The Crime Warp

In 2004, Lena Fisher was sent to prison for murdering her husband Andrew. An easy, open and shut case, after all, she even confessed to the murder.  Fast forward to 2016, a year after her release from prison and a man is found murdered – his body in an abandoned mortuary at Hale’s End.  DI Francis Sadler recognises the body as someone he went to school with.  That’s not as helpful as it sounds, because the dead man is undoubtedly Andrew Fisher, the man supposedly murdered in 2004! The detective team, Sadler, Palmer and Childs challenges are – find out who the dead man was that they all thought was Andrew Fisher in 2004; work out where the real Andrew Fisher has been since 2004 and most of all answer the key question – why did Lena Fisher confess to murdering someone who wasn’t her husband, but she claimed was?  The location of Fisher’s Body, Hale’s End tells them the answer lies somewhere in the past – Sadler and the team just have to find out what ...

Joe is having an affair with Dorrie.   They meet secretly one winter night and as Joe drives them from their meeting spot he tells Dorrie they have to stop seeing each other.   Their affair has to end.   Joe says it’s not safe for them any more – for either of them.   Even in the darkness, Dorrie can see Joe is frightened.  But Joe doesn’t explain why and moments later the car skids off the icy road and crashes.   Joe is dead.   Dorrie runs away from the scene, anxious not to be connected with the crash and to keep their affair secret.   Enter Maggie Brennan.   Ex soldier, ex cop, now an insurance investigator whose nose quickly tells her something about the crash isn’t quite right.   As the novel moves from chapter to chapter, we see little bits of the jigsaw emerge as the narrative is delivered by the three central characters of Maggie Brennan, Joe’s widow Karen and of course Dorrie, the other widow.   And what a ...

Susan Ryeland is a book editor, settling down one evening to read the manuscript of Magpie Murders , the latest in the bestselling Atticus Pund series.  Magpie Murders is a genuine cosy crime novel. It’s set in a small Wiltshire village, where Atticus Pund, private investigator and star of the novel is investigating a murder by beheading, which may or may not be linked to an accidental death the week before.   Magpie Murders is a proper vintage crime story, centred on Pye Hall, an old manor hall, with a real life, well, soon to be dead, lord living there, an unfaithful wife pursued by a London lothario, a weedy vicar plus a village busybody just to name a few.  And did I mention the classic detective – charming and unflappable Atticus Pund, who gently questions each character and solves the crime. Well, the only problem is that the last chapter of the manuscript Ryeland is reading is missing, so nobody knows who the murderer is and just to add a...

 I’ve just come across The Mistletoe Murder - small volume of four short stories by P D James.   I didn’t know that P D James regularly wrote short stories for newspapers and magazines that were published at Christmas.   A bright spark has diligently trawled through the archives and chosen four of these Christmas short stories for a beautifully presented hardback edition. As you’ll have guessed, the stories are all set at Christmas with tightly written plots and sharp characterisation that work really effectively, even though there is limited scope to develop character and plot within a short story that’s only a few thousand words long.   The settings are, as you would expect Christmas in a large house, with two of the four stories starring Dalgleish, although in one he hasn’t even reached the lofty rank of Chief Inspector.   Val McDermid’s foreword provides a lovely introduction and felt like a bridge between the modern day and the time long past whe...