The Crime Warp

The Secret Place by Tana French – If you want a book that get’s right into the teenage psyche then this is it! I absolutely loved it.  It’s well written with great characters, a novel story line and keeps you guessing throughout.   It’s one of those must reads of 2014!

  An Unsuitable Job For A Woman Well, I'm not at all sure that the Rt.,Hon.Phyllis Dorothy Baroness James OBE FRSA FRSL , known and loved by most as Crime Writer P.D. James considered Crime Writing as ' an unsuitable job for a woman .'  In fact, I'm pretty certain she loved every minute of her writing experience... and ,we at The Crime Warp, in turn loved every minute of the  reading and viewing experiences we had courtesy of this talented writer.                                                  Despite coming to writing late (her mid thirties) she wrote 20 crime novels, many featuring policeman poet Adam Dalgliesh,  which have been serialised on TV.                                                 ...

Hello and welcome to my monthly post, highlighting crime and thriller fiction worth looking out for. I’ve previously concentrated exclusively on novels, but this month I wanted to highlight a couple of other things I believe are worth looking out for.   Six Degrees of Assassination is an exciting five hour political thriller series by Audible. It starts on a sullen, cloudy July day ten years since 7/7. The happy, confident and optimistic British Prime Minister is visiting a charity in East London. Just two months after the general election which saw his government returned to power with a clear majority, the economy is on the mend and the coalition is fast becoming a bad memory. Suddenly, a man appears out of the crowd and shoots him three times in the chest. Alex Cartwright, MI5 Chief Counter Terrorism Officer (Andrew Scott) must find out the truth and the action follows Cartwright’s investigation into the assassination. Six people, from assassin to mastermind, are unrave...

I first started reading Colin Bateman’s novels when I came across The Mystery Man series.  I was immediately attracted to their funny titles and found myself completely drawn into the books by bizarre plots and crazy behaviour of the characters.  When I saw the latest Dan Starkey novel The Dead Pass I decided that I should give this a try too.   Dan Starkey is a private investigator, hired to find Billy The Bear, the son of a retired republican activist Moira Doherty, missing and presumed murdered.  Shortly after meeting Starkey, Doherty is found dead, which makes Starkey determined to find both Billy and Moira’s killers.  It doesn’t take long for Starkey to get drawn into Londonderry’s seedy underworld of porn and drugs, until he finds himself at the centre of a new “spectacular” planned by Sunny Jim, one of a new generation of gangster terrorists.     The Dead Pass is a snappily written novel that makes the most of Stark...

Book Review: The Advent Killer by Alastair Gunn This is British Author Alastair Gunn’s debut novel and   if the standard of writing in The Advent Killer is anything to go by he has   a promising career ahead of him.

The Meating Room by TF Muir This is quite graphic in bits- not for the weak stomached This is a serial killer book with a difference.   When a prominent business man is found dead (thought suicide) in his car in a remote woodland area near St Andrews, the police immediately want to notify his wife.   However on arrival at the family home they discover his wife and two children murdered.    His wife has had large areas of skin removed from her body.   Initially the suspicion is that he murdered his family and then committed suicide.

Last night I got to page 402 of David Baldacci’s new novel, The Escape . An exciting action based plot twist had kept me on the page, but shortly before midnight I just had to stop because I needed to go to work this morning! This is the first of the Agent John Puller novels I’ve read (third in the series) and I found it a great blend of good writing, strong characters and sharp plot. David’s written five different series of novels as well as eleven standalone books.    We asked David about how he juggles all the different characters and stories. We wanted to know how he managed to make all his series and the novels within them so distinct so he’s “keeping it fresh”. Here’s his answer.   I have several series running now, all of them very different from one another, which forces me to keep things fresh and original. I don’t chase headlines because you run the risk of your plot ending up in a newspaper article before your book is even finished. I l...

Book review Fall From Grace by Tim Weaver - A  great example of a Private Investigator procedural! (If there is such a thing) This is the first Tim Weaver book I've read but it most certainly won't be the last! For me, Fall from Grace was one of those books that kept me gripped all the way through as I guessed and second guessed myself to find the link between two very strong storylines told in parallel.

I’d never thought of the British Library as a publisher and even less, have thought of them as being involved in the crime and thriller fiction genre.  So, I was surprised to find that The British library publish a wide range of books including crime and thrillers, helping to return to life a range of books that have been out of print for some time.  Here’s a taste of what they’re offering.   E Phillips Oppenheim was one of the most popular and successful writers of spy fiction in the early half of the twentieth century, known in his time as The Prince of Storytellers!  He wrote more than a hundred novels and The British Library republished two of his classics in August 2014.   The Spy Paramount is regarded by many as influencing Ian Fleming’s James Bond.  This book is a gripping and sophisticated tale of a spy who saves the world, featuring all the glamour of yachts, cocktail parties and high society across the cities of Europe. ...

 T hese James Patterson books are ‘easy reads’ - you know the sort of book you can read for ten minutes here and there like on a bus journey and not have to concentrate too hard.   Having said that, they are strangely addictive and I rarely miss them.   Definitely good Christmas pressies and nice to have around the house   or on your kindle to indulge yourself when the mood takes.

  The Crime Warp New Years Award Countdown begins! 41 days left to vote... Vote from our shortlist to enter the draw to win either a bundle of books or a trio of books.   Deadline 25th Dec 2014 Shortlist Belinda Bauer:              Rubbernecker   James Carol:                 Watch Me Ann Cleeves:                  Harbour Street    Chris Ewan:                    Dark Tides A.D Garrett :                    Believe No One   Elly Griffiths:                  The Outcast Dead Anya Lipska :                  Death Can't Take A Joke David Mark :                    Sorrow Bo...

Book Review: The Skeleton Road .   Ms McDermid takes us from Buildering up a derelict school to experiencing   war torn Croatia through the eyes of a woman in love, to the cloistered elite of Oxford Academia. – not bad considering she’s recently been busy having mortuaries named after her, writing her take on Northanger Abbey and having her Forensics Book published.

The Crime Warp New Years Honours Shortlist 2014 You decide which lucky UK crime novel will be awarded The Crime Warp novel of 2014! (and you could win  either a mega bundle ofcrime  books  or  a trio of crime books. (Results published 31st Dec 2014)  

Our latest blog tour hosts Dreda Say Mitchell.   She won the CWA's John Creasey Dagger for her debut novel, Running Hot and showing that this wasn’t just a flash in the pan, Dreda’s novel Geezer Girls was a 2014 World Book Night UK choice and long listed for The Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.   She was the 2011 chair of The Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and chosen as one of the 50 Remarkable Women in Britain by Lady Geek and Nokia. Today Dreda is discussing an age old author’s conundrum – the standalone novel versus the series.   This is particularly relevant for Dreda, who has moved from standalone novels to writing the first in a new series with her new novel Vendetta , that has just been released in paperback. The pros and cons of the standalone novel as against a series of books have been much discussed over the years and there’s much to be said on both sides. Many of the classics of the genre have been o...