The Crime Warp

Available here BLURB TARGET: HEAD OF STATE Men and women from across the nation line the streets of Washington D.C. to mourn the unexpected death of the President. Hit by painful memories of the loss of his first wife, Alex Cross is left reeling by this tragedy. TARGET: UNITED STATES CABINET A sniper's bullet strikes another devastating blow to the heart of Washington with the assassination of a prominent Senator. The shock of this attack puts huge pressure on the police to deliver a speedy response, and as Chief of Detectives, Alex's wife Bree Stone is given an ultimatum: solve the case, or lose her job. TARGET: ALEX CROSS The new President calls on Alex Cross to lead an unparalleled FBI investigation to help capture America's most wanted criminal. Alex has a terrible feeling that the assassination is just the beginning of a much larger plan. All too soon this fear springs to life as a terrifying chain of events plunges the government and the entire co...

Amnesia Nights by Quinton Skinner Published in July 18 in paperback (£8.99) by Fentum Press, this stylish psychological suspense novel explores the boundaries of memory and reality. John Wright thinks he may have killed his fiancée in a fit of rage and escapes into hiding. Three years pass, a time during which he increasingly questions his own grasp on reality. Then he sees her. But is she real? And what impact will her return have on his life? You can’t bury your darkest secrets, they will out in the end. Quinton Skinner, a former critic and magazine editor, is an American author who has written both fiction and non-fiction books and contributed to journals such as the Huffington Post, Variety, Glamour and Literary Hub. The Polish Detective by Hania Allen Published August 18 in paperback (£8.99) by Constable, this interesting police procedural takes us to Scotland. DS Dania Gorska is seconded from London to Dundee’s specialist crime division to investigate a series ...

For those who love historical fiction with a dash of intrigue, conspiracy and mystery thrown in, The Red Ribbon is just the ticket. Set in 1910, a period when British society was in ferment: workers flirting with Communism, or at least seeking opportunity and change, the suffragettes wanting the vote, Britain’s growing political and economic power struggle with Germany, the establishment desperately clinging onto their power and privilege … Onto this vibrant and fast-changing world a working class man called Wiggins leaves his mark. As a boy, trained by Sherlock Holmes himself in the art of spy craft and investigation,   Wiggins had in fact been the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars. Now, an adult, he is employed as Britain’s first professional spy you could say, as he is the only agent working for Captain Vernon Kell, head of the newly established Secret Intelligence Service. But his indubitable skills are not always appreciated by the establishment. The part wh...

 It’s 1666 and our hero and erstwhile spy cum lawyer John Grey is taking his first taste of hot chocolate with Aminta, the Lady Pole. Most of us will be familiar with the Great Fire of London, but I wasn’t aware that hot chocolate was the new drink of fashion. I thoroughly enjoy reading about John Grey’s work for his dodgy spy master Lord Arlington and the dangerous scrapes he invariably gets himself into.  I’ve also be wondering for some time now if John Grey is going to propose to Aminta, the headstrong playwright and childhood friend, now that she is a widow. And I’m in good company. Will, John Grey’s clerk and man Friday, also wants John to pop the question, that’s when he’s not using his cunning and initiative to save his master from whatever dangerous situation he’s gotten himself into.  Back to the Great Fire of London. Was it actually an accident in the bakery on Pudding Lane or the result of a French Catholic plot? Grey stumbles across a conspirac...

Available here I'm a crime fiction reader and I LOVE JAKE BOULDER. There, it's out there - judge me if you will. So, my lovely damaged Jake is pushed almost to the end in this one. Battling the weather as well as the terrorists is only half the battle for Jake. He's also got his own internal demons to battle ... and believe me they are so much scarier for him than the terrorists inside the ski resort he's working at or the weather. Blurb Boulder is back. Jake Boulder is working as a bartender, at an exclusive Vermont ski resort on New Year’s Eve, when armed terrorists hold up the lodge and take all the customers and guests hostage.  Trapped with the other hostages, Boulder watches in horror as the female terrorist leader disfigures a singer to make her point. He wants to fight back, but is unarmed and being held at gunpoint.  Boulder finds a way to escape from the terrorists and searches for a way to raise the alarm. After he discovers the terro...

I have a new guilty pleasure – reading about an amoral killer for hire. I feel guilty for being interested in such a character in the first place, and guilty for feeling intrigued by what makes him tick. This is an action book by any standard, and you might not expect characterisation to be high on the list of attributes. However, in his effective sparse style, the author Tom Wood manages to convey a lot in a few words. We don’t get much backstory about Victor, our anti-hero, only a few hints, dropped like breadcrumbs along the way. ‘He had to be a loner because he was a killer, but he had been a loner long before that.’ Victor is not just your average contract killer, he’s the best. Anytime someone hard-to-get-to needs to be assassinated, a protected politician, banker, weapons dealer, or in this case, a Central American cartel boss, chances are, Victor is your man. I also feel guilty for enjoying such a violent book. Admittedly, it’s top drawer violence if you know what...

Available here It seems that recently, I've been reading a lot of these unsettling, edgy thrillers that have a larger than life, ominous, yet enigmatically bogeymanish killer. First there was Luca Veste's The BoneKeeper, then Liam McIlvanney's The Quaker and now we have Arlidge's New Forest scary killer - and I bloody love them! I love being spooked and a sort of almost inhuman killer gets my adrenalin pumping. I love the edginess - the almost supernatural feel these sort of novels have. The frisson of fear that makes my spine tingle, feeling that we (for of course I'm right there on the detective's shoulder) are up against something more than just human evil - for how could a human be quite so evil - quite so frightening - quite so indestructible. In this 8th offering in the DI Helen grace series we're taken Down to the Woods  where one of the most scary killers is targeting visitors to the New Forest . The fact that Arlidge doesn't shy away fr...

Looking for something cool from across the pond? Sting is a stylish thriller with a whole bunch of psycho twist thrown in. Jordie Bennet gets kidnapped by a killer-for-hire, in fact her first introduction to this dangerous man is watching him kill someone standing very close to her, at which point she loses all hope for her own life. According to stats, many women who get kidnapped don’t make it home.  The author, Sandra Brown , gets up close to both Jordie Bennet, who is living on borrowed time, and the contract killer whose motives are opaque and whose character is impenetrable. I can see why Brown has so many New York Times bestsellers to her name and has been translated into 34 languages – she writes about passion, with passion. Sometimes it’s a dark scary passion full of violence, at other times it’s a redeeming passion, yet always full of tension and suspense. Let the author take you on a most memorable road trip and see if you can work out how it will conclude...