Tag Archives: crime fiction

#BookReview ‘Found’ by @HarlanCoben #crime #YA

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September. A sunny day in Paris and I needed a book to read on the Eurostar train home. I needed a page turner. I searched my Kindle. What was required was Harlan Coben. I started to read Found, Coben’s latest UK release, which I thought was the new Myron Bolitar story. Except, it isn’t. Harlan CobenFound is the third in the Mickey Bolitar YA [young adult] series. I didn’t know this series existed. Mickey Bolitar is Myron’s nephew.  I guess the two M’s got me confused… oh well. Found may be a YA novel but that doesn’t stop the story from being gripping, in true Coben fashion this really rattled along. Ideal for a train journey.
Mickey is Myron Bolitar’s nephew who, surprise surprise, is a basketball player and amateur detective. This is story three in the series, and I did need to know the back story. But Mr Coben is very efficient at filling that in without stopping the story moving forward.
Two storylines are woven together. On Mickey’s basketball team, one player moves away suddenly, another is dropped from the team for taking steroids. Mickey investigates. Meanwhile, continued from book two in the series, one of Mickey’s friends is in hospital after an adventure when the four friends – Mickey, Spoon, Ema and Rachel – solve a mystery. It appears now though that this mystery is not completely solved.
The quartet combines to track down a missing teen and discover the truth of what happened to Mickey’s father. In true thriller fashion, it starts out with the two stories being completely separate but in the end they overlap. I knew the overlap was coming, but couldn’t see where.

Read my review of a Myron Bolitar novel by Harlan Coben:-
ONE FALSE MOVE #5MYRONBOLITAR

If you like this, try:-
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Heuhaus
‘Nightfall’ by Stephen Leather

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FOUND by @HarlanCoben https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1ds via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ by @mjarlidge #crimefiction

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Fog creeps up the Solent and into the city from the sea, casting a shroud over the streets, driving the population indoors at the end of the day and pulling the streetwalkers out into their night domain. This is the beginning of Pop Goes the Weasel by MJ Arlidge. Empty backstreets, dirty abandoned industrial estates, overgrown riverbanks. Murder will take place this night. MJ ArlidgeThis is second in the Helen Grace detective series and a great follow-up by Arlidge to his first novel about the Southampton-based detective inspector. But please read Eeny Meeny first or you will be a bit baffled by the back story. These two books tick a lot of boxes: gritty realistic drama, lead female detective with a raw damaged personality, in fact a lot of female characters, set in Southampton [not London, not Edinburgh] with flawed heroes and damaged villains. Arlidge is an accomplished TV writer and author; whether he is writing about police procedure, or the nasty druggy backstreets of a port city where the population rises and falls with the tide, I believe him.
The murder scenes are graphic and anatomical, a bit too much for me, so I admit to skipping a few paragraphs. I don’t like blood and gore, but I do like Helen Grace and DC Charlie Brooks. I didn’t take to Emilia Garanita , the reporter from the local paper, or the new Detective Superintendent Ceri Harwood. Woven through the chase to find the hooker who kills her victims are stories continued from Eeny Meeny: why is Helen Grace driving to Aldershot to spy on a boy, what happened to Helen’s sister, can Charlie have a baby and stay in the force, and how does Garanita always know where Grace is?
Helen Grace’s story will run and run.

Read my reviews of the following books in this series:-
EENY MEENY #1HELENGRACE
THE DOLL’S HOUSE #3HELENGRACE
LIAR LIAR #4HELENGRACE
LITTLE BOY BLUE #5HELENGRACE
HIDE AND SEEK #6HELENGRACE
LOVE ME NOT #7HELENGRACE
DOWN TO THE WOODS #8 HELENGRACE

If you like this, try:-
‘Jellyfish’ by Lev D Lewis
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison
‘Lord John and the Private Matter’ by Diana Gabaldon

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview POP GOES THE WEASEL by @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1d5 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Or the Bull Kills You’ by @Jwebsterwriter #crime #Spain

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Or the Bull Kills You is the first of a series of novels by Jason Webster about Spanish police detective Max Cámara. The setting is Valencia during Fallas, the five-day festival of fireworks and bonfires. Jason WebsterA bullfighter is murdered, a controversial bullfighter, in a city undergoing local elections and with a strong anti-taurino lobby. Webster has chosen his setting well. Valencia is a noisy, shouting, breathing presence on every page. The bullfighting is strange, a world of customs and special language, its symbolism machismo. Into the middle of all this walks the Fallas-hating, bullfight-disapproving detective Cámara who’s having a difficult time with his girlfriend. And he’s being reviewed at work for his behaviour in a previous case.
Is there one killer or two, and what about the dead bullfighter’s artist boyfriend and his very-public fiancé?
Webster keeps the page turning with ease, juggling a good detective story with authentic Spanish culture. Something different.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of other books in Webster’s Spanish detective series:-
A DEATH IN VALENCIA #2MAXCÁMARA
THE ANARCHIST DETECTIVE #3 MAXCÁMARA
BLOOD MED #4 MAXCÁMARA

