Tag: crime fiction

When Isabelle Darby moves to the delightfully cosy village of Lower Dimblebrook, she’s searching for
peace and quiet as well as a chance to escape from heartbreak.

After making friends with Fiona Lambourne, another newcomer to the village, Issie is left reeling when tragedy strikes and Fiona is murdered, the second wife Anthony Lambourne has lost in unfortunate circumstances. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the local gossips insist that Fiona had been embroiled in an affair before her death, something which Issie knows not to be the case.

Determined to clear her friend’s reputation and solve the mystery of the rumours, Issie takes on both the gossips and the handsome but stern DI Wainwright, making both friends and enemies along the way!

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Julie Butterfield belongs to the rather large group of ‘always wanted to write’ authors who finally found the time to sit down and put pen to paper – or rather fingers to keyboard.

She wrote her first book purely for pleasure and was very surprised to discover that so many people enjoyed the story and wanted more, so she decided to carry on writing.

It has to be pointed out that her first novel, ‘Did I Mention I Won The Lottery’ is a complete work of fiction and she did not, in fact, receive millions in her bank account and forget to mention it to her husband – even though he still asks her every day if she has anything to tell him!

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My thoughts:

This was a lot of fun, a terrible murder in the picturesque village of Lower Dimblebrook brings the police around asking questions and makes Issie realise she didn’t know her new friend Fiona as well as she thought, so she starts her own investigation.

Aided and abetted by fellow residents, and a tiny dog with a lot of energy, Issie soon uncovers a terrible secret in Lambourne Hall and risks her own life to reveal the killer.

As much as you probably shouldn’t enjoy murder mysteries, this was really enjoyable, funny, wry and clever, the author has a keen eye for people’s idiosyncrasies and how village life can get a little claustrophobic when everyone knows everything.

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

Hard-hitting talk show host Augustus Seeza has become a household name in Ghana, though plagued by rumours of lavish overspending, alcoholism, and womanising. He’s dating the imposing, beautiful Lady Araba, who leads a self-made fashion empire.

Araba’s religious family believes Augustus is after her money and intervenes to break them up. A few days later, just before a major runway show, Araba is found murdered in her bed. Her driver is arrested after a hasty investigation, but Araba’s favourite aunt, Dele, has always thought Augustus Seeza was the real killer.

Almost a year later, Dele approaches Emma Djan, who has finally started to settle in as the only female PI at her agency. To solve Lady Araba’s murder, Emma must not only go on an undercover mission that dredges up trauma from her past but navigate a long list of suspects with solid alibis. Emma quickly discovers that they are willing to lie for each other – and that one may still be willing to kill.

My thoughts:

This was a really good read, moving back and forth in time from Lady Araba’s death, the book slowly reveals the motives the people around her had, and why they might have killed her. Emma and the team make more headway on the case than the corrupt and inept police did at the time, despite it being almost a year later.

So engrossing and compelling, with its scorn for Ghana’s inefficient and easily manipulated systems, and its ribbing of the 1% who are oblivious to how much they’re observed by those around them. Money smooths the way but as younger Ghanaians rise up into positions and change the way things are done, the ability to bribe and blackmail people has less power.

Exposing the underbelly of society and, through Emma and Detective Boateng, showing a smarter, more honest new broom, the author points the way for a better society, one where the poor driver doesn’t get arrested and the real killer receives justice swiftly and through good policing and hard evidence.

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

As an actor in New York City in the late ‘80s, Carry knew at some point he’d write about that unusual yet transformative experience which inspired the setting for Blood Will Have Blood. Carry explains he was intrigued by the idea of seemingly normal people who find themselves in abnormal contexts, where unanticipated aspects of themselves are revealed, often resulting in violent, dangerous, and subversively funny situations.

Struggling actor and inveterate pothead Scott Russo is tired of performing in terrible Off-Off Broadway productions, hopping from one soul-crushing job to the next. He contemplates throwing in the towel altogether on making it as an actor but the only thing that keeps him going is the humiliation of returning back home to Baltimore as a failure. That and his current theatrical gig: an idiotically bad production of Macbeth. Broke and jobless, Scott jumps at his friend’s offer to work for a pot delivery service, only to get caught in a web of dangerous Irish gangsters, a charismatic psychopath, ruthless prosecutors, and clueless actors. When his theatrical and criminal worlds collide in mayhem, murder, and betrayal, Scott finds himself morphing into a bumbling and blood-stained Macbeth, on stage and off. If he can just make it to opening night…

My thoughts:

This was a lot of fun, a blackly comic book about an actor who gets completely out of his depth with gangsters and lawyers in 80s New York. He has a go at playing both sides, but it seems there’s a lot more going on in the shadows even a ridiculous version of Macbeth can’t compete with the insanity Scott finds himself embroiled in.

Scott is the everyman caught up between psychopathic Irish gangsters and dodgy Ivy League types claiming to be the good guys. Also there’s some cats and a charming transwoman called Juanita. Like I said, lots of fun.

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

To solve an impossible murder, you need an impossible hero…

Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper.

One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself, and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local Vicar.

Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.

