and hating every minute her mom made her spend in the kitchen and garden. She still runs around barefoot but now she absolutely loves spending time in her garden and has fallen hopelessly in love with baking. And with murdering people. Fictionally, of course.
Ellie weaves small town charm, baking recipes, and gardening tips into her cozy mysteries. Her fictional town of Cricket Creek is based on her hometown: a place where neighbors gather at the mailboxes to chat, families go back generations, and where the grocery store clerks know your name (and what your cousin just bought for the family bbq).
Looking for a collection that has something for every mood? Check out Short Stories for the Long Haul by John T. Buckley! Coming soon!
Short Stories for the Long Haul
Expected Publication Date: August 12th, 2022
Genre: Anthology/ Fantasy/ Sci-Fi/ Crime Fiction & More
A collection of short stories that explore the human condition. Everything from a self absorbed wannabe quarterback who gets his shot, to a woman who marries her dog…
Coming Soon!
About the Author
John T. Buckley is a 47 year old writer from Maine who’s been writing most of his life. He also loves to paint and seeing the world. He studied at University of Southern Maine as well as at SMTC in Cape Elizabeth. Fun fact, John T. Buckley was once the lead singer in a band called Mammyth.
Welcome to the tour for Grounders by Leonard Love Matlick. Read on for more details!
Grounders
Publication Date: April 30th, 2022
Genre: Police Procedural/ Crime Fiction
Grounders is cop slang for easy open and solved cases. A husband kills his wife, a bar-fight with a knife or a gun, cases quickly solved in two or three days. Cops love this and get credit for promotion for easily solving cases. In Grounders the NYPD cops find that this murder of a cook is much more than a simple grounder. It involves the Chinese Tong gangs in NYC, Peruvian rebels who want to overthrow their government by using “magic rocks” that were left from an alien civilization like Stargate in Machu-Picchu, and a love story between a detective and a Tong leader’s granddaughter. Grounders combines everything; murder, love, greed, drugs, and rebels amid the backdrop of detectives trying to solve a murder mystery.
Leonard Love Matlick is an engineer, writer, and life coach. He works designing and maintaining NYPD police precincts. He has previously published Cops lie! and The success and confidence manual.
The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.
A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.
As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…
Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel. Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland.
Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel, The Creak on the Stairs. The book went on to win the CWA Debut Dagger, the Blackbird Award, was shortlisted (twice) for the Capital Crime Readers’ Awards, and became a number one bestseller in Iceland. The critically acclaimed Girls Who Lie (book two in the Forbidden Iceland series) soon followed, with Night Shadows (book three) following suit in July 2022. Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.
My thoughts: so we return to the unluckiest town in Iceland where a teenage boy’s body is found locked in his house after a fire. Was it arson? And why would anyone want to kill him?
It’s up to Elma to find out, and when she finds a missing young au pair might be linked to the dead boy, she breaks open the secrets of his friends and their families. Someone here knows a lot more than they’re willing to share.
It’s actually quite sad as all these young lives are shattered, two dead teenagers, families devastated, and more young people implicated in a horrid plot to cover up an accident that becomes a crime.
Elma is a sympathetic figure, she wants the truth and is also dealing with her own personal issues. She doesn’t open up much, even to her family – her sister seems a much bigger personality, but it keeps the suspects from guessing what she’s thinking. She puts herself in harms way, refusing to accept the explanation she’s been given – it doesn’t quite fit.
Clever, suspenseful and with at least one disturbed mind at play here, this is very enjoyable crime writing.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
With a reputation for solving bizarre murders Detective Inspector Jonah Pennance, recently transferred to the National Crime Agency, is brought in to investigate the mysterious death of celebrity fund manager, Grady Carnegie – choked to death, then his body arranged and ready for a wake.
Then a second corpse turns up under identical circumstances – that of washed-up investigative reporter, Stan Thewlis. But how are the two men connected?
Soon, Pennance’s partner, Sergeant Simone Smithson, comes under suspicion for the deaths – the evidence seems overwhelming. To save her Pennance must determine what role the shadowy organisation Blackthorn plays and who is in the background, pulling all the strings…Buy
Keith Nixon is the best-selling author of sixteen novels and one million words in print, including the Margate based Solomon Gray series of over 250,000 copies in circulation and reached no.1 on Amazon in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.
