Tag Archives: crime novels set in Southampton

#BookReview ‘Liar Liar’ by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge #crimefiction

8 Replies

I loved the ending… a tasty titbit to make me anticipate the fifth book in the series by MJ Arlidge about Southampton detective Helen Grace. Don’t start reading an MJ Arlidge novel, unless you have nothing to do but read. Because the story moves so fast you won’t want to put it down. Liar Liar is the fourth in Arlidge’s Helen Grace series set in Southampton, UK. MJ ArlidgeArlidge is an expert storyteller, he has created two likeable female detectives – DI Helen Grace and DC Charlie Brooks – and put them in a real, gritty, believable setting.
The writing is graphic. The theme of this book is fire – there’s an arsonist on the loose in Southampton, setting serial fires – so the description of fire in all its stages and its after effects is at times graphic. Is someone trying to cover up a crime? Could it be a revenge attack on one person disguised by multiple fires? Or is it an insider with a grudge?
It is a quick read, 448 pages. Arlidge writes TV drama and his skill at keeping the tension going is clear on every page.

Read my reviews other books in this series:-
EENY MEENY #1HELENGRACE
POP GOES THE WEASEL #2HELENGRACE
THE DOLL’S HOUSE #3HELENGRACE
LITTLE BOY BLUE #5HELENGRACE
HIDE AND SEEK #6HELENGRACE
LOVE ME NOT #7HELENGRACE
DOWN TO THE WOODS #8 HELENGRACE

If you like this, try:-
‘Big Sky’ by Kate Atkinson #5JACKSONBRODIE
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder
‘Due Diligence’ by DJ Harrison #1JENNYPARKER

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LIAR LIAR by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1PW via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Doll’s House’ by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge #crimefiction

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Vulnerable women are disappearing and Detective Inspector Helen Grace suspects another serial killer. If so, it will be her third, and her success is causing tensions amongst her team in Southampton. In The Doll’s House, MJ Arlidge tells a taut story about girls, captured and confined in dark, dismal places. MJ ArlidgeIn the first chapter, a woman wakes in a dark cellar, and a young family on a day trip to the beach finds a body buried in the sand. This ticks so many boxes for me: the real Southampton setting, the believable Helen Grace, the police politics, Helen’s continuing relationship with fellow officer Charlie.
This is a convincing portrayal of Ruby, a troubled young woman with family issues, who wants to put things right. She was adopted and had a happy childhood, but a reunion with her birth mother sours her life and she disappears. Her mother receives only brief texts and tweets, saying she is trying to sort out her life.
This is a clever killer who keeps his victims alive beyond their grave.

Read my reviews other books in this series:-
EENY MEENY #1HELENGRACE
POP GOES THE WEASEL #2HELENGRACE
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:-
‘Cover her Face’ by PD James #1ADAMDALGLIESH
‘No Other Darkness’ by Sarah Hilary #2MARNIEROME
‘The Various Haunts of Men’ by Susan Hill #1SIMONSERRAILLER

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE DOLL’S HOUSE by MJ Arlidge @mjarlidge http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1B8 via @SandraDanby

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

11 Replies

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 ‘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