Tag: crime fiction

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Vera Kelly is Not a Mystery – Rosalie Knecht*

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Read my review of Who Is Vera Kelly?

Recently out-of-the-spy-game heroine Vera Kelly finds herself travelling from Brooklyn to a sprawling countryside estate in the Caribbean in her first case as a private investigator.

When ex-CIA agent Vera Kelly loses her job and her girlfriend in a single day, she reluctantly goes into business as a private detective.

Heartbroken and cash-strapped, she takes a case that dredges up dark memories and attracts dangerous characters from across the Cold War landscape. Before it’s over, she’ll chase a lost child through foster care and follow a trail of Dominican exiles to the Caribbean.

Forever looking over her shoulder, she nearly misses what’s right in front of her: her own desire for home, connection, and a new romance at the local bar.

In this exciting second instalment of the ‘splendid genre-pushing’ (People) Vera Kelly series, Rosalie Knecht challenges and deepens the Vera we love: a woman of sparkling wit, deep moral fibre, and martini-dry humour who knows how to follow a case even as she struggles to follow her heart.

Rosalie Knecht is the author of Who Is Vera Kelly?, Vera Kelly Is Not A Mystery and Relief Map. She is also the translator of César Aira’s The Seamstress and the Wind (New Directions). She lives in New Jersey.

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My thoughts:

This second outing for reluctant former CIA agent, Vera Kelly, is another fun misadventure. This time Vera is down on her luck, dumped and fired, she sets up shop as a PI.

Struggling to get clients who trust a woman, she takes on the case of a missing boy. Only she senses something off about her clients. So it’s off to the Dominican Republic to find out more, and then back to New York in a hurry as she tangles with the bad guys.

She’s also trying to find love, will something happen between her and Max, the bartender from the gay bar she frequents? In a dangerous time to be queer, Vera treads carefully but might just need to trust a bit more.

I really enjoyed this book and Vera’s adventures, despite the lack of training the CIA gave her, she’s good at disappearing into a role and has a strong sense of right and wrong. She tangles with dangerous people and risks her neck a few times, but somehow always gets through. I hope there’s more to come.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Into The Fire – Rachael Blok*

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Eleven guests. Three nights. One murderer… This is the haunting and atmospheric new thriller from rising star of crime fiction, Rachael Blok.

In a gorgeous mansion in the Hertfordshire countryside, sisters Lois and Ebba prepare to launch their new venture. Archipelago is an exploitation-free tech company whose virtual reality game promises to unite the worlds of technology, politics and the environment.

Invited to the launch party are their investors: current and ex-politicians, international business moguls and activists, one of whom – Marieke – has been receiving online abuse and death threats for her views on eco-politics.

DCI Maarten Jansen has been summoned to join the house party. He is sure the threats are from online trolls with nothing better to do – he’s only offering police protection because his boss wants to put the VIP guests at ease. But when eight of the guests are involved in a suspicious helicopter crash, Maarten starts to uncover long-buried secrets – and a murderer in their midst…

My thoughts:

This was an interesting book, with the terrible helicopter accident acting as a sort of central point and the plot moving back and forth from that moment. Slowly people’s secrets and lies are revealed, the killer’s motivations start to become apparent and guilt makes people act suspiciously.

DCI Maarten Jansen has history with one of the guests and is reluctant to engage with these uber wealthy people. But as he investigates them, he uncovers hidden corruption, these victims aren’t so innocent.

Well written and constructed, with different narrative strands building together to give a complex picture of the company and the characters, especially Iqbal – who deserves his own book. An interesting take on the classic country house mystery.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Invitation – A.M. Castle*

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Thirteen guests. One killer. No escape.

On an island on the coast of Cornwall, cut off from the mainland by the tides for most of the day, thirteen old friends meet at Tregowan Castle for a weekend of revelry.

By the next evening only twelve are still alive.

Amongst them is a killer – but who? As a storm traps them on the island and past betrayals and grievances are revealed, nerves fray and friendships begin to fracture.

But with no escape and no way of calling for help it’s only a matter of time before the killer strikes again. And when everyone is keeping secrets, anybody could be the next victim…

My thoughts:

In the And Then There Were None mold, this takes place on an isolated island akin to St Michael’s Mount, off the Cornish coast.

Invited by their old uni friend, the new Lady Tregowan, this group of people are all hiding secrets that are about to surface. And then the first body drops.

I really enjoyed this, all the incestuous relationships and complicated back stories that entangle this group who maybe should have gone their separate ways years ago.

