Reviews

Chris Carter - Genesis

"You have a dark treat waiting for you with this new book."

Synopsis:
Robert Hunter is called to the most vicious crime scene he has ever attended. It is made even more disturbing when the autopsy reveals a poem, left by the killer, inside the body of their victim.

Soon, another body is found. The methods and signature of the murder differs, but the level of violence used suggests that the same person is behind both crimes. Hunter's fears are confirmed when a second part of the poem is found.

With no forensic evidence to go on, Robert Hunter must catch the most disciplined and systematic killer that he has ever encountered, someone who thrives on the victims' fear, and to whom death is a lesson that needs to be taught.

Review:
Garcia and Hunter return to investigate the first in a gruesome series of murders. 'Genesis' sees even more violent and sadistic murders for this team of detectives to solve. With every new book, Carter's imagination gets darker and darker, with the murders becoming even more horrific.

The plot successfully manages to weave together the victims, the killings, the police investigation and just enough of the personal lives of Garcia and Hunter. This keeps them interesting and makes them more three-dimensional but doesn't deflect from the investigation.

Carter keeps the reader transfixed and guessing until the last page, with a few twists thrown in just to stop you from knowing what is happening and why. 'Genesis' is a perfect read for all Chris Carter fans and those wanting to jump onboard. You have a dark treat waiting for you with this new book.

Reviewed by: H.A.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Elly Griffiths - Bleeding Heart Yard

"The plot is twisty and twisted..."

Synopsis:
Detective Sergeant Cassie Fitzgerald has a secret – but it's one she's deleted from her memory. In the 1990s when she was at school, she and her friends killed a fellow pupil. Thirty years later, Cassie is happily married and loves her job as a police officer.

One day her husband persuades her to go to a school reunion and another ex-pupil, Garfield Rice, is found dead, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminent MP and the investigation is high profile, it is headed by Cassie's new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur. The trouble is, Cassie can't shake the feeling that one of her old friends has killed again.

Is Cassie right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It's in Cassie's interests to skew the investigation so that it looks like the latter, and she seems to be succeeding. Until someone else is killed.

Review:
Only three books in yet it feels like Kaur has been around for so long. She is an established, fully rounded character, a likeable and relatable person we can all sympathise with, and that's what makes this series so popular. Kaur is an everywoman. She's not a maverick. She doesn't have a dark secret past or a hidden alcohol dependency, she's just a regular, everyday working woman.

Kaur has moved to London and is living in a shared house and has a new team of officers to learn to get to know. It's through these new characters that we discover more of Kaur's intricacies and self-doubts and palpable tension as she's away from her family for the first time in her life. This normalcy gives her the human touch we can all get on board with.

'Bleeding Heart Yard' is an intricate novel, and each chapter is told from the point of view of the main players in the murder investigation. And, even though this is the Harbinder Kaur series, she doesn't feature heavily as we get a view of her from the other players and how she is interpreted by them. It's a wonderful writing style Griffiths has adopted for this series as a slight look from one character can be interpreted in different ways from another, and we get several insights into the same scene. It puts the reader in the centre of the action. Can we trust each of the narrators or are we (and they) reading too much into things?

The plot is twisty and twisted and the reveal of the killer, although slightly rushed, was unexpected. When the motive is revealed and you think back to what you've read, you wonder why you didn't spot the killer a couple of hundred pages ago. That's the secret to Griffiths's success. You often have to think of the words you haven't read rather than the ones you have. Her breadcrumbs of clues are so subtle they're easy to miss.

'Bleeding Heart Yard' is a fast-paced read and perfect for the autumnal evenings to curl up on the sofa with a mug of tea and a packet of biscuits. You could easily read this in one sitting as you're hooked into Kaur's life and her investigation. With the Galloway series ending in 2023, I truly hope we get more books featuring DI Harbinder Kaur. This series has great potential to be a lengthy one, and I can see her being a Jane Tennison in the making.

Reviewed by: M.W.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Helen Fitzgerald - Keep Her Sweet

"Fitzgerald is the queen of the darkly comic crime novel. "

Synopsis:
Desperate to enjoy their empty nest, Penny and Andeep downsize to the countryside, to forage, upcycle and fall in love again, only to be joined by their two twenty-something daughters, Asha and Camille.

Living on top of each other in a tiny house, with no way to make money, tensions simmer, and as Penny and Andeep focus increasingly on themselves, the girls become isolated, argumentative and violent.

