The Crime Warp

For weeks now fans of  Crime  Fiction all over the  world have  been voting for  their favourite UK Crime  book  of 2015 in ... The Crime Warp New  Years  Honours Award. Voting has closed and The Crime Warp  team  are  pleased to announce that The Crime Warp New  Years  Honours Award for best UK Crime Book 2015 goes  to...

This is the fifth in the Victor the Assassin series.  When CIA employed assassin Victor (otherwise known as Teseract) is compromised on a routine hit, he is determined to discover who blew his cover and to take down the female assassin (code name Raven) who nearly killed him .

As you'd expect from Ruth Rendall,  Dark Corners is a wonderful observation of human nature at its best and at its worst.  Rendall is the master of taking normal every day situations and showing how a single disastrous twist can make a  situation become ominous.  

I only recently got introduced to Angela Marson's DI Kim Stone books and I'm so glad I did.  Kim is an unlikely heroine: anti- social, lacking in social graces and dogged to the point of obstinacy- just up my street.  If you've not come across this trio of books before then you're in for a treat.  Set in The Black Country near Lye, Stourbridge and Rowley Regis, Marsons gives more than a passing nod to the areas history in her writing.

You decide which lucky UK crime novel will be awarded  The Crime Warp novel of 2015!   All you need to do is:  VOTE NOW!.. 1/ Email :  thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk 2/Type the title of your nomination Under  Subject   and we'll  enter you for our prize giveaway. Voting Closes at  Midnight  on  25th December: Award  Winning A uthor  and Giveaway winners will be announced  on 31st  December! Read on to see who this years nominees are...

Hello partners in crime!   I’ve just finished reading two Scandi crime novels that are so good that I’m highly recommending both of them.   So, if you’re looking for a last minute something for a Christmas present or just a treat for yourself…read on.   MemoRandom by Anders de la Motte.   I’ve blogged before about de la Motte’s novels – his Game Trilogy is simply excellent and I found interviewing him to be both informative and entertaining.   It’s been a while since de la Motte published a new novel and MemoRandom has been well worth waiting for.   David Sarac is a police officer in Stockholm, waking up after a terrible car crash.   Seriously injured, Sarac’s only memories of his life are vague and sketchy.   All he can remember is that he has done something bad – criminally bad – but he can’t remember what, let alone anything of his former life.   Slowly he begin to recollect details of which Janus, a highly placed Confidentia...

2015 has been a fantastic year for Crime Fiction and as usual there have been far too many really good books for me to get round to reviewing them all.  So, here are a few that slipped through the net during the year but that I've now managed to catch up with.  Enjoy!

You decide which lucky UK crime novel will be awarded  The Crime Warp novel of 2015!   All you need to do is:  VOTE NOW!.. 1/ Email :  thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk 2/Type the title of your nomination Under  Subject   and we'll  enter you for our prize giveaway. Voting Closes at  Midnight  on  25th December: Award  Winning A uthor  and Giveaway winners will be announced  on 31st  December! Read on to see who this years nominees are...

Saw this amazingly funny and cute jib jab Christmas card on Facebook designed by Belinda Bauer (well done Belinda). This will really cheer you up and mark the start of the festive season.   Here's the link - enjoy-  http://www.jibjab.com/view/HBypjDGBTK-ei7vSeM4D9g?utm_campaign=Sharer+PopUp&utm_content=rockin_around_the_christmas_tree_4&utm_medium=Share&utm_source=Facebook

The Last Victim takes us from  Alaskan mountains on a remote island to the Cascade mountains in Seattle in this chillingly delicious serial killer story.  Ryker Townsend , an FBI analyst, has his own demons to fight as well as a serial killer who appears to have formed a very personal link with him.

What is lovely about this story, is the contrast between the idyllic holiday setting with families vacationing in the sun and sea, and the horror of death being brought to this small community.