And I was completely wrongfooted by the reveal – I had no idea that the killer was who it was. Really liked that nice twist.


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Perfect Nanny – Karen Clarke & Amanda Brittany*

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You trust her with your home, your husband, your baby… but she is about to destroy it all.

Sophy Pemberton is struggling to cope with the pressures of becoming a new mother. Her nine-month-old son never settles in her arms and the unrelenting tiredness from late night feeds is all consuming.

So, when Liv Granger from the mother and baby group offers her services as a nanny, Sophy is overcome with relief. Now she can finally get some sleep… She can stop failing at being a mother.

But Liv has a secret.

She is convinced that Sophy was accountable for her brother’s tragic death and she has been searching for her for years.

And now that Liv’s found her, she’s outraged Sophy seems oblivious to the pain she has caused her family.

Sophy’s perfect house, perfect husband and perfect baby are too much for Liv to bear… and she’s going to make her pay.

My thoughts:

This started off like it was going to be a dark domestic thriller but as it evolved it became much more sympathetic and instead of Liv being the villain, she’s much more understandable – she’s grieving and has been misled.

Sophy also isn’t a bad person and deserves sympathy. In fact the person who has caused harm is a surprise in a way; their behaviour is completely shocking and not really understandable.

There are quite a few dubious characters, people whose behaviour is questionable and odd. It made Sophy’s fears understandable.

I just wish the babies had been the bad guys, now that would be the twist!


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Nighthawking – Russ Thomas*

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Read my review of Firewatching

After the gut-punch ending of Firewatching, DS Adam Tyler returns to another shocking cold case…

A body has been discovered in Sheffield’s beautiful Botanical Gardens. A young woman, dead from a stab wound, buried in a quiet corner. Police quickly determine that the body has been there for months, and would have gone undiscovered for years – but someone has dug it up.

Who is the victim? Who killed her and buried the body, resting two ancient Roman coins over her eyes? And who dug her up? DS Adam Tyler will find himself drawn into the secretive world of nighthawkers: treasure-hunters who operate under cover of darkness, seeking the lost and valuable, and willing to kill to keep what they find…

Russ Thomas was born in Essex, raised in Berkshire and now lives in Sheffield. After a few ‘proper’ jobs (among them: pot-washer, optician’s receptionist, supermarket warehouse operative, call-centre telephonist, and storage salesman) he discovered the joys of bookselling, where he could talk to people about books all day.

His highly-acclaimed debut novel, Firewatching, is the first in the DS Adam Tyler series and published in February 2020. Nighthawking, the second book in the series, will publish in February 2021.

My thoughts:

This was really good, a mix of crime procedural, personal drama and an alternate version of gentle comedy The Detectorists.

When a body is found buried in the Botanical Gardens, a series of dodgy dealings starts to unravel. The nighthawkers have found some treasure but instead of declaring them they tried to sell them and now someone wants them all. Is that person responsible for the dead woman? Or does it have something to do with her PhD in botanical science?

DS Tyler is distracted by his personal stuff, his dad’s murder, his brother’s reappearance, his faltering relationship, will this affect his ability to get the crime solved?

I felt sorry for his DC, Mina, who ends up doing the brunt of the investigation, carrying two sergeants who are busy thinking about something else, but not getting the respect and acknowledgement she deserves. In a way this is her book, I learnt a lot about her, whereas in Firewatching she was in the background a lot more.

Tyler is a mess, despite his supposed brilliance, he’s all over the place and the case seems like the least important thing to him.

I was completely gripped by the story, it was very clever and each new fragment of information added complications and new suspects to the case. The ending was shocking and I didn’t have a clue who the villain was, I was blindsided by the reveal. Really, really good stuff.


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Horsey Mere & The Wherryman –

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HORSEY MERE
The remains of a 17th Century witch, an MP found hanging above a five-pointed star, and three girls with powers beyond anyone’s control.
As DI Tanner and DS Evans endeavour to make plans for their big day, the chance discovery of Norfolk’s last known witch, tried and hanged by Norfolk’s infamous Witchfinder General, sparks a chain of the most horrific events, none of which Tanner seems able to stop.
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THE WHERRYMAN
Four missing children, three murdered men, and the helm of a boat with a blood-red sail, hiding a
secret only he can tell.
Returning to the Broads after nearly two years at sea, Tanner moors up next to a boat to find the body of a man whose five-year-old daughter is nowhere to be seen. As a torrent of unwanted memories begins flooding through his mind, an attractive Broads Ranger arrives at the scene with a disturbing tale; one of children being taken by a ghostly figure, standing at the helm of an old wooden boat.
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Consistently ranked within the top 30 most read authors on Amazon.co.uk, David Blake is a full-time author living in North London. To date he has written eighteen books along with a collection of short stories. He’s currently working on his nineteenth, The Wherryman, which is the next in his series of crime fiction thrillers after Broadland, St. Benet’s, Moorings, Three Rivers and Horsey Mere. When
not writing, David likes to spend his time mucking about in boats, often in the Norfolk Broads, where his crime fiction books are based.