If you like this, try:-
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder
‘Butterfly on the Storm’ by Walter Lucius

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview OR THE BULL KILLS YOU by @Jwebsterwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-10J

#BookReview ‘One False Move’ by @HarlanCoben #crime #basketball

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A strapline across the top of the front cover says ‘A Myron Bolitar novel’. It meant nothing to me. I have never heard of Myron Bolitar. I have heard of Harlan Coben though, but know nothing about him except that he writes crime books and is extremely popular. His name sounds Scandinavian, but this is US crime not Scandi-crime. The book’s been sitting on my bookshelf for ages, a charity shop purchase, waiting for the battery of my Kindle to flicker and die. It died, so I picked up One False Move and read it in two days. Harlan CobenMr Coben knows how to make you turn the pages. He nails a character description in a few sparse lines: “Norm Zuckerman was approaching seventy and as CEO of Zoom, a megasize sports manufacturing conglomerate, he had more money than Trump. He looked, however, like a beatnik trapped in a bad acid trip… Che Guevara lives and gets a perm.” So we have Norm’s name, job, professional standing, age, physical description, financial worth and personal style – in three sentences.
Bolivar is a sports agent. There seemed to be all sorts of back story going on which meant nothing to me and didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story. Next time my Kindle flickers and dies, I will pick up another book by Harlan Coben. Bolivar’s new client runs into trouble – it reminded me of my father who used to watch the opening titles of The Rockford Files, the one where Jim’s answerphone clicks on a leaves a message saying there’d been a murder or someone had disappeared. Dad used to say, “It is dangerous being a friend of Rockford, everyone he knows gets murdered.” It seems that everyone Myron Bolitar knows runs into trouble too.
The fact that the context of the story is basketball wasn’t what drew me to the book, but the sport didn’t matter. I wanted to know what happened to the characters. It’s the fifth novel in the series.
This is a roundabout way of saying, I enjoyed One False Move.

Read my review of a young adult novel by Harlan Coben:-
FOUND #3MICKEYBOLITAR

If you like this:-
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus
‘Jellyfish’ by Lev D Lewis
‘Dead Simple’ by Peter James

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ONE FALSE MOVE by @HarlanCoben http://wp.me/p5gEM4-18o via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Silent and the Damned’ by @RobWilsonwriter #crime #Spain

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The Silent and the Damned is second in the Javier Falcón series by Robert Wilson. Santa Clara is a wealthy neighbourhood of Seville where people stay inside their elegant air-conditioned homes and don’t mix much with their neighbours. Very un-Spanish. And then people start dying. Robert WilsonFirst, a husband and wife. Was it one murder and a suicide, or a double-murder? Falcón investigates only to find, living opposite the murdered couple, the wife of his last murder victim [in The Blind Man of Seville]. And this is how Robert Wilson neatly intertwines the back story from the first novel, bringing forward the things a new reader needs to know. Falcón has moved on since then, gone are the formal suits, now he wears a shirt and chinos and seems more relaxed, more at peace with himself. But this is a detective novel, and detectives are traditionally troubled souls so it is not long before the cracks appear.
The deaths keeping coming in the 40° heat, Falcón must deal with the impending marriage of his ex-wife plus the growing suspicion that all is not well at police headquarters. There are links to characters in the first book, dodgy characters, further crimes are hinted at. Will he be allowed to continue his investigation, or will higher powers decree his case unviable? And does Javier Falcón have the mental energy left to care?
An excellent follow-up to The Blind Man of Seville. 

Here are my reviews of the other books in the Javier Falcón series:-
THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE #1FALCÓN
THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS #3FALCÓN
THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD #4FALCÓN

If you like this, try:-
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘The Returned’ by Jason Mott
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED by @RobWilsonwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-OY via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Elizabeth is Missing’ by Emma Healey #crime #dementia

