The Crime Warp

I was honoured to hear Adam reading an early draft of the first chapter of The Washington Stratagem on an Arvon course in Inverness... my interest was piqued then and I'm delighted to  review the rest of this excellent novel that takes us from Iran to Azerkabain to Washington in an exciting UN based political thriller.

When heavily pregnant Florida judge Diane Manchester whilst presiding over the extradition case of a Colombian drug lord, is abducted, the assumption is that he and his fellow criminals are responsible.  Especially when  before the abduction he issues a veiled threat to Diane and her baby!

As usual the The Theakston's crime writing festival in Harrogate offers a range of exciting events for all fans of crime fiction from forensics to psychological crime, from Irish noir to Icelandic thrills and  from strong women writer's and protagonists to creepy serial killers.  I've narrowed my top picks, with great difficulty, down to five and here they are...

Told from the point of view of a bereaved father Candy From A Stranger is a chilling commentary on a father's desperate attempt to find his young son's abducter.  Faced by unmotivated detectives,  his own grief, a growing dependance on alcohol and the breakdown of his marriage Ben Cain recognises similarities between his son's abduction a year earlier and a current abduction in a small Texas town nearby.

Shrug on your  white sequinned suit, k ick off your Blue Suede Shoes, lay back in your pink cadillac and prepare to laugh and chuckle your way through this delightful book set in the world of Elvis tribute Acts in Mississippi.  The beauty of Officer Elvis is that it doesn't take itself too seriously and yet still delivers a compelling mystery read with a wealth of Elvis anecdotes and enough info on Elvis memorabilia to keep the average Elvis fan in raptures for years. 

Set in  a secluded area on the banks of beautiful Loch Lomond near Balloch otland (which coincidentally happens to be my maiden name), The tears of Angels is a fast paced, exciting police procedural with excellent characterisation and a smooth poignant plot that encompasses ritual foljlore and witchcraft with the dynamics of a calculated killer.  

OK, I confess, I want to make my characters suffer – and then some. Storytelling is about conflict, struggle, about jeopardy and overcoming obstacles and if a protagonist is not tormented by those challenges then they’re not going to be very interesting or very realistic. My characters live the nightmares I fear, so they may not necessarily be tortured souls at the outset of a book but as the trauma unfolds with it comes grief and rage, frustration and fear.