Tag Archives: crime fiction

#BookReview ‘The Soul of Discretion’ by Susan Hill @susanhillwriter #crime

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Lafferton, England. A naked child wanders down a street. A woman is raped at a black tie Freemansons’ Dinner. This is the beginning of The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill. Detective Simon Serrailler is coming to terms with his girlfriend moving into his flat which now seems very small and confined, no longer his own private space. His widowed sister is struggling for money and must decide what to do about it. His stepmother is struggling to deal with the detective’s increasingly irritable and irascible father. Serrailler’s girlfriend feels like the lodger in her boyfriend’s flat. And then Serrailler is posted undercover. Susan HillThis is the eighth novel about detective Simon Serrailler and as far as I’m concerned, Susan Hill can continue writing them until kingdom comes. I have read them all over the years, but this is the first I have reviewed [something I will remedy over the coming year]. Serrailler is a thoughtful, solitary-minded detective, surrounded by a family which, in The Soul of Discretion, has its own crises. But the central thread of the book, which kept me reading late into the night, was Serrailler going undercover. In this book, you wonder if he will live or die. I read this book in 24 hours, including a night’s sleep. The subject matter is difficult, the nastiest child abuse, and to go undercover Serrailler must know his subject, be able to act the part of a ‘nonce,’ he must look as if he likes the nasty stuff.
Susan Hill doesn’t show us the unpleasantness, she lets us imagine it by showing us Serrailler’s reaction. He becomes Johnno Miles and we take every step with him as he goes to prison, the aim to get close to a prisoner who it is hoped holds the key to unlocking a prolific child abuse ring. With him is a James Bond-style watch with coded buttons to send messages to HQ, except it is a cheap black plastic watch, not a Rolex. There are a lot of heart-in-mouth passages, Hill’s writing makes you turn page after page. And just when you get to a key bit, the chapter ends and the attention switches – to Cat who is trying to decide whether to work for a hospice or a GP practice, or his stepmother Judith on holiday in France with his father, or Serrailler’s girlfriend Rachel who is opening a bookshop – and you get an emotional breather from the tension. But all the stories are linked, in the end.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘Referendum’ by Campbell Hart #3ARBOGAST
‘The Silent Twin’ by Caroline Mitchell
‘Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death’ by MC Beaton #1AGATHARAISIN

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SOUL OF DISCRETION by Susan Hill @susanhillwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1dD

#BookReview ‘Found’ by Harlan Coben @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 #1ARBOGAST
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Heuhaus
‘Nightfall’ by Stephen Leather #1JACK NIGHTINGALE

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

#BookReview ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ by MJ Arlidge @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.MJ ArlidgeEmpty backstreets, dirty abandoned industrial estates, overgrown riverbanks. Murder will take place this night. This 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:-
‘A Fatal Crossing’ by Tom Hindle
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison #1JENNYPARKER
‘Lord John and the Private Matter’ by Diana Gabaldon

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview POP GOES THE WEASEL by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1d5 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Or the Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster @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.

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 Jason Webster @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 of One False Move 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.Harlan CobenThe 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 it up and read it in two days. Mr 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
‘The Silver Bone’ by Andrey Kurkov #1KYIVMYSTERIES 
‘Dead Simple’ by Peter James #1ROYGRACE

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview ONE FALSE MOVE by @HarlanCoben http://wp.me/p5gEM4-18o via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Silent and the Damned’ by Robert Wilson @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 Robert Wilson @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 share a link, try:
#BookReview ELIZABETH IS MISSING by Emma Healey http://wp.me/p5gEM4-11S via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Blood Med’ by Jason Webster @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.

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 Jason Webster @Jwebsterwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-10N

#BookReview ‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by Robert Wilson @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 Robert Wilson @RobWilsonwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-P1 via @SandraDanby

#Bookreview ‘Eeny Meeny’ by MJ Arlidge @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 #5MYRONBOLITAR
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison #1JENNYPARKER
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart #1ARBOGAST

And if you’d like to share a link, try:
#BookReview EENY MEENY by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-Ot via @SandraDanby