Keith lived near the gritty seaside town of Margate, where many of his novels are based, for 17 years before relocating to the edge of the Peak District with his family where he lives today. Keith works in a senior sales role within a high-tech industry and has regularly travelled all over the globe.
His novels are published by Gladius Press and Bastei Lubbe (German)
My thoughts: financial crimes can be a bit boring, so I’m glad this had several weird murders to liven things up. A man choked to death on cheap white bread forced down his throat, no one quite gets the symbolism, but then it turns out, after another victim is killed the same way and two more are almost poisoned to death with salt, that it’s all smoke and mirrors. Something has prompted the killer or killers to carry out these very specific crimes. Can DI Pennance put the pieces together, work out how the victims are connected, sort out his love life, and prevent any more tragedies?
Racing back and forth across London from crime scenes to interview witnesses, sometimes on the tube and sometimes on foot (someone get this man a car!), going into strange old buildings you might walk past every day and huge glass towers where the wealth management play brings Pennance into contact with an interesting cast of characters. And somewhere in amongst them could be the killer.
I’m not entirely sure many of the characters, especially the cops, have anything approaching normal lives – no one seems to sleep much or eat proper food – certainly vegetables don’t play a role. I do sometimes wonder how fictional detectives don’t all fall down at their desks. The adrenaline alone must come crashing down – Pennance seems to do everything at breakneck pace. But then again lives are at stake, plus the British economy and his romantic future. I suppose he doesn’t want to slow down.
Intelligent and enjoyable, with some very quirky characters, this was a nice introduction to a series I’d not yet come across but will certainly be searching out the back list for.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
An ex-convict. A dead body. A Women’s Institute meeting like no other… It’s an unusually challenging meeting at the Wasby Women’s Institute, with local resident and former drug-dealer Adam Fleetwood talking about his crimes and subsequent rehabilitation…but events take a gruesome turn when prospective member Grace Thoresby is discovered murdered in the kitchen. The case is particularly unwelcome for investigating officer DCI Jude Satterthwaite. Adam was once his close friend and now holds a bitter grudge, blaming Jude for landing him in jail in the first place. To complicate things further, the only thing keeping Adam from arrest is the testimony of Jude’s former girlfriend, Becca Reid, for whom he still cares deeply. As Jude and his colleague and current partner, Ashleigh O’Halloran, try to pick apart the complicated tapestry of Grace’s life, they uncover a web of fantasy, bitterness and deceit. Adam is deeply implicated, but is he guilty or is someone determined to frame him for Grace’s murder? And as they close in on the truth, Jude falls foul of Adam’s desire for revenge, with near-fatal consequences… A traditional detective mystery set in Cumbria.
Jo Allen was born in Wolverhampton and is a graduate of Edinburgh, Strathclyde and the Open University, with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in geography and Earth science. She’s been writing for pleasure and publication for as long as she can remember. After a career in economic consultancy she took up writing and was first published under the name Jennifer Young, in genres of short stories, romance and romantic suspense. She wrote online articles on travel and on her favourite academic subject, Earth science. In 2017 she took the plunge and began writing the genre she most likes to read — crime. Jo lives in the English Lakes, where the DCI Satterthwaite series is set. In common with all her favourite characters, she loves football (she’s a season ticket holder with her beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers) and cats.
My thoughts: I do enjoy this series, I like Jude and his world weary understanding of human nature. After a body is found at a WI meeting, by Jude’s ex Becca no less, an investigation is launched. Adam – a former drug dealer, and former friend of Jude’s, is in the spotlight but might Grace’s murderer be closer to home?
Digging into a family’s lives and complicated relationships isn’t easy, especially one that’s prickly and dysfunctional. But after another death, there’s not much choice.
