The Crime Warp

    I highlighted this novel in my November “Watch out for these” post.  It’s the fifth in M R Hall’s Jenny Cooper series and an absolutely splendid read. The protagonist is Jenny Cooper, coroner for Severn Vale, whose attention is caught by two deaths.  The first is a suicide by a young aid worker who jumped into traffic off a motorway bridge.  The second is a sudden death from meningitis of the young daughter of a family friend of her husband’s.   Jenny tries to get to the bottom of each case, with inconsistencies and mysterious events convincing her that she needs to dig further to get to the truth.  Her instincts are quickly confirmed when she’s contacted by the oily and increasingly powerful civil servant Simon Moreton, who continues to try and keep Jenny in check to avoid any possible public embarrassment.  As the plot develops, she finds the cases are linked and danger comes close to her and her family, putting lives at risk in a...

  The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith. We normally focus on British crime writing but I enjoyed this book so much I felt it had to be reviewed by The Crime Warp. The Inquisitor is Mark Allen Smith’s debut novel and it’s one of those novels that even after a few months you can pick it up and still remember the whole plot, specific details about the characters and even some of the dialogue.   For someone who reads a lot of crime novels, I was amazed when on browsing my book shelves I picked this up, four months after reading it and knew by the title (not the blurb or first page) exactly what was going on in the book.   As a debut novel, I think that is noteworthy. The Inquisitor, Geiger, basically extracts information from human targets for a fee.   He is professional and hides his privacy under layer upon layer of security.   His only human contacts, excluding his targets,   are his business partner (a man whose life he saved) a rich business man (...

       Here’s my January post, highlighting some of the books I’ve got on my reading list.  I’ve stuck to just three this month to try and keep my reading list manageable, but these three novels are well worth looking out for. Just out - The burning air by Erin Kelly This novel centres on the MacBride family and the annual trip to their holiday home in Devon for bonfire night.  This year is unsettled as the family’s grandmother has just died, the eldest daughter Sophie’s marriage is on the rocks and the youngest son has brought his first girlfriend Kerry, with him.  Kerry offers to babysit Sophie’s daughter whilst the family go to the bonfire, but on their return, both Kerry and the baby are gone.  The story moves from present to past and back to the present, slowly and carefully revealing the family’s secrets and tragedies that have led to this frightening event. February 2013 – Capture by Roger Smith Set in South Africa, this book is about...