When Asha injures Camille, a family therapist is called in, but she shrugs off the escalating violence between the sisters as a classic case of sibling rivalry and the stress of the family move. But this is not sibling rivalry. The sisters are in far too deep for that. This is a murder, just waiting to happen…

Review:
I'm already a huge fan of Helen Fitzgerald so it was a delight to be given a review copy of 'Keep Her Sweet'. It was an even greater delight to read the novel! Fitzgerald is the queen of the darkly comic crime novel.

In 'Keep Her Sweet', the characters are, on the whole, a cast of truly dreadful people – with the notable exception of long suffering family therapist, Joy, who this reader was rooting for right from the start.

The dynamic between Camille and Ashe barely touches the surface of this darkly clever, complicated and extremely funny novel. Besides a chronicle of a disintegrating family, there's a storyline involving a religious cult, an adulterous pastor and his vengeful wife that had me hooting with laughter. How does this story connect with the rest of the novel? You'll just have to read the book yourself to find out.

All in all, 'Keep Her Sweet' is a hugely recommended read that will leave you gasping with shock at the characters' outlandish behaviour, while also laughing out loud. Crime and comedy is a tricky combination however, Fitzgerald delivers with panache. Outstanding.

Reviewed by: S.B.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Ambrose Parry - A Corruption of Blood

"I wish I could give ‘A Corruption of Blood’ more than five stars."

Synopsis:
Edinburgh, 1850 - a city of great wealth and grinding poverty. A city where 'baby farming', where illegitimate babies, of both the poor and the well-off, are bought and sold to avoid scandal, is all too common. And it's baby farming that is the central theme of the book.

Young doctor Will Raven works for Professor James Simpson. He is called to the birth of illegitimate twins in Leith After having delivered them, he heads for the quayside, where a crowd was looking down at a bundle in the water. It turns out to be a tightly wrapped body of a baby. Thus was Raven introduced to the seamier side of baby farming - the killing of unwanted infants. Also in the Simpson household is Sara Fisher, who wants to study medicine, and together they begin to investigate the trade in babies. Raven still has feelings for Sarah, complicated by the fact that he is also newly in love with Eugenie Todd and is expected to marry her.

He attends a summer party given by wealthy Sir Ainsley Douglas who is later found poisoned, the obvious perpetrator being his dissolute son Gideon, sworn enemy of Raven. However, Eugenie persuades Raven to investigate the murder, thinking that he may be innocent. Why is Eugenie's father keen for Raven to marry her? What is her connection to Gideon? And there's a third strand - Raven's feeling for both Sarah and Eugenie.Is Gideon innocent? What about his widowed sister Amelia? How does she fit in? And who is actually murdering unwanted infants?

Review:
This is the third book about Dr Will Raven and Sarah, though it can be read as a standalone novel. It is a fascinating mixture of fact and fiction, testimony to the intense research that has gone into it. Professor James Simpson is - or was - a real person, as were some of the other characters in the book. And the book uses well-attested incidents, such as Professor Simpson's illness, to create a delicious sense of what-happens-next, which makes you turn the pages.. The characters are rounded and believable, and the writing echoes the polished accents of 19th century upper middle-class Edinburgh citizens.

Ambrose Parry is the pen name of writing duo Dr Marisa Haetzman and her husband, author Christopher Brookmyre. They have written an enjoyable and thought-provoking novel which is a true page-truer. I wish I could give 'A Corruption of Blood' more than five stars.

Reviewed by: J.G.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Martin Walker - To Kill a Troubadour

"As always this is a fast moving and dangerous plot set against the delights of a sleepy French town. "

Synopsis:
Bruno Courreges, Chief of Police for St Denis and it's surrounds, is alerted by his friend JJ, head of detectives for the Dordogne, to a possible sniper attack on a significant target in the area. His immediate thoughts are that a local folk group, booked to perform at a local festival, have sufficiently interested the Spanish government and the supporters of Catalan independence that they might be the proposed target. Reluctant to cancel the concert as the group are not involved in any political plot and the local population are looking forward to hearing them and their new hit song “A Song for Catalonia”, Bruno immediately starts putting protection measures in place. State of the art offensive weapons are threatened and Bruno has to use all of his experience and high powered contacts to challenge the threat.

Review:
As always this is a fast moving and dangerous plot set against the delights of a sleepy French town. But many of the inhabitants of the town have unexpected knowledge and contacts that Bruno uses to provide a united front against evil. There is still the wonderful food and wine, the relaxed ambience of a group of friends and a collection of characters that draw you into their neighbourhood.