Adam has it in for Jude and seems determined to cause him misery and harm. Popping up everywhere and never missing a chance to be nasty. Even though Jude never rises to it. There’s a rather hairy (or should that be “dairy”) moment for Jude, but luckily he’s quick.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
The back yard is full of balloons and streamers, and a piñata hangs from a tree branch, circling lazily in the breeze. But beneath the table of party food, a body lies half-covered by a brightly coloured tablecloth, blood seeping onto the floor…
A child’s birthday party ends in chaos when one of the parents is found brutally beaten to death. With no way for anyone to leave unnoticed, it’s clear the killer must be another guest, but with twenty high-spirited children as a distraction, anyone might have had the opportunity to slip away from the rest of the party.
Detective Meredith Somerset soon discovers the victim had no shortage of enemies, and everyone has a potential motive. Fractured marriages, jealousy and betrayals all come to light but Meredith can’t seem to cut through the lies and find the truth.
When another party-goer disappears Meredith knows the clock is ticking before the killer strikes again. But when everyone has a motive, how can she be sure who was the one who struck the fatal blow? Who is innocent—and who is out for blood?
My thoughts: Detective Meredith Somerset is back. She’s still following the clues to her sister’s kidnapping, still keeping her investigation a secret from everyone but needs to put it to one side as she and partner Tyler need to look into the violent murder of a man at a children’s party.
Everyone is keeping secrets – the wife, the employees, the former business partner, and some of those secrets are worth killing for. There’s an entire nest of snakes to sort through and find the venomous one.
Tyler’s sister Hannah isn’t doing too well, and he’s a bit distracted too. Otherwise he might have spotted Meredith’s rising paranoia before her daughter does. Things are coming to a head and Meredith needs to start talking.
There’s a lot happening here and it’s really interesting, the character development is great, to be honest Tyler and Meredith’s lives are far more intriguing than the case they’re on. Next book I want more of the detectives and fewer murders!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
The Theatre London, 1592 When a player is murdered, suspicion falls on the wardrobe mistress, Magdalen Bisset, because everyone knows poison is a woman’s weapon. The scandal-pamphlets vilify her. The coroner is convinced of her guilt. Magdalen is innocent, although few are willing to help her prove it. Her much-loved grandmother is too old and sick. Will Shakespeare is benignly detached, and her friend Christopher Marlowe is wholly unreliable. Only one man offers his assistance, but dare she trust him when nothing about him rings true? With just two weeks until the inquest, Magdalen ignores anonymous threats to ‘leave it be’, and delves into the dangerous underworld of a city seething with religious and racial tension. As time runs out, she must risk everything in her search for the true killer – for all other roads lead to the gallows.
I was born and raised in Yorkshire where my father inspired my love of history from an early age. He is a born story teller and would take us to the top of Iron Age hillforts, often as dusk was falling, and regale us with stirring tales of battles lost and won. Not surprisingly, I went on to study Classics at university, and still love spending my summers on archaeological digs. For me, there is nothing more thrilling than finding an artefact that has not seen the light of day for thousands of years. I find so much inspiration for my novels from archaeology. I have had a variety of jobs over the years, including working for the British Forces newspaper in Germany, and at the BBC. When our family was little, the only available space for me to write was a small walk-in wardrobe. The children used to say, ‘oh, mum’s in the cupboard again’. I have written four historical novels: The King’s Daughter explores the story of Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians. The Saxon Wolves and the Saxon Plague are both set in fifth century AD, a time of enormous upheaval and uncertainty in Britain as the Romans departed and the Saxon era began. My latest is something a bit different. Twelve Nights is a crime thriller set in sixteenth century London, and features William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. I now live with my husband in the Hampshire countryside. Like many others during the pandemic, we decided to try growing our own fruit and vegetables – with mixed results! We can only get better!
Giveaway to Win a PB copy of Twelve Nights (Open to UK Only)
My thoughts: for me this book ticks lots of boxes, as a theatre history nerd, a Shakespeare (apparently my husband’s family are distantly related), a literature student, a crime fiction fan, a history lover and more.
Helpfully it’s also well written, enjoyable and has a great protagonist in Magdalen Bisset, my first name is derived from Magdalen and I have French ancestry, so I felt a kinship with the Theatre’s wardrobe mistress. She’s falsely accused of murder and being as the constable is the one convinced of her guilt and there not being a proper police force to investigate, Magdalen sets out to prove her innocence and uncover the real killer.