When another body turns up, they realise they have a real-life serial killer on their hands. And the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape…

My thoughts:

This was tremendous fun, reminded me of Agatha Raisin, in that gentle crime story in a rural place way, and a little of Miss Marple (though any locked rooms in her house definitely contain bodies – I stand by my belief Marple is a serial killer!). I know it will also get compared to The Thursday Murder Club but beyond the similar titles and older female protagonist there’s no real similarities.

When the fabulous Judith Potts (I think I want to be her when I grow up) hears a gunshot at her neighbour’s house and finds a body, she decides to investigate.

What follows is funny, clever and once she’s untangled it, a rather audacious plot. I felt a little sorry for the police detective trying to handle Judith and her new pals, they have a lot of energy and Judith doesn’t seem to hear the word “no”.

Hope there’s going to be more if the author isn’t too busy with his day job writing Death in Paradise….

*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 second and third reviews of the DS Thoroughgood thrillers will be reviewed on 26th January and 2nd February so stay tuned.

PARALLEL LINES is the story of a deadly rivalry on both sides of the law. With criminal rival and would be underworld kingpin Declan Meehan on the verge of controlling Glasgow’s lucrative illegal drug trade, Detective Sergeant Angus Thoroughgood vows to bring him down. An edgy and fast-paced crime thriller set in the seedy criminal underworld of Glasgow, Scotland, Parallel Lines is the first book in the long-running Thoroughgood series. With Meechan bludgeoning his competition into submission, seizing the city piece by piece, his conflict with Thoroughgood gets all too personal when Celine Lynott, the woman who broke Angus’ heart ten-years earlier, falls for his nemesis.

Parallel Lines sees author RJ Mitchell drawing from his 12 years of experience as a Glasgow police officer to drag readers into the city’s sleazy underbelly to encounter the violent and lawless stories that can be found there.

An edgy and fast-paced crime thriller set in the seedy criminal underworld of Glasgow, Scotland, Parallel Lines is the first book in the long-running Thoroughgood series. With Meechan bludgeoning his competition into submission, seizing the city piece by piece, his conflict with Thoroughgood gets all too personal when Celine Lynott, the woman who broke Angus’ heart ten-years earlier, falls for his nemesis.

Parallel Lines sees author RJ Mitchell drawing from his 12 years of experience as a Glasgow police officer to drag readers into the city’s sleazy underbelly to encounter the violent and lawless stories that can be found there.

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Matthew James Publishing

Robert James Mitchell was brought up in Stirling. Mitchell was initially detailed beat duties out of the former Blackhill Police Office and then Baird Street Police Office in the former ‘D’ Division, or the North, as it was known to all the men who served in the division.

In January, 2007, while recovering from an appendicitis, Mitchell decided to write the first draft of ‘Parallel Lines: The Glasgow Supremacy‘, drawing heavily on his own experiences and featuring the characters of Detective Sergeant Gus Thoroughgood and DC Kenny Hardie.

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My thoughts:

This was a good old fashioned police procedural featuring a determined detective and some very dangerous gangsters on the mean streets of Glasgow.

Thoroughly enjoyable and full of dirty deeds as DS Thoroughgood pursues crime lord Declan Meechan as a series of killings take place, cementing Meechan as the kingpin.

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

Check out my review of Ritual Demise

Nothing remains buried forever…

When the bodies of two teenage girls are discovered on a building site, DCI Whitney Walker knows she’s on the hunt for a killer. The problem is the murders happened forty years ago and this is her first case with the new team. What makes it even tougher is that with budgetary restrictions in place, she only has two weeks to solve it.

Once again, she enlists the help of forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish, but as she digs deeper into the past, she uncovers hidden truths that hurtle through the decades and into the present.

Silent Graves is the ninth book in the acclaimed Cavendish & Walker series. Perfect for fans of L J Ross, J M Dalgleish and Rachel Abbott.

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Sally Rigby was born in Northampton, in the UK. She has always had the travel bug, and after living in both Manchester and London, eventually moved overseas. From 2001 she has lived with her family in New Zealand (apart from five years in Australia), which she considers to be the most beautiful place in the world.

After writing young adult fiction for many years, under a pen name, Sally decided to move into crime fiction. Her Cavendish & Walker series brings together two headstrong, and

From 2001 she has lived with her family in New Zealand (apart from five years in Australia), which she considers to be the most beautiful place in the world.

After writing young adult fiction for many years, under a pen name, Sally decided to move into crime fiction. Her Cavendish & Walker series brings together two headstrong, and very different, women – DCI Whitney Walker, and forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish.

Sally has a background in education, and has always loved crime fiction books, films and TV programmes. She has a particular fascination with the psychology of serial killers.

Check out her website for a FREE prequel story….. www.sallyrigby.com

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My thoughts:I am a massive fan of the Cavendish and Walker series and was thrilled that there was another one due out, I devoured the previous books in a matter of days since discovering them, they’re so good. Well written, compelling and with great characters, especially in Whitney and George.

In this newest installment two sets of human remains have been found during the initial digging for a new housing estate on farmland, they’ve been there a long time and so Whitney and the team open a cold case, one that wasn’t handled very well forty years ago, the missing teenage girls dismissed as runaways, leaving their families in limbo.

What unravels is a tale of tragedy and teenage drug taking, police misconduct and families left without their children for far too long.

Although the biggest jaw drop is the brilliant closing lines, which I won’t spoil but it’s fair to say Whitney’s private life is about to require some adjustments!

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