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Can there be a more unreliable narrator than an 81-year old woman with dementia? Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey is a brilliant debut. Emma HealeyMaud lives on her own, she has carers visiting, they leave prepared food for her and tell her not to use the cooker. But she does love toast. There is a rebelliousness about Maud which immediately made me connect with her. She reminded me of my mother, who suffered from dementia. I was impressed with the way Maud’s condition is portrayed, in convincing detail, slowly deteriorating as the story progresses. Maud writes herself notes, as memory prompts, and keeps them in her pockets and around the house. The note she re-reads most often is ‘Elizabeth is missing’. Elizabeth is Maud’s friend, and she is not at her house. The story has a cyclical motion as Maud finds the note, goes out to hunt for Elizabeth, and then is told by someone that Elisabeth is not missing, that she is fine. And then Maud finds the note again, and the cycle re-starts.
Interwoven with Maud’s search for Elizabeth, is a narrative strand set in 1946 when she lives with her parents and lodger Douglas. People are displaced as a population comes to terms with the end of the conflict, a poor economy, returning soldiers who are not the husbands they were when they went away to fight. Post-war rationing makes meals difficult, people grow vegetables, forage for fruit, make their own clothes. Maud’s older sister Sukey is good at dressmaking and she gives Maud items to wear. The sisters are close. And then Sukey disappears, no-one knows where she has gone, including her husband Frank.
I am a little unsure how a reader will react if they have no experience of dementia. Maud’s thought processes are, by the nature of her illness, repetitive. But her memories are key to understanding the mystery of Sukey’s disappearance. You, I, the reader, is the detective. It is up to us to sift through the clues, keeping them and discarding them.
In the background, throughout the novel, is the attitude of people towards dementia sufferers. The impatience, the lack of empathy, the unwillingness to understand someone obviously not in their full senses, and also the kindness, gentleness, the fondness, the helpfulness of strangers. For example the police sergeant who repeatedly takes down the information when Maud reports Elizabeth as missing.
“‘Same as usual?’ he says, his voice sounding metallic through the speakers.
‘Usual?’ I say.
‘Elizabeth, is it?’ He nods, as if encouraging me to say a line in a play.
‘Elizabeth, yes,’ I say, amazed. Of course, that’s what I’ve come for. I’ve come for her.”
It is a nice touch that he appears at the end of the story, closing the circle.

And read my review of WHISTLE IN THE DARK, also by Emma Healey.

If you like this, try:-
‘Etta and Otto and Russell and James’ by Emma Hooper
‘Yuki Chan in Bronte Country’ by Mick Jackson
‘The Girls’ by Lisa Jewell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ELIZABETH IS MISSING by Emma Healey http://wp.me/p5gEM4-11S via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Blood Med’ by @Jwebsterwriter #crime #Spain

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Page one, Spain waits, the king lies dying. There is the feeling of a nation on the edge. In Valencia, there are homeless on the street, immigrants are being harassed, the police department faces cutbacks despite rumblings of public unrest, and there are not enough drugs for the sick. Blood Med is the fourth in the Cámara Valencia-based detective series by Jason Webster. Jason WebsterThere are two deaths and Cámara and his colleague Torres are given one case each, the hidden agenda is that one of the two men must be made redundant. One death is suspected suicide, the other a brutal murder. In the way of crime fiction, you know there will be a connection but that connection is of course invisible at the beginning.
The detective, orphaned young and raised by his grandfather, now lives in Valencia with elderly Hilario plus Max’s girlfriend, journalist Alicia. Both Hilario and Alicia have key roles in this story. Hilario is a huge influence on Max’s approach to life, and he often recalls his grandfather’s fondness for proverbs when he finds himself in a sticky situation. ‘Visteme despacio que tengo prisa’ he tells himself when he feels the investigation is being rushed. It translates as ‘Dress me slowly, I’m in a rush.’ He feels the investigation has tunnel vision; that it is being rushed and would benefit from a step back. ‘If he could have his way he would send everyone home for the rest of the day to switch off. Go to the beach, go wherever. And have sex – with someone else if possible. If not, whatever. If helped clear the mind.’
This is the most accomplished Cámara novel so far, the setting in Valencia is so strong and the political background feels very real. The ‘corralito’ described [the government decree to close the banks] feels very real.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my reviews of other books in Webster’s Spanish detective series:-
OR THE BULL KILLS YOU #1MAXCÁMARA
A DEATH IN VALENCIA #2MAXCÁMARA
THE ANARCHIST DETECTIVE #3MAXCÁMARA

If you like this, try:-
‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus
‘An Uncertain Place’ by Fred Vargas #8CommissaireAdamsberg

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BLOOD MED by @Jwebsterwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-10N

#BookReview ‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by @RobWilsonwriter #crime #Spain