I loved the theatricals, most of them notorious drunks and rogues, from Burbage to Kemp, Marlowe to Condell. And of course the Swan of Avon – William Shakespeare, scribbling away in his attic room at the Mountjoys’ house on Silver Street.
I also really liked the evocation of the world of Elizabethan London, the stinking, crowded mass of it, the streets and alleyways, the fact that there was only the one bridge so you needed to catch a boat across the Thames, and they weren’t supposed to run after dark. The proximity of actors to royalty has always intrigued me, and like the author, I think Marlowe was a spy of some sort.
The conspiracy Magdalen uncovers as she seeks to clear her name is shocking but does tie in to several rumours that floated about the court even after James I & VI took the throne. I hope there’s more to come from this world. I want Magdalen and Louisa to set up as the first all women PI firm and investigate more crimes in the morass of religion, poetry and pubs of London in the 1500s.
The author’s notes at the end about the discovery of various theatre’s remains in London has given me a new activity to do next time I catch the train to the capital – go and visit these sites. So make sure you read on beyond the end of the story.
*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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The murder of Sofia Suarez is both gruesome and seemingly senseless. Why would anyone target a respected nurse who was well-liked by her friends and her neighbours? As Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles investigate the baffling case, they discover that Sofia was guarding a dangerous secret — a secret that may have led the killer straight to her door.
Meanwhile, Jane’s mother Angela Rizzoli is conducting an investigation of her own. She may be a housewife, not a police detective, but she’s savvy enough to know there’s something very strange, perhaps even dangerous, about the new neighbours across the street. The problem is, no one believes her, not even her own daughter.
Immersed in the hunt for Sofia’s killer, Jane and Maura are too busy to pay attention to Angela’s fears. With no one listening to her, and danger mounting in her neighbourhood, Angela just may be forced to take action on her own…
Bestselling author TESS GERRITSEN is also a physician, and she brings to her novels her first-hand knowledge of emergency and autopsy rooms. Her thrillers starring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TV series Rizzoli & Isles. But Tess’s interests span far more than medicine and crime. As an anthropology student at Stanford University, she catalogued centuries-old human remains, and she continues to travel the world, driven by her fascination with ancient cultures and bizarre natural phenomena.
My thoughts: I’ve been a Tess Gerritsen fan for a long time, so the new Rizzoli and Isles book was bound to be exciting. And it doesn’t disappoint. I love that Angela, Rizzoli’s mum, is running her own neighbourhood investigation too. She’s pretty sure her daughter got her detective’s nose from her.
The murder of Sofia Suarez is baffling, a widowed nurse, she doesn’t seem to be a typical victim – was it a burglary gone wrong as it appears? Or does her recent Internet search history hold the answers?
Meanwhile the quiet neighbourhood Angela lives in gets some new residents and there’s something odd about them. She’s going to find out what, and find a runaway teenage girl too. Even though the local police would prefer it if she didn’t get involved.
Cracking crime writing as always from the author, much more going on underneath than the apparently straightforward crimes appear. Sofia Suarez opened a whole can of worms and it can only end badly if the detectives can’t work it out fast. And Angela Rizzoli might be in serious trouble too.
I really enjoyed having a secondary story that was so fun and slightly less serious than the murder being investigated. The supporting characters have grown since the first book to become more interesting and more of a presence, adding to Rizzoli and Isles’ lives and helping them evolve into more rounded figures. Sometimes the other stuff, Isles’ piano playing in an orchestra of doctors, Rizzoli’s crazy family, is more interesting than the crimes they solve. I liked the way this one was linked into their lives in some ways – a colleague of the victim is in the same orchestra. It made it feel more realistic and also gave them another way into the victim’s life.
I keep thinking about authors whose work I want to go back and re-read and Tess Gerritsen is definitely one of those, I remember borrowing The Surgeon from the library when it was first published in 2001, and being completely thrilled by it. Her books have only gotten better.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 