Category: Reviews

Posted in Reading, Reviews

The Killer Next Door – Alex Marwood

Posted on by J

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No. 23 has a secret. In this bedsit-riddled south London wreck, lorded over by a lecherous landlord, something waits to be discovered.

Yet all six residents have something to hide.

Collette and Cher are on the run; Thomas is a reluctant loner; while a gorgeous Iranian asylum seeker and a ‘quiet man’ nobody sees try to stay hidden. And watching over them all is Vesta – or so she thinks.

In the dead of night, a terrible accident pushes the neighbours into an uneasy alliance. But one of them is a killer, expertly hiding their pastime, all the while closing in on their next victim…

As a cloying heatwave suffocates the city, events build to an electrifying climax in this dark, original and irresistibly compelling thriller.

“Not to be read while you’re eating lunch…”

I’ve had this book on my To Be Read pile ever since it first came out back in June last year and am now kicking myself that I didn’t read it sooner, because it is absolutely brilliant. If it’s sitting in your to be read pile I recommend you go and move it now to your next read, and if it’s not there, why not?

Dark, chilling and impeccably plotted, The Killer Next Door is an intriguing look into the secrets that lurk behind closed doors, how little notice we often take of the world around us and asks the question just how well do we ever really know our friends and neighbours?

We begin with Collette, discover the reason she is on the run and about her arrival at Beulah Grove, where she takes over the room of the mysteriously vanished Nikki.  From there we meet each of her ‘neighbours’ in the house that they all share, learning about their lives, their secrets and the circumstances that have brought them all to renting a single room with shared bathroom, cash in hand and no questions asked from #23’s slum landlord.

Their intertwining stories are at times scary, tragic, and filled with melancholy showing how easy it can be to find yourself in such dire situations as much through the actions of others, as well as your own.  My favourite part was how the characters all appeared drawn towards Vesta, finding it easy to tell their stories and offer up their secrets to her for safe, or perhaps not so safe, keeping. 

It’s a brilliant read that you won’t want to put down, although in my case it was easier for me to read and read, as I actually downloaded my copy of The Killer Next Door as an unabridged audiobook, via audible.co.uk.

The narrator is perfectly selected, and the editing slick, which meant listening to the story added an extra creepy dimension to the haunting passages of the killer and his thoughts.  It also highlighted just how vividly descriptive Marwood’s writing is, making sure you experience all of the sights, sounds and smells of the situation, which is a fabulous thing to read but certainly in my case means there is at least one bathroom section you may not want to be reading (or listening too) while you’re eating lunch…

Posted in Reading, Reviews

The Final Minute – Simon Kernick

Posted on by J

image‘It’s night, and I’m in a strange house.

The lights are on and I’m standing outside a half-open door.

Feeling a terrible sense of forboding, I walk slowly inside.

And then I see her.

A woman lying sprawled across a huge double bed.

She’s dead. There’s blood everywhere.

And the most terrifying thing of all is that I think her killer might be me …’

A traumatic car-crash. A man with no memory, haunted by nightmares.

When the past comes calling in the most terrifying way imaginable, Matt Barron is forced to turn to the one person who can help.

Ex Met cop, turned private detective, Tina Boyd.

Soon they are both on the run .….

Master of the race against time thriller, Kernick will have you racing against time to reach the end of The Final Minute. 

Once again he has delivered a thrilling read, one that despite featuring several recurring characters, can be easily read on its own by anyone who is new to his fiction, and is satisfying for his legions of loyal fans who will be eagerly downloading the kindle version, or snapping up bargain publication day copies when it is published today.

The Final Minute will get its claws into you from the very beginning as you try, along with Matt Barron, to uncover his lost memories, and discover just who is out to get him and why.  He’s also so well written that you will alternatively love and hate him, because fundamentally he’s really not a nice guy, but you can’t help feeling for his situation, no matter how he ended up where he is.

It’s packed with action that never feels like it’s been put there for the sake of it, it all feels natural and genuine, and ensures there are none of those annoying ‘flukey getaways’ to spoil your enjoyment.  With twists and turns a plenty to keep you on your toes as you search for clues to who is behind the plot, The Final Minute is another sure-fire winner.

Posted in Reading, Reviews

The Life I Left Behind – Colette McBeth

Posted on by J

image“I’m the only one who knows the secrets her friends have hidden, the mistakes the police have made.  I’m the only one who can warn her she’s still in danger. I know exactly who attacked her.  He’s the same man who killed me.”

Six years ago Melody was attacked and left for dead. She survived by burying her memories, confident that her attacker was convicted and imprisoned.  The the body of another woman, Eve, is discovered.

The women were strangers.  But Eve knew all about Melody’s life,  She has left behind her story, the clues that will force Melody to confront her own lies.  The clues that will put her life in danger all over again.