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The first time I heard of the Javier Falcón books by Robert Wilson was when the first was dramatized on TV, and unfortunately I missed it. So it was with anticipation that I turned to the first of the four books, The Blind Man of Seville. Robert Wilson My first impression was that it was the longest detective book I’d read in a while, but the reason for this soon became apparent: the back story in Tangiers. In a note at the back of the book, Wilson directs his readers to the full-length diaries he wrote for Francisco Falcón, Javier’s late father, artist, Tangiers resident and key character in The Blind Man of Seville.
It is a complicated novel, entangling the Spanish legal system, bullfighting, the worlds of art and restaurants, Seville, Tangiers and the theme which lurks just below the surface of everyday Spain: the Spanish Civil War. There is something about the first murder which slowly tips Inspector Falcón towards mental breakdown. Like all detectives, the interest lies in his frailties, how he overcomes them and manages to do the day job, how he outwits the criminal mind.
Francisco’s diaries are fascinating; an insight into the Spanish Legion, its time in Morocco and Russia, the brutality and hardships, the sense of brotherhood. At times as Javier reads his father’s story, the story churns his guts; mine too. Anyone who has read anything about the Civil War will anticipate some of the brutality. Wilson skilfully weaves this storyline into the modern-day hunt for a murderer.
This is far from a formulaic detective story. Wilson writes about heavy subjects with a confident hand, and creates atmosphere easily. “The hotel had suffered in the intervening half-century. There was a glass panel missing from one of the doors in his room. Paint peeled off the metal windows. The furniture looked as if it had taken refuge from a violent husband. But there was a perfect view of the bay of Tangier and Falcón sat on the bed and gaped at it, while thoughts of deracination spread through his mind.”

Here are my reviews of the other books in the Javier Falcón series:-
THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED #2FALCÓN
THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS #3FALCÓN
THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD #4FALCÓN

If you like this, try:-
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus
‘No Time for Goodbye’ by Linwood Barclay
‘A Fatal Crossing’ by Tom Hindle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE by @RobWilsonwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-P1 via @SandraDanby

#Bookreview ‘Eeny Meeny’ by @mjarlidge #crimefiction

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MJ Arlidge has worked in television, most recently producing crime serials for ITV, and so it is no surprise that Eeny Meeny is an accomplished debut crime novel. I found it disturbing from chapter one which takes you straight into the head of one person, looking at another person sleeping, wondering how to kill him. For one to escape their prison, the other must die. They have been imprisoned with a loaded gun and a message on a mobile phone: ‘when one of you kills the other, the survivor will walk free’. MJ ArlidgeFor Detective Inspector Helen Grace, this first case of murder is quickly followed by another kidnapping/murder, and another. Hiding her own demons beneath a veneer of efficiency and emotional self-sufficiency, Grace is out-stepped again and again by a killer who seems a master of disguise as well as being that most rare of things: a female serial killer. Grace fits the profile of a modern literary detective: a loner, with a troubled past and full of guilt. The investigation seems to twist and turn in on itself, turning attention on the police, and on Grace herself. I found myself rooting for her, until finally at the end we understand her guilt. I look forward to reading another novel about DI Helen Grace.

Read my reviews of the following books in this series:-
POP GOES THE WEASEL #2HELENGRACE
THE DOLL’S HOUSE #3HELENGRACE
LIAR LIAR #4HELENGRACE
LITTLE BOY BLUE #5HELENGRACE
HIDE AND SEEK #6HELENGRACE
LOVE ME NOT #7HELENGRACE
DOWN TO THE WOODS #8HELENGRACE

If you like this, try:-
‘One False Move’ by Harlan Coben
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview EENY MEENY by @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-Ot via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder #thriller #crime

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I am new to Mo Hayder and her detective Jack Caffrey so didn’t know what to expect from Wolf. This was a spine-tingling ride from page one. Mo HayderI read the book over two days, putting it down for a break but unable to resist picking it up again. I do not like being frightened but I do like tension, and Hayder knows her subject her so well that I could feel the depth of her knowledge behind every word. So from the disturbing beginning with five-year-old Amy who gets lost in the woods, I stuck with it. And I am glad I did. I will now go back to the beginning and read her debut novel Birdman, the first in the Jack Caffrey series. Wolf is the seventh.
The story centres on the Anchor-Ferrers family: Oliver who has just had heart surgery, replacing a heart valve with that of a pig; his wife Matilda; and troubled daughter Lucia. Oliver needs to convalesce after his surgery and so the family go to their isolated country house, the location 14 years previously of the murder of two teenagers, one of them Lucia’s boyfriend. The house and the family’s memories of what happened are central to the story of Wolf. We piece together facts about the past and present, as Hayder feeds the reader the information in an expert manner calculated to add to the tension. What exactly did happen to Lucia’s boyfriend, what is Oliver’s mysterious job, has the murderer being released from prison, what is Wolf, and why does Hayder start the story with Amy?
The big question for me: why is this family still living in the isolated house with all its bad memories?

If you like this, try:-
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart #1ARBOGAST
‘Shroud for a Nightingale’ by PD James #4ADAMDALGLIESH
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview WOLF by Mo Hayder http://wp.me/p5gEM4-QE via @SandraDanby