The Crime Warp

I was honoured to hear Adam reading an early draft of the first chapter of The Washington Stratagem on an Arvon course in Inverness... my interest was piqued then and I'm delighted to  review the rest of this excellent novel that takes us from Iran to Azerkabain to Washington in an exciting UN based political thriller.

When heavily pregnant Florida judge Diane Manchester whilst presiding over the extradition case of a Colombian drug lord, is abducted, the assumption is that he and his fellow criminals are responsible.  Especially when  before the abduction he issues a veiled threat to Diane and her baby!

As usual the The Theakston's crime writing festival in Harrogate offers a range of exciting events for all fans of crime fiction from forensics to psychological crime, from Irish noir to Icelandic thrills and  from strong women writer's and protagonists to creepy serial killers.  I've narrowed my top picks, with great difficulty, down to five and here they are...

Told from the point of view of a bereaved father Candy From A Stranger is a chilling commentary on a father's desperate attempt to find his young son's abducter.  Faced by unmotivated detectives,  his own grief, a growing dependance on alcohol and the breakdown of his marriage Ben Cain recognises similarities between his son's abduction a year earlier and a current abduction in a small Texas town nearby.

Shrug on your  white sequinned suit, k ick off your Blue Suede Shoes, lay back in your pink cadillac and prepare to laugh and chuckle your way through this delightful book set in the world of Elvis tribute Acts in Mississippi.  The beauty of Officer Elvis is that it doesn't take itself too seriously and yet still delivers a compelling mystery read with a wealth of Elvis anecdotes and enough info on Elvis memorabilia to keep the average Elvis fan in raptures for years. 

Set in  a secluded area on the banks of beautiful Loch Lomond near Balloch otland (which coincidentally happens to be my maiden name), The tears of Angels is a fast paced, exciting police procedural with excellent characterisation and a smooth poignant plot that encompasses ritual foljlore and witchcraft with the dynamics of a calculated killer.  

OK, I confess, I want to make my characters suffer – and then some. Storytelling is about conflict, struggle, about jeopardy and overcoming obstacles and if a protagonist is not tormented by those challenges then they’re not going to be very interesting or very realistic. My characters live the nightmares I fear, so they may not necessarily be tortured souls at the outset of a book but as the trauma unfolds with it comes grief and rage, frustration and fear.

Estranged couple Tom and Jo Maddox find themselves in China desperately searching for their missing daughter Lori, who has disappeared whilst working in Chengdu.  Lori a first class honours graduate, a keen photographer and blogger shares her trip though her blogs and vibrant photography... that is until she stops posting on her blog or contacting her friends and family.

It's that time of year again when Father's the world over are celebrated.  Of course in crime fiction, as in real life, fathers can be good, bad or downright evil.  My suggestions include a single father struggling to work as a police officer, a grieving Police detective who is also father to a disappeared boy and a book that encompasses the bereaved, the vigilante, the desperate and the dead.

Fancy a tour of Europe this summer ?  Well, here's my crime fiction recommendations as The Crime Warp winds it's way round top European destinations in the search for crime to whet your appetite.  From Austria to Denmark, from Spain to Germany and from France to Italy, where there's people there's crime and where there's crime there's crime fiction... Enjoy!

Robin Blake, The Scrivener , A Cragg and Fidelis Mystery, Constable, 2015.  Once again my friend Gillean Somervill- Arjat has come up with the goods in this  lovely review of The Scrivener by Robin Blake.   This is the third of Robin Blake’s series of historical crime novels set in Preston in the early 1740s, when the present city was a small provincial town, famous for two royalist defeats, one by Cromwell in 1648, the other during the Jacobite uprising of 1715.

A Killing Moon is the fifth book in the DI Damen Brook series, and it is a fabulous read. DI Brook, and his sidekick DS John Noble are drawn in to the case of missing student Caitlin Kinnear, mainly because Brook doesn’t want to take on a case involving scrap dealers. Neither are sure that a crime even taken place. Caitlin is a bit of a free spirit, and tends to go off whenever she feels like it. Soon they uncover other disappearances, but again these are young girls and no one is really sure they are missing, until a body turns up. Brook is a wonderful character, socially inept, but not afraid to cross the line when needs must, a bit of a grammar nerd, but littered throughout the books are references to a darker side to his character. Noble is the perfect foil to Brook’s lack of social skills, and is on hand to see him through his most awkward moments, but it is Brook who you know will get to the bottom of the case if anyone can. Angie is a new character, who fits in perf...

60 years since Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley was first published and it remains, to this day, a reference for crime writers and readers the world over and  it is as widely read now as it ever was, even after six decades.  So what is it about The Talented Mr Ripley  that makes it so enduring? What aspects of Ripley's character  hold us in such thrall?  And which fictional characters give him a run for his money?  To celebrate the phenomenon that is Tom Ripley and his 60 years of existence, Virago Classics are releasing on 4th June a beautiful commemorative cloth bound copy of The Talented Mr Ripley. Cloth Bound copy available on amazon for £12.99 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Talented-Mr-Ripley-Designer-Collection/dp/0349006962/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1431107574&sr=1-4&keywords=the+talented+mr+ripley

The Crime Warp catches up with the delectable Simon kernick author of The Final Minute (and many many more wonderful crime novels). Fellow blogger Roman interviewed you for The Crime Warp about 18 months ago, so it’s nice to have the opportunity to catch up with you once again particularly in light of your very busy last year.