The Crime Warp

With an ever increasing range of short crime fiction available the commute has never been so enjoyable.  Read on for just a few recommendations from some of the leading lights in crime fiction.

Over the years I've become quite addicted to JD Robb's Dallas/ Roarke series.  I love the fast paced smooth storylines, the quirky characters and the great futuristic insights.  But, most of all I love Eve Dallas's vulnerability and how that moulds her character.

I came across Mick Herron last year when I read the first novel the Slough House series, Slow Horses .  I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t more of a buzz about Herron or the Slough House series.  With a bit more research I found that Herron was almost prolific, with a number of other novels and even short stories to his name.  Slow Horses was nominated for the CWA steel dagger and the second novel in the series, Dead Lions , won the CWA Gold Dagger award as well as a number of other awards for best crime novel of the year (Front Row), Crime and thriller book of the year (The Times) and one of the best 25 crime novels of the last five years (Sunday Times) The series is set around a cast of characters who have been secret agents, but due to some error of judgement or weakness in character have been assigned to Slough House, a dumping ground for MI5 rejects.  They are all given mind numbingly dull work, hoping they will resign from the service, savi...

The Promise by Alison Bruce is a well written police procedural featuring DS Gary Goodhew and is set in Cambridge.  On sick leave following a work related injury Gary is enticed back to work after one of his informants , a homeless man named Ratty, is discovered murdered and mutilated.

The second and final part of my round up of recommended reads from 2015, Enjoy them!

                                  Release Date 4th February 2016 Cathbad sees a vision of a woman in a blue cloak in a cemetery in Walsingham.   The next day, a young woman in a blue dressing gown is found murdered nearby.   Meanwhile an ex-student friend (now priest) of Dr Ruth Galloway is receiving threatening s letters from an anonymous misogynist, who is opposed to women in the clergy.   Ruth’s friend, Hilary is in Walsingham on a course for women hoping to become Bishops.   For Ruth and DCI Nelson the coincidence is too much to be ignored.

It’s a long time since I read a Chris Brookmyre novel.  For some reason I can’t remember I stopped getting them from the library and Brookmyre fell off my reading list. By chance I saw Black Widow and was immediately attracted by the plot line, so here goes…. Dr Diana Jager is a talented surgeon who has ended up in professional exile working at a hospital in Inverness following her being publicly identified as “Scalpelgirl” – a blogger that highlighted tales of professional misogyny sent to her by other female surgeons.  After being unmasked, she was dubbed “Bladebitch” and ostracised by her former colleagues. Lonely and isolated, Jager meets Peter Elphinstone, an IT technician at work and after a whirlwind romance they are married.  Everyone says they are the ideal couple.  Six months later, Peter’s car is found in a river near a notorious blackspot, with no sign of the body.  Police that visit Jager to break the news, finding her cold and dista...

Silent Creed by Alex Kava (Release Date 5 th  Jan 2016) I' ve read and loved all lot of Alex Kava’s Maggie O’Dell series and now the second book in the Ryder Creed series Silent  Creed is out - Yeah!   In the Ryder Creed series we see O’Dell, an FBI agent united with Ryder Creed a canine rescue operative … and I’m hooked.