Tag: thrillers

A divisive prime minister.

A long-buried body. A plot to bring him down…

The bigger the secret the more dangerous it is to lie…

On the morning of the Tory Party conference, the bones of a young woman’s hand are discovered in a London building site.

Jed Fowkes, Special Adviser at the Treasury, confronts Prime Minister Robin Sandford with a terrible accusation. He claims the hand belongs to someone they once knew well: a young woman whom Sandford murdered years ago.

With his career on the brink of ruin, the Prime Minister’s only hope is to enlist the unofficial help of MI5. A decision which leads him into a new world of espionage, illegal trafficking and murder.

And the deeper he goes, the more treacherous the game becomes. Because now it’s not just his life on the line; it’s the future of the state itself…

My thoughts:

A political thriller with a prime minister under threat, a journalist going on the hunt, a young MI5 agent undercover, dodgy dealings and possible murdered women in the past coming back from the dead.

There’s a lot going on here, including at least two different but intertwining conspiracies, both dating back twenty to thirty years, with innocent women suffering at the hands of cruel and manipulative men.

The only male character who doesn’t seem to be at least semi awful is ex-journalist Quine, the PM and SPADs, and other politicians are all as smarmy and ghastly as you’d imagine. The female characters fare better, MI5 agent Isla and her partner, Sophie, who happens to be Quine’s daughter, are both decent and intelligent people with their own agency. I felt sorry for the PM’s wife Carol, who seemed to have given up her own career to follow his, and that’s not even a requirement anymore. She’s asked to provide money and help him while knowing nothing. He should trust her more.

Then there’s the magnificent Mrs T, who deserves her own book about her exploits as I bet she was more than just a Cornish housewife when she was younger. Quine can join in her in one last adventure.

This was very clever and engrossing, but I really wanted to push Jed off a bridge just for being a creep, and have the PM resign and his clearly too good for him wife become leader, and then put things to rights.

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

MANCHESTER: Cain Bell thought he had closure over the hit and run death of his daughter. Ted Blake had confessed he was the behind the wheel just before he died.

Twenty years on and Cain’s world is thrown upside down when his fiancé claims the driver was lying. Before she says more, a savage attack leaves her in a coma fighting for her life. To find out why Cain must uncover why four friends swore blind to never tell the truth about his daughter’s death. Now, he must persuade Manchester’s most terrifying gangster to reveal the secrets that kept hidden for two decades. And Billy McGinty is in no mood to break his own wall of silence.
Unless Cain can persuade him to talk, even if it means putting his own life on the line.

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Andrew Field has spent most of his working life as a PR consultant raising the profiles of others. Now the roles are reversed as he steps into the spotlight with All Down The Line (published in 2020).

He handled Boddingtons Bitter during its “Cream of Manchester” heyday, developing innovative sports and cultural partnerships with TV and media platforms. Clients have also included a convicted armed bank robber and another who did eighteen months prison time for blackmail, although he didn’t know about their colourful backstories at the time. “I’d quizzed them more about their experiences. After all, hard-boiled grimness all adds to the mix, even if it is anecdotal.”

“Authors are by definition are relatively introverted. They work in isolation and inhabit imaginary world of their own creation. They can spend years staring at a computer screen bringing their characters to life. Then they have to become a different person to promote their work and market themselves.”

“Fiction is a great way to write about how you feel personally about this great thing we do called living. We disguise it by calling it crime fiction, but behind the genre there is a world view being expressed. In my eyes, the memorable books, films and music, good or bad, are the ones you’re still thinking about 24 or 48 hours after you finished reading, watching or listening.”

What can readers expect from Andrew’s work? “If you’re into noir from the likes of James Lee Burke, James Cain, James Ellroy, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Ted Lewis, Ed McBain and Jim Thompson, you’ll see where I am coming from.”

Andrew lives, works and plays in Northumberland, England, Europe, with his wife Catherine. A novella, Wicked Games was published in 2014. Without Rules in 2018 by Boomslang. All Down The Line will be published in December 2020.

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My thoughts:

Just as Cain Bell thinks his life is on the upswing, years after the tragic death of his young daughter, another terrible event places his fiancée in a coma, just as she was about to tell him the truth about the driver who killed Hannah in a hit and run.