Want to start the New Year with a big book bang?  Published on January 1st, The Life I Left Behind is the book to do it with. After her cracking debut novel Precious Thing, Colette McBeth returns with the legendary ‘difficult second novel’ and immediately proves that there is no such thing.

Written from the perspective of three main characters, Eve, Melody and DI Rutter, The Life I Left Behind is a compelling read, pulling you into its web of intrigue as the individual narratives intertwine brilliantly in order to allow the mystery to unravel and the killer to be revealed.

From the outset the murder of Eve Elliot appears to be an open and shut case. The man responsible for the attempted murder of Melody years before has just been released from prison, and the attacks are strikingly similar. DI Rutter isn’t so sure, not one for cutting corners she doesn’t believe that it is quite so straightforward. With her old boss, the man responsible for solving Melody’s attack keen for Rutter to follow his lead and close the case, she has her work cut out for her, making sure they have the right man.

In the meantime, Melody, now reclusive and withdrawn from the world, is about to discover the true price of her attack, how much of her life she really lost on that fateful day, and just how little has changed in the years since.

I absolutely loved The Life I Left behind, Eve and Melody are well drawn characters that have you keen to find out more about, to find out what happened and to see how everything turns out, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself still sitting reading two hours after you picked the book up to squeeze in a few quick chapters. With a plot you can easily lose yourself in, that has a devilish twist in the tale The Life I Left behind comes highly recommended.

 

Posted in Reading, Reviews

The Blood Dimmed Tide – Anthony Quinn

Posted on by J

Blood Dimmed jacket

London at the dawn of 1918 and Ireland’s most famous literary figure, WB Yeats, is immersed in supernatural investigations at his Bloomsbury rooms.

Haunted by the restless spirit of an Irish girl whose body is mysteriously washed ashore in a coffin, Yeats undertakes a perilous journey back to Ireland with his apprentice ghost-catcher Charles Adams to piece together the killer’s identity.

Surrounded by spies, occultists and Irish rebels, the two are led on a gripping journey along Ireland’s wild Atlantic coast, through the ruins of its abandoned estates, and into its darkest, most haunted corners.

Falling under the spell of dark forces, Yeats and his ghost-catcher come dangerously close to crossing the invisible line that divides the living from the dead.

Poets, politics, the paranormal, this book has it all.

After the success of his first novel Disappeared, Anthony Quinn returns to Ireland with new title The Blood Dimmed Tide, only this time it is to an Ireland heading towards the end of the First World War, when the country is striving for separation from Britain, the Anglo-Irish aristocrats are abandoning their great homes to flee to England, and Irish prisoners destined for execution are instead being returned to their home.

As someone who doesn’t usually read historical crime, and given the alternative first/third person narrative of the story I felt it took me a little longer to become gripped by the story than I am used too, but once I was hooked I was hooked. With its myriad themes and characters there is something in here for everyone.

I also enjoyed the setting and felt that the Ireland envisioned in the tale is almost a character in itself. Quinn is adept at creating haunting and atmospheric visions of Ireland at this time, which I felt really enhanced the supernatural feel and mysteriousness of the tale.

The Blood Dimmed Tide has been billed as the first in a series of three historical novels set around WW1 and The War of Independence, and it has certainly sparked an interest in me around this period in history, so I’ll be looking out for more from Mr Quinn.

 

 

Posted in Reading, Reviews

Letters To My Daughters Killer – Cath Staincliffe

Posted on by J

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Grandmother Ruth Sutton writes to the man she hates more than anyone else on the planet: the man who she believes killed her daughter Lizzie in a brutal attack four years earlier. Ruth’s burden of grief and hatred, has only grown heavier with the passing of time, her avid desire for vengeance ever stronger. In writing to him Ruth hopes to exorcise the corrosive emotions that are destroying her life, to find the truth and with it release and a way forward. Whether she can ever truly forgive him is another matter – but the letters are her last, best hope.

Letters To My Daughter’s Killer exposes the aftermath of violent crime for an ordinary family and explores fundamental questions of crime and punishment. How do we deal with the very human desire for revenge? If we get justice does reconciliation follow? Can we really forgive those who do us the gravest wrong? Could you?

I’m a big fan of books written in letter / diary format as I find they are usually far more emotionally charged and are an enjoyable and easier way in which to connect with a character.

Letters To My Daughters Killer ticks all those boxes for me, in fact I actually sat and read it in just one sitting because there was absolutely no way I was putting this book down once I had started. The rawness of the emotions involved leaps from the page, and you can’t help but feel every shred of anger, rage, hurt and disappointment that Ruth is feeling.

Beginning four years after the murder of her daughter Lizzie, it follows the events immediately after her death, the police investigation and the arrest and trial of her murderer. The trial scenes are some of the best I’ve read, coming across as true to life of real court cases, and as the killer’s legal team spin their case you will feel as uncertain as Ruth as to whether or not the culprit will pay for his crime.

