The Crime Warp

I’ve been reading lots of books since going back to work after the holidays and struggled to catch up with reviews and postings.  My September “Look Out For These” is later than expected, but I have made a really good selection this month with something for everyone. Believe No One by A D Garrett .  The second novel form the Margaret Murphy/Dave Barclay writing partnership sees DCI Kate Simms in the USA, escaping the fallout from her association with Professor Nick Fenimore in her last case.  Simms is working with the cold case unit in St Louis PD when she gets a call from Fenimore, who is also in America.  Fenimore wants her help with a case on Oklahoma – a mother is dead and a child vanished – painful echoes of Fenimore’s own personal torment.  Simms however is more occupied with an emerging pattern of murders in St Louis – young mothers murdered and dumped by the highway.  Fenimore and Simms find their cases are linked, revealing yet ...

Book Two of the Amy Lane Mysteries I loved this book!  Rosie Claverton shows you don’t have to conform to stereotypes to have great protagonists. Amy Lane, is a brilliant computer hacker who suffers from debilitating panic attacks that have prevented her from leaving her house for ten years, she is assisted by Jason Carr, an ex convict, who is also her cleaner. They are unlike any other characters I’ve read before and I found it very refreshing. Their relationship is very complex, but in a strange way they complete each other and there is a lot of warmth between them.  The characterisation throughout the novel is extremely good, I thought the depiction of Amy’s panic attacks were very realistically portrayed, and Jason was quite exasperating as he ignored both the police’ and Amy’s advice, by going it alone to solve a murder and thereby putting them all in danger. The supporting characters, especially the sisters, have a real depth to them, I was immed...

I came across this a while ago and forgot to post details up.  It’s a little late, but I thought it was still worth posting something up in case you haven’t seen this.  Headline Publishing is re-publishing the whole of Carol O’Connell’s Detective Kathy Mallory series.  Kathy’s story starts with her lost as a child and caught stealing by a detective.  Instead of arresting her, the detective adopts her, raising Kathy as his own daughter.  Kathy becomes computer genius and joins the police, using her talent with computers and an intuitive understanding of criminal minds to solve cases.   Critics cite lots of positive things about the series including excellent characterisation, particularly Mallory, strong prose, deep suspense, dark mystery and as you would expect, a talent for delivering a clever twist in the tail.  Headline are publishing two books a month, so plenty to look forward to until the end of the year. Romancrimeb...

The Mistry Crime Tour through the Big Screen and into your Living Room (Late Summer) Well, there are two bright spots on the wee screen at the moment.   Scott and Bailey Wednesdays 9 PM ITV Suranne Jones (Rachel Bailey), Amelia Bullmore (Gill Murray), Lesley Sharp (Janet Scott) The first for me is Scott and Bailey with its’ strong female protagonists and great Northern  story-lines .   The acting is superb and last week’s opener gave us a tantalising taste of a cold case to be reopened.   Interestingly Amelia Bullmore who acts as Inspector Gill Murray has written  some of the scripts for the current series'

  I recently read an interview with Ann Cleeves in the Radio Times where she talked about how banal real life murder can be.  She knows what she’s talking about as she’s met a number of real life murderers and describes most of them as pathetic inadequate people.  Like me she’s not a fan of the serial killer genre, which I think is now pretty clichéd and a too unrealistic for my liking.  So when I picked up Carol’s novel Watch me, shortly afterwards, I pretty quickly decided it would go on the “ditch pile” – conflicted ex FBI profiler, serial killer, small town in Louisiana?  I had much more promising books to try.  I thought the two page test would be enough to prove that, but instead it convinced me to put it in my holiday suitcase.  I read it quickly, snatching any time I could in my first two days on holiday to finish the book. So, a quick run through – Jefferson Winter is an ex FBI criminal profiler, with a rootless existence liv...