Now he has to contend with his partner’s ex-husband and daughter he’s never met, some nasty thugs, detectives and a few other lowlifes making threats and demands, while he waits to see if the woman he loves will ever wake up, and with that time on his hands and his journalistic instincts awakened, he starts to dig.

Gripping and clever, as Cain digs into the past and the cast of characters around him all seem to somehow be involved. People keep telling him to back off, but he wants the truth and keeps trying to find it. He only seems to have a few people he can trust, and even then they’re not entirely much help.

A lot happens very quickly, and it all seems to spin a little out of control around Cain, to the point where he seems to decide to just give up. The ending was a bit less redemptive than I’d have liked, I think I read too many books where the bad guys all get their comeuppance and the good guy gets the girl, but this is more realistic than that, and Cain’s decisions are those of a man with little else to lose.

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

WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO SAVE YOUR LOVED ONE?
AND DO YOU KNOW WHO SHE REALLY IS?
They took your fiancée.
They framed you for murder.You’re given one chance to save her. To clear your name.
You must kill someone for them.They give you the time and place.
The weapon. The target.
You have less than 24 hours.
You only know that no-one can be trusted…and nothing is what it seems.

My thoughts:

The premise of this was very clever and the way it was laid out, from the perspectives of three suspects and the detective investigating it was really clever, as they take it in turns to tell you what happened.

It all seems like a really bad dream when Nick wakes up to find his pregnant fiancée gone and a dead body in her place, and it gets increasingly worse from there.

There’s a lot of action for Nick, not so much for Kate, locked up by her kidnapper, but the back and forth of the interviews keeps the tension up and as the body count rises you can’t help but think “what on earth could happen next?”

The ending was a tiny bit less satisfying though and left me wanting more about what happens next between the two characters in the final scene – sequel please!

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

Cassie Raven believes the dead can talk. We just need to listen . . .
People think being a mortuary technician is a seriously weird job. They can’t understand why I choose to cut up dead bodies for a living. But they don’t know what I know:
The dead want to tell us what happened to them.
I’ve eviscerated thousands of bodies, but never someone I know before – someone who meant a lot to me; someone I loved.
The pathologist says that her death was an accident.
Her body is telling me differently.

A.K. Turner‘s first foray into crime fiction was a detective thriller trilogy, written under the pen name Anya Lipska, following the adventures of Janusz Kiszka, a fixer to London’s Polish community. All three books won critical acclaim and were twice optioned as a possible TV series.

In her other life as a TV producer and writer, A.K. makes documentaries and drama-docs on subjects as diverse as the Mutiny on the Bounty, the sex lives of Neanderthals, and Monty Don’s Italian Gardens.

My thoughts:

This was a cracking crime thriller with an engaging pair of protagonists – mortuary assistant Cassie and detective Phyllida. Both are equally determined to get justice for the victims, with slightly different ways of going about it.

When Cassie’s former teacher winds up on her table, her death apparently an accident, Cassie suspects otherwise and asks Phyllida Flyte – a detective new to the Met, to take another look in exchange for some information that may solve another case.

The pair both examine the death from different perspectives, unravelling a scam in the process but putting one of them in harm’s way.

Engaging, clever, fascinating (yes, I’m one of those people who likes forensic science and thinks it’s interesting not gross) and utterly gripping. I look forward to more books featuring these two smart and dedicated women.

*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 know everything about you.

I know your name, your birthday, your kids’ names, where you live, where you work. I know when you get that big promotion, or when you argue with your spouse.

You tell me all this because I’m your bartender.

But someone knows everything about me too. Someone knows all my secrets and they’re using them against me. They’re setting me up.

The police think I murdered Emily Parker. To prove my innocence I need to find the real killer.

I need to beat him at his own game.

My thoughts:

This was a very twisted thriller, the killer is playing a dark game for his own reasons that aren’t apparently clear to either Clay or the reader.

While Clay was playing with fire sleeping with a married woman, he certainly doesn’t deserve to be framed for murder and forced to go on the run, following the orders of the real killer to keep himself and his friends alive.

A tense cat and mouse game ensues, with Clay determined to find the real killer and evade the police who think he’s the guilty one.

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

How long can the desire for revenge last?

Kate Shaw, a successful pharmacist, goes to a thirty-year reunion at her old university and uses the weekend to settle some old scores. Her main target is her ex-lover, Jonathan. She decides to scar him for life as he scarred her. Her bizarre plan works but he shocks her with his strange, unwanted reaction.

