Look Out For These! A trio about friends, dating and how unforgiving former police colleagues can be

Welcome to October’s look Out For These. The three novels this month have a different theme and all have a unique something that adds a frisson of excitement to the story.  Here’s my take on the three picks for October.
 

Dead Connection by Alafair Burke. This is Burke’s first novel featuring Ellie Hatcher, rookie NYPD detective. The novel is centred on the world of internet dating where the reader sees an unnerving lack of certainty about people’s age (always older than they claim), their appearance (is that photo actually real?) but most of all their motives (companionship, relationship or one night stand?). If all people were interested in was a one night stand, well that wouldn’t be great, but it would be infinitely preferable to the protagonist in this novel whose interest is murder. Hatcher becomes part of this unreal world where nobody seems to be who they say they are to catch the killer by playing the victim. Dead Connection is a dark story using a contemporary idea to drive the plot, which makes this a thriller to look out for, particularly if you like the serial killer genre.
 

Good Girls Don’t Die by Isabelle Grey. This is the first novel in the DS Grace Fisher series, which picks up after Fisher’s move to Essex, making a new start in the Essex Murder Investigation Team. Her first case on her first day looks like an easy one – a female student has been missing for a few days. Fisher hopes for a quick success but when a second female student goes missing and is found murdered questions are asked and the pressure on Fisher ratchets up. Just to complicate matters, a local tabloid reporter has access to far too many details of the case. As the investigation falters and stalls a review team brought in to shake things up. To Fisher’s horror, the team is led by her old DI who brings with him baggage and gossip from her previous job. Fisher needs to convince skeptical colleagues and a distrusting review team not only that she’s not the source of the leak to the press but that the investigation is going in the wrong direction, because they’re following the wrong suspect. A good plot with lots of tension and drama throughout.
 

  Friends to Die For by Hillary Bonner. We’ve all been the victims of schoolboy pranks that are irritating but basically harmless. The friends in this novel also find themselves the victims of a prankster and whilst the tricks start out as amusing, they become more and more dangerous until one of the group is dead. The friends are grief stricken at this tragedy but questions bubble to the surface that that one of these close friends could be responsible and that the tragedy is actually murder. As suspicions harden we see the close friendship and bonds of trust start to unravel and a clever portrayal of shifting alliances as former friends try to work out whether one of their own really is capable of murder.   

That’s all for October – I’ll be posting more reviews and interviews soon, and I hope that you've read my previous post celebrating The Crime Warp’s second birthday with a fantastic easy to enter giveaway of the crime and thriller compendium Books to Die For. So do keep visiting The Crime Warp and please let me have your ideas, comments and feedback, which are always genuinely welcome.
 
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