Now for the second part of our Christmas count down with A Criminally Short Read - A - Day Christmas Treat.   From  the criminally comic to the nostalgically nefarious, from  the raunchy romance  to the decidedly dark,  these reads are beautifully thrilling.

I'm warning you now, if you're feint hearted don't even open this.  I don't read a lot of supernatural fiction but was tempted to this because I love Peter James' Roy Grace books.   The House on Cold Hill had me deliciously petrified, yet I couldn't put it down.  James brought his crime writing skills to bear on this with a healthy dose of mystery threaded amongst the ghostly happenings - a thoroughly enjoyable read.

You decide which lucky UK crime novel will be awarded  The Crime Warp novel of 2015!   All you need to do is:  VOTE NOW!.. 1/ Email :  thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk 2/Type the title of your nomination Under  Subject   and we'll  enter you for our prize giveaway. Voting Closes at  Midnight  on  25th December: Award  Winning A uthor  and Giveaway winners will be announced  on 31st  December! Read on to see who this years nominees are...

This beautifully written historical crime novel is set London in 1654, a time when speaking your mind could result in a trip to the Tower and having the wrong friends could lead to your execution. And if you thought you could escape the attentions of Cromwell’s government, or play a double game, you’d be reckoning without the Seeker. Cromwell’s enigmatic and feared special agent would hunt you down mercilessly. When John Winter, one of Cromwell’s supporters, is found murdered not far from the living quarters of the Protector himself, it falls to Damian Seeker to unravel a fiendishly complicated plot to strike at the heart of the government. Will he discover who killed John Winter and prevent the assassination of Oliver Cromwell? The fact that John Winter had been married to the daughter of a prominent Cavalier and held secrets of his own, muddies the waters. A young lawyer and author of dangerously critical political pamphlets, Elias Ellingworth, inadvertently caught up in...

Only last week I referenced, in my Creative Writing MA class,  William McIlvanney's thrilling second person narrative  in Laidlaw.  

Forget Dexter, we've got Billy Knight.  Jeff Lindsay introduces his new character Billy Knight in a fantastic opening story for a new series.  Billy is an ex LA cop, who after suffering the death of his wife and child has escaped to Key West where he happily works as a fishing guide.

You decide which lucky UK crime novel will be awarded  The Crime Warp novel of 2015!   All you need to do is:  VOTE NOW!.. 1/ Email :  thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk 2/Type the title of your nomination Under  Subject   and we'll  enter you for our prize giveaway. Voting Closes at  Midnight  on  25th December: Award  Winning A uthor  and Giveaway winners will be announced  on 31st  December! Read on to see who this years nominees are...

A Criminally Short Read - A - Day (and a few full length reads), Christmas Treat  From  the criminally comic to the  nostalgically nefarious, from  the raunchy romance  to the decidedly dark,  these reads are beautifully thrilling.

I'm Travelling Alone  by Samuel Bjork is a fantastic debut novel by a rising star of Nordic Noir!  This is worthy of a veteran writer.  The plot is complex and satisfyingly thrilling, the characters intriguing, likeable and quirky and the settings are beautifully Nordic.... Samuel Bjork is definitely one to look out for  in the future.

I blogged about Claire McGowan’s first Paula Maguire novel The Lost some time ago.   I liked the Paula Maguire character (strong and intelligent, if a little wayward!) and the Northern Ireland setting, where there’s a tension between the desire to just get on with a normal life and the ghosts of murder and violence that touched so many people’s lives, making them prisoners of their past. In The Silent Dead , Paula is now heavily pregnant, still working and has not resolved the question of her baby’s paternity.   In the opening scenes she goes to a crime scene where a suspected former terrorist has apparently committed suicide.   The “victim” is a member of the Mayday Five, a group responsible for a horrific bombing atrocity.   The other four members of the group have disappeared.   Maguire and the team must track them down to protect them from people who want to deal out their own brand of justice.   As if the case itself isn’t hard enough, ...