Martin Walker, in reflective mode as Bruno, underlines the current mood of Europe and the world: the long peace following the Cold War is threatened by the rise of China and Russia. The world is becoming a more dangerous place. Another hugely exciting chapter in this ever-engaging series.

Reviewed by: S.D.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Neil Lancaster - The Night Watch

"Prepare yourself for a sleepless night. Once you start, you’re not going to want to put it down. "

Synopsis:
A lawyer is found dead at sunrise on a lonely clifftop at Dunnet Head on the northern-most tip of Scotland. It was supposed to be his honeymoon, but now his wife will never see him again.

The case is linked to several mysterious deaths, including the murder of the lawyer's last client – Scotland's most notorious criminal – who has just walked free from court. DS Max Craigie knows this can only mean one thing: they have a vigilante serial killer on their hands.

But this time the killer isn't on the run; he's on the investigation team. And the rules are different when the murderer is this close to know. He knows their weaknesses, knows how to stay hidden, and he thinks he's above the law.

Review:
'The Night Watch' is the third in Neil Lancaster's DS Max Craigie series and it reads like it's the thirteenth. Already the characters are so well written and created that I feel I've been with them for years. I knew from the first book this was a series to watch, and I'm pleased I've been proved right. All three books are richly crafted page-turners with gut-punching twists along the way.

Lancaster, a former police officer, has an edge on all the other crime writers in that he has inside knowledge of how a team of detectives work together, and he's used his powers to great effect. The attention to detail is natural without the book reading like a technical training manual and the camaraderie between the characters at work is realistic to the point where this could be a fly-on-the-wall account of a real day in the lives of detectives.

Max Craigie is a natural lead character. He's dedicated to his job, has a happy home life and good friends around him. He's an everyman and a character the reader can connect with instantly. His past as a member of the British Army and having seen action in war zones torments him and gives him a vulnerability and an extra layer to his personality.
However, he doesn't keep his issues bottled up. He shares his problems with his wife and the closest members of his team who he considers to be his friends. It's this part of Craigie's character I like the best. He's not a maverick who's trying to be a one-man police force and shut everyone out. He's a career detective, a team player, and the kind of bloke you'd have a good night with in a pub with a few pints and a laugh.

Max's partner, DC Janie Calder, is more than a mere sidekick and their interplay reminds me of John Rebus and Siobhan Clarke in the early years of Ian Rankin's novels. They have a very human connection and their ribbing of each other's taste in music is a joy to read.

'The Night Watch' is slightly different to the first two books in the series as this focuses more on an active criminal investigation rather than corruption within the police force, but it shows Neil Lancaster's talent as a writer and informs the reader that this isn't a series that's going to churn out the same kind of story with each novel. There is an evolutionary process to these characters and we're seeing it with each book.

Dark, fast-paced, rugged, chilling and realistic, 'The Night Watch' is pure addiction. Prepare yourself for a sleepless night. Once you start, you're not going to want to put it down.

Reviewed by: M.W.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Alex Marwood - The Island of Lost Girls

"Alex Marwood is a writer of enormous power."

Synopsis:
1985. For twelve-year-old Mercedes, La Katellana is the place she calls home. It is an island untouched by the modern world, with deep-rooted traditions – though that is all about to change with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his spoiled young daughter, Tatiana. The Meades bring with them unimaginable wealth, but the price they will all pay is far darker than Mercedes and the islanders could ever have imagined.

2016. Robin is desperately searching for her seventeen-year-old daughter, Gemma who has been missing for over a year. Finding herself on La Kastellana, the island playground of the international jet set, Robin is out of her depth. Nobody wants to help, and Robin fears she is running out of time to find her child.

But someone has been watching, silently waiting for their moment to expose the dark truth and reveal to the world what really happens on the island of lost girls.

Review:
Alex Marwood is a writer of enormous power. She takes her inspiration from the darkest stories we see on the news and read in the papers and uses her natural gift for storytelling to bring us high class crime fiction that will entertain and leave us asking questions about the society we live in and allow to continue around us. I know of no other author with their finger firmly on the pulse of twenty-first century attitudes and beliefs as Alex Marwood. Her novels go straight to the top of the reading pile for me. She really is a must read.

'The Island of Lost Girls' is a deeply disturbing novel but not gratuitously so. Marwood's beautiful prose is a stark contrast to the plot. She has painted characters both grotesque and innocent and her rich lexicon is used to perfection to highlight both sides of the rich and powerful divide.

