The Crime Warp

Who would have thought that 1950s Ireland could be so hard for women?   I’ve been there on holiday - beautiful place, lovely people. Had a great time. But Abandoned showed me a hitherto unknown aspect, a darkness that shocked me. I knew, in theory, that women had to give up their jobs when they got married and that the Catholic Church ruled with an iron fist, but until I read this book I didn’t realize what it actually meant to the lives of women.  Sharon Thompson’s lively dialogue transports you in an instant to the Emerald Isle, where you follow the turbulent life journey of a woman trying to survive a patriarchy so nasty, it makes you want to shout with rage one moment and cry the next. This is not a ‘crime detection’ novel in the traditional sense, but an exploration of motives and instinct, and a tragic set of circumstances which gives birth to violence and death. You will be desperate to find out what happens to her finely-drawn heroine, Peggy Bowden.  ...

Available  here Set in Clacton in the long hot summer of 1976, Disposal starts off with a fantastic hook and soon becomes the book that never stops giving. The opening scene combines the prosaic with the shocking  when two detectives witness a light aircraft struggling for height and then crashing into the sea ... what comes next is as surprising as it is exciting. Disposal is beautifully placed in the 70's with just enough history to keep you in the 'setting' and a cracking plot too.  I love the tension between the Sergeant Cyril  Claydon and  DI Dick Barton.  The gentle humour had me laughing aloud as I read, whilst the investigation kept me hooked.  No SPOILERS HERE THOUGH... read the book for more!

Tony Forder is author of Degrees of Darkness , Bad to the Bone and Scream Blue Murder, all of which have been applauded by Bloggers and readers alike.  It is with great pleasure that I welcome Tony to be Warped at the Warp! (rubs hands together gleefully). Tony's newest book The Scent of Guilt will be released on February 17th 2018.

'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.' This is where personal drama is magnified by community conflict - and where crime meets social history. By George, it's tough. Following on from the critically acclaimed Darktown (nominated for two CWA daggers), Lightning Men explores the violent, corrupt and racist underbelly of 1950 Atlanta. The KKK are still influencing from behind the scenes to enforce segregation and white supremacy. White neighbourhoods are struggling in a variety of ways to keep blacks out. Some will go to any lengths and soon a murder is committed.  This is a police procedural with a difference in that we are following the exploits of two forces: the white often heavy-handed powerful force and the small struggling black force employed to keep order in the overpopulated poor black areas in the face of violent drug wars. Black lives didn’t matter much then either, it seems.  The author Thomas Mullen is a talented American writer who has won prizes for...

They say people often study psychology or become therapists because they want to solve their own psychological issues and neuroses. If that’s true, then you might not be surprised that the protagonist of this book, FBI Agent Elsa Myers, chose a career looking for missing people. Lost girl looking for lost girl, that could be another title for this delicious thriller.  The author skilfully weaves a pattern between the demons that plague our heroine and the demon who steals girls. A Map of the Dark, set on the East coast of the US, has all the necessary elements to keep you hooked from the start: A damaged and engaging protagonist, an interesting male cop side-kick, fraught family history and challenging relationships (those who hurt us most are often those nearest to us), a frantic rollercoaster of a search for missing teenagers and a tingling twist at the end. Maybe I like reading crime because it helps me to deal with my own demons? Way more fun and a lot cheaper th...