What is the unexpected link between Jonathan and Kate’s husband?
What is the significance of the ‘Love Bite’ photograph?
What hold does Jonathan have over Kate?

Revenge is never simple.
A darkly humorous story of love, lust, loss and vengeance.

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Linda Fawke is an arts person who studied science but always wanted to write. Now retired, she indulges this passion, writing fiction and non-fiction, even occasional poetry, preferably late at night.

She has now written two novels, ‘A Taste of his own Medicine’ and its sequel, ‘A Prescription for Madness’ using her background in pharmacy as the setting of both. These are easy books to read, suitable for Book Club discussions. ‘ A Prescription for Madness’ is more serious than the first book, dealing with such issues as pregnancy in later life and Down’s Syndrome.
She has been a winner of the Daily Telegraph ‘Just Back’ travel-writing competition and has published in various magazines including ‘Mslexia’, ‘Litro’ online, ‘Scribble’, ‘The Oldie’, ‘Berkshire Life’ and ‘Living France’. She was a finalist in the ‘Hysteria’ short story competition.

Visit Linda’s blog where her ‘Random Writings’ include a range of topics
from travel to ‘Things that pop into my head’.

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My thoughts:

I didn’t really take to the character of Kate, who’s held on to grudges for thirty years and decides to carry out some acts of revenge at her university reunion, both large and small. While her embarrassing of one former classmate was a little funny, some of the other things she does just seem a little mean. She should really have seen a therapist instead to work out her issues.

And it doesn’t go well, the one person she decides to take the most long-lasting revenge on, former boyfriend Jonathan, turns out to be a truly nasty, manipulative man, twisting everything into a cruel game, involving her unwitting husband (who isn’t a particularly faithful one), seemingly planning to toy with Kate’s happiness for the foreseeable future.

It ends on a cliffhanger, with Kate forced to wait and see what Jonathan will do next. Neither of them are particularly good people and maybe they deserve each other.

I did enjoy the book, I just didn’t warm to the characters, either trapped in the past or boastful idiots, I don’t think I’d enjoy knowing them if they were real people. But then that may be the point – who would want to be around this lot.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, so the saying goes, and I think the point of this twisted and well written story is that no one ever gets away with it, you can’t carry out cruel games and expect to walk away.

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

‘Some secrets were meant to be buried forever. Until now.’

Sean Richardson, a disgraced former intelligence agent, is tasked to lead a team to search for a British intelligence officer on the cusp of exposing thousands of secrets to the media. It includes a long lost list of Russian moles embedded since the Cold War, one of whom remains a public favourite in the British parliamentary system.

The action moves with absorbing pace and intrigue across Central Asia and Europe as the puzzle begins to unfold through a deep hidden legacy. As Sean gets closer to the truth, senior figures are left to nurse their anxiety knowing that if the secret is revealed, it will destroy their lives.

On the verge of success, his eye is taken off the ball, and the Russians step forward ready to pounce.

Tense, fast paced, and insightful, The Failsafe Query twists and turns to a satisfyingly dramatic finale.

The first in a set of spy thrillers that have been expertly crafted with stunning plot lines, magnificent locations, and twists that leave you gasping for air. Perfect for fans of Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, and Scott Mariani.

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I started climbing at 13, survived being lost in Snowdonia at 14, nearly drowned at 15, and then joined the Army at 16. Risk and adventure was built into my DNA and I feel very fortunate to have served the majority of my working career as an intelligence officer within Defence Intelligence, and as an explosive ordnance disposal officer and military surveyor within the Corps of Royal Engineers.

I was privileged to serve for twenty-eight years in the British Army as a soldier and officer, rising through the ranks to complete my service as a major. I served across the globe on numerous military operations as well as extensive travel and adventure on many major mountaineering and exploration expeditions that I led or was involved in.I was awarded the Geographic Medal by the Royal Geographical Society for mountain exploration in 2003 and served on the screening committee of the Mount Everest Foundation charity for many years. It was humbling after so many years of service when I was awarded the MBE for services to counter-terrorism in 2007.

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My thoughts:

This was a fast paced, clever and knotty thriller. There’s a mole somewhere in government, secrets threatened with publication, a missing body and the Russians are on the trail of a list of names. Sean and his team must do whatever is necessary to locate the dead agent’s remains and his files full of top secret information before the Russian operatives do.