The novel splits timelines and focuses as we switch from 1985 and see the horror that has been living in the shadows of the stunning, sunkissed island of La Kastellana take root and the influence money can have on everyday people. In 2016, we see the lengths the rich and the powerful will go for their entertainment and how money means more to some people than life. It is a true snapshot of life at the moment, and we've seen examples in our own country of how money is valued above the lives of the hardworking people.

'The Island of Lost Girls' is shocking in places, but it's not a novel to shy away from. It's compassionately written and it will hook you from the very first page. Alex Marwood is one of this country's leading psychological thriller writers and no-one can come close to creating such dark worlds yet writing them so beautifully. I'm excited, yet frightened, to see what she comes up with next!

Reviewed by: M.W.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Steve Cavanagh - The Accomplice

"...everything comes to a halt when a new Cavanagh book is in my hands!"

Synopsis:
The Sandman killings have been solved. Daniel Miller murdered fourteen people before he vanished. His wife, Carrie, now faces trial as his accomplice. The FBI, the District Attorney, the media and everyone in America believe she knew and helped cover up her husband's crimes.

Eddie Flynn won't take a case unless his client is innocent. Now, he has to prove to a jury, and the entire world, that Carrie Miller was just another victim of the Sandman. She didn't know her husband's dark side and she had no part in the murders. But so far, Eddie and his team are the only ones who believe her.

Gabriel Lake used to be a federal agent, before someone tried to kill him. Now, he's an investigator with a vendetta against the Sandman. He's the only one who can catch him, because he believes that everything the FBI knows about serial killers is wrong.

With his wife on trial, the Sandman is forced to come out of hiding to save her from a life sentence. He will kill to protect her and everyone involved in the case is a target… even Eddie Flynn.

Review:
Eddie Flynn, one time con artist, now defence lawyer, has a new case; he has been asked to defend the wife of serial killer Daniel Miller 'The Sandman'. Eddie is working with his regular team: Harry, now retired from the bar; Kate, another lawyer within the practice, and Bloch, former law enforcement and as laconic as she is fearless. Not only are they a team, but they are a family, and will do anything to protect each other.

Cavanagh didn't disappoint with 'The Accomplice'. As usual the plot developed at rapid speed. The more the character of Flynn develops, the more he moves away from his past life of a con artist. Although he still has contact with some nefarious people from his earlier years, the tricks and cons he used in previous cases have thinned out, which is a real shame as this is what made Flynn stand above more predictable lawyers. The story was of course very well written, with plenty of red herrings, false leads, and a nice twist at the end - nothing less than you would expect from Cavanagh. Eddie Flynn is still one of my favourite characters and everything comes to a halt when a new Cavanagh book is in my hands!

Reviewed by: H.A.

CrimeSquad Rating:

Anthony Horowitz - The Twist of a Knife

"You can tell Horowitz the writer is having great fun writing this series and his enjoyment jumps off the page..."

Synopsis:
'Our deal is over.' That is what reluctant author Anthony Horowitz tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne in an awkward meeting. The truth is that Anthony has other things on his mind. His new play, Mindgame, is about to open in London's Vaudeville theatre. Not surprisingly, Hawthorne declines a ticket.

On opening night, Sunday Times critic Harriet Throsby gives the play a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next morning she is found dead, stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which, it turns out, belongs to Anthony and which has his fingerprints all over it.

Anthony is arrested, charged with Throsby's murder, thrown into prison and interrogated. Alone and increasingly desperate, he realises only one man can help him. But will Daniel Hawthorne take his call?

Review:
Book four in Anthony Horowitz's crime series in which he puts himself centre stage as a central character. This has to be one of the most original and entertaining crime fiction series currently being written. Horowitz knows his stuff. There are echoes of the golden age of crime when the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers were at their best and he's used what made their novels great and given them a modern, twenty-first century setting.

What Anthony Horowitz has done with this series is create an intriguing character in ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne. We know very little about him. He's an enigma and he keeps a great deal about his past to himself. We're given little crumbs of information through the people Horowitz and Hawthorne meet in their investigations, but this just adds to the mystery of who Daniel Hawthorne really is.

The crime of a theatre critic being murdered following a scathing review of a play on opening night is straight from the world of Poirot and could have been fantastical, but Horowitz is too clever a writer to descend into melodrama and the story is ground in the fear Horowitz puts into the character of Anthony as he's arrested for the critic's murder. You can tell Horowitz the writer is having great fun writing this series and his enjoyment jumps off the page, making these books massively entertaining and huge page-turners. Anthony Horowitz is a master crime writer, and these books seem effortless. This deserves to be a long-running series, providing Horowitz doesn't kill himself off.

Reviewed by: M.W.