If you are looking for something different from your usual police procedural, psychological thriller, or race against time novel, you will not go wrong in choosing Letters To My Daughters Killer.

Posted in Reviews

Vendetta – Dreda Say Mitchell

Posted on by J

V CoverTwo murders. Two different crime scenes. One killer?

Mac wakes in an smashed-up hotel room with no recollection of what has happened. With his lover’s corpse in the bathroom and the evidence suggesting that he killed her, Mac is on a mission to uncover the truth and find the real killer.

But he’s in a race against time with less than a day to unravel the mystery. Still reeling from a personal tragedy Mac isn’t afraid of pain. Hot on his heels is tenacious Detective Inspector Rio Wray. Double-crossed and in the line of fire, Mac has to swim through a sea of lies to get to the truth.

But only Mac knows he’s been living a double life. Can he be sure he doesn’t have the blood of a dead woman on his hands?

In a big change in direction from her usual London gangland novels Vendetta is a race against time thriller and it’s a gripping one at that.  The hook is there immediately as Vendetta has one of the best openings I have read in some time, and you really get a feel for the pain, grogginess and sense of confusion that Mac is going through as he struggles to come to and work out where he is.

From there on in the action and the questions come thick and fast, as Mac has less than a day to discover the truth behind who killed his girlfriend and why.  As both sides of his double life are revealed, more and more conspirators are added to the mix, the plot thickens, the tension increases and your ability to put the book down will disappear.

It’s a cracking read with genuinely believable characters from troubled Mac, to feisty DI Rio Wray and to those he works for on both sides of his life. There’s plenty of legs in these guys too so I’m looking forward to hearing more…

Vendetta is out today.  Click on the image above to get your copy.

Posted in Blog Touring, Reading, Reviews

The Dying Place – Luca Veste

Posted on by J

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Once inside…there’s no way out

A fate worse than death…

DI Murphy and DS Rossi discover the body of known troublemaker Dean Hughes, dumped on the steps of St Mary’s Church in West Derby, Liverpool. His body is covered with the unmistakable marks of torture.

As they hunt for the killer, they discover a worrying pattern. Other teenagers, all young delinquents, have been disappearing without a trace.

Who is clearing the streets of Liverpool?

Where are the other missing boys being held?

And can Murphy and Rossi find them before they meet the same fate as Dean?

We all know about them, have seen the stories, listened to the news and watched them gather. Some of us have been on the receiving end of their actions.  The ‘feral youths’, the lost and disenfranchised children society doesn’t have any time for.  We’ve all judged them, silently, passively, perhaps vocally.  But who are we to judge?

The Dying Place is the second outing for Detective Inspector David Murphy and DS Laura Rossi and maintains the dark undertones of Dead Gone with the pair searching for a vigilante cleansing Liverpool’s youth community.  Murphy, still scarred from his run in with a serial killer is walking a fine line trying to keep his marriage together when the first body is found. As the body count increases the tension ratchets up rapidly and when a policeman is shot in the line of duty, Murphy knows he must do all he can to catch this killer before more people die.

What follows is a trail of violence and a shocking final showdown that left me with quite a lump in my throat.  The Dying Place is superbly written and will have you asking moral questions not just of the characters, but of yourself.  It also succeeds in keeping you guessing as to the real identity of the villain before it is revealed and ensures you want to do nothing more than keep turning those pages until the story plays out.

It’s a fantastic follow up to an amazing debut and highly recommended for all crime fiction fans. The Dying Place is Out Now for Kindle, and available in Paperback from December 4th 2014

Posted in Blog Touring, Reading, Reviews

Race To Death – Leigh Russell

Posted on by J

imageWhen a man plummets to his death from a balcony at York races, his wife and brother become suspects in a murder enquiry. Meanwhile Richard is being stalked by a killer issuing death threats. Richard is reluctant to go to the police, for fear his own dark secret will be exposed. Newly promoted Detective Inspector Ian Peterson is investigating the death at the races when a woman’s body is discovered. Shortly after that, Richard is killed. With the body count increasing, the pressure mounts for his team to solve the crimes quickly. But the killer is following the investigation far more keenly than Ian realises and time is running out as the case suddenly gets a lot closer to home…

Race To Death is the second outing as a main lead for DI Ian Peterson, a character that appeared originally in the first three Geraldine Steel books by the same author.  In Race To Death he has recently accepted a promotion from DS to DI which involves moving hundreds of miles from his current home to the city of York.  This move is just one of the things I enjoyed about Race To Death, as a new location and new colleagues means the chance to get to know a whole host of new characters making this a new start for the reader as well as the protagonist.