Combing the French countryside looking for potential burial sites quietly, trying not to attract attention, the team utilise both high tech and low (dogs’ noses mostly) to look for the remains. The files are even better hidden, even the killers missed them.

Meanwhile an enemy agent deep within the government is starting to feel uneasy, his name is on a list and the scandal his exposure could bring will topple the government.

This was gripping and fascinating stuff, I was interested in all the clever techniques used by Sean’s colleagues and the brilliant way the secret files had been hidden. The political subplot ties very nicely in with the rest of the story and the ending leaves things waiting ready for the sequel.

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

London-based financial journalist Spencer Beck is obsessed with billionaire biotech prodigy, Adam Reid, orphaned in his mid-teens when his parents died in a tragic murder-suicide in New York City. A shadowy informant with MI5 connections promises Beck unfettered access to the mysterious Reid and introduces him to Daniel Flanagan, a retired Big Apple detective who investigated the deaths of Adam’s mother and father. Spencer’s initial scepticism, fed by the suspicions of the former police officer, turns to excitement when Reid reveals the truth about himself and his altruistic ambitions to protect society from a deadly virus with a powerful vaccine he’s developed.

But when Beck’s entire world starts to implode, he discovers Reid harbours a vendetta that, left unchecked, threatens not only his survival but that of an entire species.

A shadowy informant with MI5 connections promises Beck unfettered access to the mysterious Reid and introduces him to Daniel Flanagan, a retired Big Apple detective who investigated the deaths of Adam’s mother and father. Spencer’s initial scepticism, fed by the suspicions of the former police officer, turns to excitement when Reid reveals the truth about himself and his altruistic ambitions to protect society from a deadly virus with a powerful vaccine he’s developed.

But when Beck’s entire world starts to implode, he discovers Reid harbours a vendetta that, left unchecked, threatens not only his survival but that of an entire species.

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A Cambridge economics graduate, Mark Brumby is a vastly experience financial analyst and owner of Langton Capital, an FCA-regulated advisory company specialising in the hospitality and leisure sectors. He is a partner in the Imbiba Partnership, which invests in pub, bar and restaurant start-ups.

Mark wrote Always Adam (originally published as Payback) in 2013. Boomslang is republishing the book in November 2020 as it deserves to reach a wider audience in the current pandemic climate.

“Covid-19 has brought home not just the fragility of human life but the power of vaccines. Very shortly, we hope, a vaccine could physically alter the cell structure of three or four billion people and protect the same number again via herd immunity. But what if a vaccine were misused?”

“In some ways the world has changed but in many ways it remains the same. The ‘facts’ re our existence have not and will not change. But the events of the last few months have brought home the truth that we are only animals and that we are almost as much at risk from novel diseases with high R ratios and significant mortality rates as we have ever been.”

“I tried to take a step back and look at how we got here & what we’re doing. That sounds deep but some 99% of species that have ever existed are extinct, so what makes us so special?”

“Indeed, we’ve very nearly joined the list of ‘used-to-be’ species list on several occasions. Anthropologists believe that the human population at times in our history fell to a total of less than 10,000 individuals worldwide. You could fit them all in a small football ground and it’s more than a 99.99% reduction on the number of people around today.”

“As an author, Covid-19 has moved the goalposts a little. It has made the unbelievable a little more believable. A pandemic, until December of last year was, literally, a fiction.”

Mark Brumby is married with five children and commutes between London and his home in York.

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Publisher – Boomslang Books

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Published by Boomslang Books on 30th November 2020

My thoughts:

This was a really crazy ride, taking us from London to New York and from the modern age back to before humans like us existed.

Imagine if you could bring mammoths and Neanderthals back to life, imagine if our assumptions about our ancient relatives were wrong. Imagine if a billionaire genius wanted revenge on the entire human race and was prepared to weaponise a virus to do so.

Journalist Spencer is offered the exposé of a lifetime by a voice on the end of the phone – reclusive billionaire Adam Reid, the only survivor of his parents’ supposed murder/suicide, genius and inventor. Someone no other hack has ever been able to get close to. Of course Spencer says yes.

Suddenly his life is spinning out of his control – he’s drugged, the contact he meets is kidnapped, and now Adam Reid is asking him to come to New York. But things are going to get a lot worse.

Gripping, unexpected, relevant and clever, this was a rather brilliant read and the ending left me with a lot of questions – ones that may never be answered for me or Spencer.

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