The Crime Warp

Available here Dark Sacred Night is every crime readers dream - Two of Michael Connolly's best characters - and they're both in te same book!. In Dark Sacred Night we see Harry Bosch returning in his 21st offering as the much beleagured detective and this time he's joined by the wonderful Renee Ballard, the surfing cop from the late shift.  Bosch may be showing signs of his age by now, but Connolly's writing shows no sign of slowing down. I think the combination of Ballard and bosch worked really well. Bosch's experience tempered by Ballard's tough, relentless determination are a powerful mix. BLURB Detective Renée Ballard  works the graveyard shift and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours to find a stranger rifling through old files. The intruder is none other than legendary LAPD detective  Harry Bosch , hunting for leads in an unsolved case that has got under his skin. Ballard escorts him out but - curious to know what he was...

One of the best-known and biggest-selling authors of all time, James Patterson, has been announced as a headline act at the 2019 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. Patterson has sold more than 375 million books worldwide and currently holds the Guinness World Record for the most #1  New York Times  bestsellers. He has been the most-borrowed author of adult fiction in UK libraries, for the past 11 years in a row. Mari Hannah, who has taken over the mantle of Programming Chair from Lee Child for the 2019 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, said: “What some people may not know about James Patterson is how much he cares about reading, how much he gives back, donating books and offering financial support to independent bookshops, ensuring that his reading legacy lives on. As the festival’s Reader-in-Residence for the past three years, announcing James Patterson in my year as Programming Chair is a huge honour.” A renowned advocate of reading, phila...

Available here The Quaker is one of those novels that, if you're a Scot of a certain age, immdiately transports you back to your childhood. Based on the factual tale of Glasgow serial Killer Bible John, McIlvanney encapsulates the dread and the shock that permeated Scottish society at that time. The regular identikit photo's embalazoned across the frnt page of The Daily Record, the whispered conversations and speculations that occurred at the school gates, in the shops and in pubs. Bible John was Scotland's Bogeyman of the sixties and the very name is still enough to instil a shiver of fear in even the most hardened of crime reader. McIlvaney also, in what I found to be an enticing parallel mirrored the frustrations of the Bible John investigative team who stumbled against dead end after dead end with the later investiagtion to find the more prolific killer, The Yorkshire Ripper. It was this very human element that made the novel great for me. McILvanney's acu...

I always enjoy reading a new Mirabelle Bevan mystery and this is the 6 th to date. But then I enjoy historical fiction. Set in the 1956 it’s actually quite recent in terms of historical fiction but Sara Sheridan does not take any short cuts with her setting, her attention to detail and her insights into the social history of the day. We all know about WWII, the Battle of Britain and the high number of casualties among pilots and air crew. But I for one never considered what happened to the pilots who survived the war. The happiest fighter pilots are adrenaline junkies, but peace time doesn’t offer much by way of adrenaline rush, at least not at the same level. This is not just a random observation, but a not-so-subtle clue with regard to the title of the book. Take Mirabelle’s assistant and side-kick Vesta, a member of the Windrush generation. There weren’t many black people in England before then and it’s fascinating to see how the author deals with the attitudes and racism b...

Available here Val McDermid's Karen Pirie novels are fast becoming my favourite series of hers.  The cold case element is intriguing and the reader is secure in the knowledge that Val has done her research. I love to pick up the little techie details that help to solve the crime and am constantly in awe of the progress made in forensic anthropology. So, in Broken Bones we are transported to the highlands of Scotland during WW2 where elite training camps were set up for reconnaissance and sabotage purposes. To find out more about these elite training camps click  here  . What I loved about Broken Bones was the two concurrent  narratives - the one exploring Pirie's ongoing investigation and the one detailing the the series of events that lead to a body being discovered, buried, beside two vintage motorbikes.  She paints a very realistic picture of the highlandsboth historically and contemporary.  Her plotting is flawless - never too much detail, ...

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Ali Harper to The Crime Warp. Ali and I have shared panels talking about The Gentle Art of Murder ... and more and I can vouch that not only is she a fab writer, but she is also a lovely person. Have a biscuit Ali and settle in. I'll just get the spotlight set up ready for the grilling.  Liz: Tell us a bit about your current book release Available here Ali: The Disappeared is my first novel published by Harper Collins. The ebook was released on the 18 th May - the paperback on on 27 th July 2018. The story is set around a missing persons’ bureau, No Stone Unturned, which has just opened its doors in Leeds. It’s run by two young women -   Lee and Jo - who are keen to prove themselves as private investigators . When their first client, Susan Wilkins, walks through the doors, they think they’re in luck. Susan just wants them to find her missing son, Jack. He is one of ‘The Disappeared’, which the ...

The Woman in the Wood sees the enigmatic Charlie Parker back in action. He is as busy as his Irish author, John Connolly, whose 16 th book in the series this is. (This is in addition to numerous other works). Why has Connolly got such a large following? He delivers, from page one, and he keeps it fresh. I’ll give you a small sample from the opening scene, which finds Charlie Parker in his friend’s bar in Portland. ‘The presence of the bar was indicated solely by a sign on the sidewalk, required because the bar was set back from the street on the first floor of an old warehouse, and would otherwise have been difficult, if not impossible, to find. Perhaps this was why it appealed to Louis. Given the opportunity, Louis might even have dispensed with the sign entirely, and supplied details of the bar’s location only to those whose company he was prepared to tolerate, which meant that maybe five people in the world would have been burdened with the responsibility of keeping it in ...

Available here Caro Ramsay’s Costello and Anderson series goes from strength to strength. With each new book, the characters absorb a different dimension as they grow which keeps them fresh and us, the reader, wanting more. Their narratives evolve and respond to each investigation and that, I think, is the secret of their longevity.   The Sideman follows on from last year’s powerful The Suffering of Strangers and I would advise that you read this first.   Still reeling from the previous novel's revelations, DCI Colin Anderson is adapting to life as the grand father and carer of his grandson, whilst trying to make sense of the murders that happened at the end of the previous novel and debating how much faith to invest in DI Costello’s allegations that his grand child, baby Moses’, step grandad is the perpetrator. Meanwhile Costello has resigned from the police and is pursuing her own investigation which seems to link into a murder on the banks of Loch Lomond. ...