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Linwood Barclay - Take Your Breath Away

"Barclay is again at the top of his game with ‘Take Your Breath Away’."

Synopsis:
One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most people assumed Andy had got away with murder, but the police couldn't build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom – he drank too much, was abandoned by his friends, nearly lost his business and became a pariah in the place he had once called home.

Six years later, Andy has put his life back together. He's sold the house he shared with Brie and moved away for a fresh start. When he hears his old house has been bulldozed and a new house built in its place, he's not bothered. He's settled with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good.

But Andy's peaceful world is about to shatter. One day, a woman shows up at his old address, screaming, 'Where's my house? What's happened to my house?' And then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the woman – who bears a striking resemblance to Brie – is gone. The police are notified and old questions – and dark suspicions – resurface.

Could Brie really be alive after all these years? If so, where has she been? It soon becomes clear that Andy's future, and the lives of those closest to him, depend on discovering what the hell is going on. The trick will be whether he can stay alive long enough to unearth the answers.

Review:
Andrew is adamant he had nothing to do with Brie's disappearance, despite there being a few problems in their marriage. But Brie's sister, Issy, is adamant that Andrew is guilty of killing Brie and is sure he has got away with murder.

As the story unfolds, more suspects are introduced to the plot with Barclay skillfully giving everyone either a motive or opportunity, that you will have you guessing. Not only will you try to figure out who is responsible, you will also be wondering where Brie has been for the last 6 years.

Barclay is again at the top of his game with 'Take Your Breath Away'. It is an excellent thriller that will keep you turning the pages. The characters all have their flaws making them believable and relatable. And the plot could just happen. It was a challenge to put this book down once started - a great read that comes highly recommended.

Reviewed by: H.A.

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Jeffrey Archer - Over My Dead Body

"This series gets darker as it goes along and all have been exciting reads."

Synopsis:
In London, the Metropolitan Police set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit – a cold case squad – to catch the criminals nobody else can.

In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner – convicted of forgery and theft – was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client?

On a luxury liner en route to New York, the battle for power within a wealthy dynasty is about to turn to murder. At the heart of all three investigations are Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, rising star of the Met, and ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan, brought in from the cold.

Review:
The main of 'Over My Dead Body' takes place in the UK with Warwick hunting down a dead man. Miles Faulkner appears to be instructing from beyond the grave his lawyer, the wickedly slimy Booth Watson QC who knows every loophole there is! Faulkner is a cad, but in this fourth book of the Warwick series, Faulkner shows his darker side. He is a tricky blighter and slippery as a snake as he continues to elude Warwick who is determined to put him back in the cell he escaped.

The beginning deals with a case of murder on an ocean liner as Warwick and his wife travel to New York. This has a scent of Christie about it, and shows that a policeman's work never lets him rest. I am running out of superlatives for Archer's books. They are immensely readable and I did find myself reading 'just a little bit more' when other chores were calling for attention! The cold cases angle also tie up neatly with a little outside help. I really loved the character of Ross Hogan and am pleased he appears in the following book, 'Next In Line'. This series gets darker as it goes along and all have been exciting reads. Archer truly is a master storyteller.

Reviewed by: C.S.

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James Patterson and James O. Born - Shattered

"Yet another addictive read from the Patterson canon that cannot be put down until the final page has been turned."

Synopsis:
After returning from his honeymoon, Detective Michael Bennett is greeted with the shocking news that FBI agent Emily Parker is missing. Determined to track down his former partner, Bennett follows Emily's investigation into an anarchist group that led her between Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC.

Lurid rumours begin to surface about Emily's disappearance, but Bennett will never give up hope of finding her. After everything they've been through together, he owes her that much.

Review:
Having read all the Bennett books, Emily Parker has been a large character in this series, so it was with some sadness that we bid goodbye to Emily. It is no surprise that she is dead from the prologue of 'Shattered'. Bennett is determined to find the truth behind Emily's death. Despite this, and feeling a little bereft myself of her demise, I felt there was little emotion with Emily's passing despite Bennett's determination to find the truth with many obstacles in his way.

What is good is that here Bennett is simply a detective. There is no running down streets after assassins or shoot-outs, 'Shattered' evolves into a case that needs to be solved by questioning and scratching the surface of the lies. I was entertained that this was a more cerebral Bennett who had to find the truth, rather than a race to the end. I did enjoy the fact that Bennett had to use his brain rather than brawn to find the solution. Yet another addictive read from the Patterson canon that cannot be put down until the final page has been turned.

Reviewed by: C.S.

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