With a wife already unhappy with the demands of ‘the job’ on his time and as yet unsettled in their new home, under pressure from a boss he is struggling to find common ground with and a murder case leading to nothing but dead ends, DI Peterson has his work cut out.  Out to impress he is determined to do what it takes to find the killer.  Russell has written these new relationships well so it is easy to identify with the characters as they settle into their new routines.

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The plot has more than enough false leads to keep you guessing to the very end. It throws you straight into the action, and the tempo continues at a steady beat throughout ensuring you won’t want to put it down until you know whodunit.

All in all it’s a riveting read and I’m really looking forward to finding out what’s next for DI Peterson.

 

For your chance to win a copy of Race To Death, tweet this post and follow @LOCrime, or leave a comment below.

Posted in Reading, Reviews

Cut Out – Fergus McNeill

Posted on by J

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Nigel never meant for it to happen. At first, he just wanted to be Matt’s friend. But when he discovers he can hear what is going on in the flat below him, his fascination with his new neighbour drifts into obsession.

Rearranging his furniture to recreate the layout of the rooms downstairs. Buying the same clothes, going through his post, his things. Becoming Matt without him ever knowing.

And it would have been all right, if Matt hadn’t brought the girl home.

When things spiral out of control, Detective Inspector Harland has to unravel the disturbing truth. But there’s far more to the case than meets the eye . . .

Creepy, disturbing and all too frighteningly plausible.

It’s been a while since I found myself completely unsettled by a novel but Cut Out certainly did that to me. This was probably not helped by the fact I stayed up until the wee small hours of the morning so I could finish the book in one sitting.

Cut Out leaves you in no doubt about the dark themes contained within from the very beginning, by opening with the highly gruesome and sadistic murder of a small time drug dealer, before moving on to the main story of Nigel, an isolated man, with little in the way of social skills who prefers to work from home than amongst his colleagues at the agency he photoshops pictures for.

When a new neighbour moves in downstairs, Nigel’s life is changed completely. Matt is everything Nigel wants to be, good looking, confident, a hit with the girls and after a friendly night in front of the TV as neighbours, Matt soon moves from Nigel’s role model, to the object of his obsession.

As his justification for his deeds becomes more irrational, and his actions more and more intrusive, it is soon clear not just how shocking his behaviour has become, but also how plausible it is for someone with access and a little technical knowledge to do the same to you.

Cut Out is the third of the DI Graham Harland books from Fergus McNeill and the first I’ve read. It works well as a stand alone not revealing much from the previous novels giving those like me a chance to not only enjoy this great read without feeling I was missing something and also giving me the chance to go back and explore an intriguing character. There are certainly questions I have from this book which have been answered already, making me keen to now seek them out.

In the meantime, I’m off to check just who has the keys to my flat……

Posted in Reading, Reviews

Summer of Ghosts – P.D.Viner

Posted on by J

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‘Beautiful skin.’


It begins with a father calling his daughter, but whoever answers is not Pia but his daughter’s killer. He must listen, horrified, to the sounds of his only child being murdered, powerless to intervene as the killer utters two chilling words.

Most men’s thoughts would turn to vengeance but Pia’s father is far more resourceful than most. And he is not the reserved businessman his daughter always believed him to be, but Franco, a notorious London drug lord who will call in all his debts to find his daughter’s killer. Including the one owed to him by DI Tom Bevans.

Only Tom is a man haunted by grief; every unsolved case weighs heavily against his soul. And Tom has heard the killer’s words before.

 

The ghost of a case left unsolved.
The ghost of a marriage lost to a search.
The ghost of a woman whose only goal is vengeance
The ghost of a man trying to save his daughter
And the man trying to help them all when the ghost from his past calls in a favour.

DI Tom Bevans is The Sad Man, a man weighed down by his own actions and inactions of the past. Now he has a chance to catch a killer he was forced to stop investigating years before, a killer who left who left three girls dead and one seriously injured, a killer he is determined to bring to justice.

Franco has nothing but violence in his past. Having escaped his life once before, he would like to do so again for the sake of his teenage daughter, but someone has other plans, and now his daughter is missing.

The Summer of Ghosts is the second novel in the Dani Lancing series (there are also two accompanying short stories available), and one of those rare occasions where I believe it is best to have read the previous novel, The Last Winter of Dani Lancing, before embarking on reading this.  It’s not a must, as what you need to know from the first novel in order to enjoy this one is covered in Summer of Ghosts, but if you want to read the first book later it does prove to be a bit of a spoiler, that said, I also believe that by reading them in order it is far more fulfilling series with greatly enriched characters.

Exploring the devastating effects of grief, the power of vengeance and the impact on the morality of those consumed by such feelings Summer of Ghosts is an interesting read.

Dani Lancing short stories The Ugly Man and The Sad Man, are also available and both are currently free on Kindle.