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My thoughts:

These were both excellent, slightly macabre, crime novels, set amongst the Norfolk Broads, drawing on folklore and history, strange figures among the reeds.

Horsey Mere concerns witchcraft and the fact that in the 17th Century more women were executed as witches in East Anglia than anywhere else in England. A suspected witch’s skeleton is found on the mere and it unleashes a spree of madness, with supposed modern witches targeted and attacked. It also comes with a body count; starting with the local MP. Local detectives race against time to stop more people dying, but for Tanner and Evans they might just run out of time.

The Wherryman takes place two years later, as the next in the series, so there’s some character changes at the police station. Someone is abducting children and then a man is found murdered and his daughter gone. Tanner starts to investigate and it all seems linked to some unpleasant London gangsters who’ve moved east.

Both clever and well written, with spots of genuinely amusing humour and also terrible darkness inside people, I’m going to be catching up on the previous titles in the 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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Hotel Cartagena – Simone Buchholz*

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Read my review of Mexico Street

Twenty floors above the shimmering lights of the Hamburg docks, Public Prosecutor Chastity Riley is celebrating a birthday with friends in a hotel bar when twelve heavily armed men pull out guns, and take everyone hostage. Among the hostages is Konrad Hoogsmart, the hotel owner, who is being targeted by a young man whose life – and family – have been destroyed by Hoogsmart’s actions.

With the police looking on from outside – their colleagues’ lives at stake – and Chastity on the inside, increasingly ill from an unexpected case of sepsis, the stage is set for a dramatic confrontation … and a devastating outcome for the team … all live streamed in a terrifying bid for revenge.

Crackling with energy and populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, Hotel Cartagena is a searing, stunning thriller that will leave you breathless.

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.

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

My thoughts:

This was a trippy book, with strange moments where the text changes form as the narrator lapses in and out of consciousness and struggles with sepsis. Moving from Germany to Colombia and back, it traces a reckoning years in the making as well as one eventful and strange night in a bar.

The shocking twists and turns of the night, as the story moves back in time and then returns to the present is gripping and utterly compelling. Who are the gunmen and why is the bartender so relaxed? What is happening to Chastity’s mind as her friends’ faces swim in and out of focus?


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: A Beautiful Breed of Evil – Andy Maslen*

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He’ll never speak of the evil they did…

A former Swedish ambassador lies dead in his swanky Mayfair flat. With his tongue torn out and placed on a Bible. Competing theories swirl. A religious maniac? A psychopath? The truth is far darker than either. DCI Stella Cole’s search for the killer takes her to Sweden. There, she discovers a horrific chapter in the country’s history that throws the case into turmoil. And then more people start dying.
Teaming up with Swedish cops Oskar Norgrim and Johanna Carlsson, Stella pieces together Ambassador Brömly’s shocking past. And discovers the killer’s motive.
Meanwhile, Stella’s personal life is about to take a significant turn as her boyfriend, Jamie, suggests a change in their relationship. But as Stella tries to process what it means, she makes a fateful decision.
Why won’t the dead stay buried?
On the other side of the Atlantic, a kid practising BMX stunts over water finds a skeleton on a lake bed. When the victim is revealed to be a British cop, the FBI ask for assistance. Stella’s arch-enemy from her own department gets the case. She flies to Chicago and soon discovers the murderer’s identity.
The scene is set for a showdown in Sweden as DI Roisin Griffin pursues her vendetta against Stella all the way to the north of Sweden during the annual festival of Midsommar.
A fast-paced, twisty crime thriller …
A Beautiful Breed of Evil is the fifth book in this series of hard-hitting crime thrillers. Much of the action takes place in Sweden, home to fictional detectives Martin Beck, Kurt Wallander, Harry Hole and Saga Norén.
Even as Stella is fighting to bring the killer to justice, shadowy figures from her past are planning to silence her before she can expose their brutal methods.

