The Crime Warp

I’m a latecomer to Ann Cleeves’ Vera novels and unashamedly admit that I started because of the TV series.   I particularly enjoyed the novel The Glass Room, probably because it was about a murder at a writers retreat.   I thought there was something particularly apt about that plot idea!  Her latest Vera book, Harbour Street, is about the small town community of Mardle, particularly Harbour Street and centred on a Bed and Breakfast run by former singer Kate Dewar and her long term lodger Margaret Krukowski.   Joe Ashton and his daughter Jessie are returning from town by train, when Jessie finds one of the passengers is dead, triggering a murder investigation. There are plenty of avenues of investigation, including the brusque vicar Father Grushin, Malcolm Kerr who owns the local boatyard, Stuart Booth, Kate Dewar’s new boyfriend and George Enderby the creepy publishers rep who secretly fancies Kate Dewar.   There are also links to The Hav...

There's been a lot of news recently as the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival announces more participants for the 2104 festival. The latest news is that Denise Mina is joining the guest line-up which includes famous name authors Ann Cleeves, Gillian Flynn, Sophie Hannah, Lynda LaPlante, Laura Lippman, Peter May, Denise Mina and S. J. Watson.   Fans of Denise Mina and competition aficionados will be delighted to find that the Festival has put together a competition to win one of ten exclusive Denise Mina triple bundles.  Each includes a DVD copy of Field of Blood and the brand new cover versions of The End of the Wasp Seaso n and The Red Road.  Here's the link to the competition:   http://harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime/news/exclusive-competition-ten-prize-bundles-up-for-grabs/   Good luck!   Romancrimeblogger   PS - don't forget our own Crime Warp Flash Fiction competition that closes at the end of Janua...

I’ve chosen just three books this month – two are already available although you’ll have to wait until the end of February for M R Hall’s new book The Burning.   It’s a great selection and I’ll be reviewing The Burning in more detail at the end of February, so please do keep an eye out for that. The Sudden Arrival of Violence by Malcolm Mackay – Calum MacLean is a Glasgow hit man.   In the first book we saw him “deal with” Lewis Winter.   The second book contrasts MacLean’s sharp and precise work with that of ageing hit man Frank MacLeod’s, who is slipping, showing MacLean what his own fate might be.   In this third book MacLean has had enough of killing and wants out.   But as part of a brutal and deadly war between two of Glasgow’s biggest criminal gangs, can MacLean finally leave his life of murder behind?   Mackay’s sparse writing style and the dark atmosphere of the book bring to life a world of deceit, lies and cold brutality.   Trul...

I missed Wiley Cash’s first book ( A land more kind than home ), not realising that Cash had won the Crime Writer’s Association New Blood Dagger award for best first novel in 2012.   I wasn’t quite sure this second novel would be a book for me, as I prefer novels with plenty of zip to them and this didn’t seem to be that kind of book.   I didn’t even get to the end of the first page before I realised that I was completely captivated. The novel is told from three alternative voices – Easter Quillby, Bobby Pruitt and Brady Weller.   Easter and her sister Ruby, are in a children’s home waiting to be adopted.   Their mother has recently died of a drug overdose and their father Wade left them years ago, nowhere to be found.   Wade appears one day at an after school ball game, anxious to be back in their lives, even though he signed away his parental rights many years ago when he left them. Soon after, Wade appears late at night telling the girls they a...

Last year, I had an idea for a story.   For the second time in two weeks I’d picked up a phone someone had left on a train and being an honest person, tried to reunite it with its owner.   I wondered what might happen if the phone’s owner was not just an innocent and forgetful commuter, or even worse, whether I’d mistakenly picked up a phone that someone else not so pleasant was meant to pick up. I was quite intrigued to see the write up for Game , the first in a trilogy.   By a happy co-incidence, it was delivered to my Kindle when I wasn’t working, so I had a day free to read the book. Herik Pettersson (HP) is a waster.   Bright, but unmotivated, he works occasionally, preferring to live on the fringes of crime.   He has little contact with his sister Rebecca, who works as government bodyguard, although he does get in touch when he needs money! HP is travelling on a train, badly hungover and groggy, when he finds an expensive looking smart...