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Andy Maslen was born in Nottingham, in the UK, home of legendary bowman Robin Hood. Andy once won a medal for archery, although he has never been locked up by the sheriff.

He has worked in a record shop, as a barman, as a door-to-door DIY products salesman and a cook in an Italian restaurant.

He lives in Wiltshire with his wife, two sons and a whippet named Merlin.

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My thoughts:

This was a really enjoyable international thriller with investigations spanning the UK, Sweden and the US.

When a former ambassador is murdered and mutilated, seemingly related to lines in the Bible left underlined, DCI Cole discovers a discrepancy in the victim’s past that may just help her find the killer, so she’s off to Sweden to fill in the gaps.

Meanwhile bodies have been recovered from a lake in Minnesota that link back to the UK, and could spell trouble for Cole.

It’s a fast paced, whip crack of a case as more bodies start to drop in Sweden and Cole’s neck is on the line.

Really enjoyable, utterly gripping thriller with lots of red herrings and dodgy dealings and a link to a shocking chapter in Swedish history.

I actually know the Swedish Church in London, I used to work about two doors down but I never went in for the delicious cinnamon buns that prove a vital plot point (buns not the probably very nice Swedes in the church).

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Old Cases, New Colours – Madalyn Morgan*

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Sick of working in a world of spies and bureaucracy, Ena Green, nee Dudley, leaves the Home Office and starts her own investigating agency.
Working for herself she can choose which investigations to take and, more importantly, which to
turn down.

While working on two investigations, Ena is called as a prosecution witness in the Old Bailey trial of a cold-blooded killer who she exposed as a spy the year before.

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I was bought up in a pub in a small market town called Lutterworth. For as long as I can remember, my dream was to be an actress and a writer. The pub was a great place for an aspiring actress and writer to live with so many characters to study and accents to learn. I was offered Crossroads the
first time around.

However, my mother wanted me to have a ‘proper’ job that I could fall back on if I needed to, so I did a hairdressing apprenticeship. Eight years later, aged twenty-four, I gave up a successful salon and wig-hire business in the theatre for a place at East 15 Drama College and a career as an actress, working in Repertory theatre, the West End, film and television.

In 1995, with fewer parts for older actresses, I gave up acting. I taught myself to touch-type, completed a two-year correspondence course with The Writer’s Bureau and began writing articles and presenting radio.

In 2010, after living in London for thirty-six years, I moved back to Lutterworth. I swapped two window boxes and a mortgage for a garden and the freedom to write. Since then, I have written nine novels.

The first four, The Dudley Sisters’ Saga, tell the stories of four sisters in World War 2. My current novel, Old Cases, New Colours, is a thriller/detective story set in 1960.

I am writing a Christmas book – Christmas Applause – and a Memoir; a collection of short stories, articles, poems, photographs and character breakdowns from my days as an actress.

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My thoughts:

This was a really fun read, it reminded me of a lot of mystery novels with a slight tongue in cheek humour – and they’re always enjoyable.

The characters are strongly drawn and Ena in particular is fascinating and I was rooting for her to solve all of her cases and get the agency up and running. She felt very modern but also of her time – a tricky thing to pull off.

The plot bubbled along nicely, and the supporting characters were entertaining – especially the wealthy Priscilla, forever pinching things and pretending to run out on her restaurant bills.


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Guilty Husband – Stephanie DeCarolis*

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THE PERFECT HUSBAND…

Vince Taylor has everything he could dream of. He’s the CEO of a tech firm in New York City, owns a beautiful home, and most importantly, he is married to Nicole – the woman who stole his heart the first moment he set eyes on her. Together they have built the perfect life.

ONE GUILTY SECRET

But when Layla, a stunning young intern at Vince’s company is found dead, all eyes are suddenly on him. Vince has a secret that threatens to tear their perfect world apart…

He was having an affair with Layla. And he’ll do anything to cover his tracks.

DO YOU BELIEVE HIM?

When the police discover Vince lied about their relationship, they are convinced they have found Layla’s killer.

If Vince kept quiet about the affair… what else is he guilty of?

My thoughts:

Vince comes across as typical wealthy boss who took advantage of his intern – complete with lying to the cops and fiddling the evidence, but he was being played too. As the case unrolls, secrets are slowly coming to light that cast a different angle on Layla, Vince and some of the other potential suspects.

The twist at the end was very nicely done – it paid off only really seeing things from limited perspectives, because the more you know, the more doubt you have. Did Vince do this?

Enjoyable and gripping, this was a clever thriller about secrets, lies and money.


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