The Crime Warp

I’ve chosen four novels for my January recommendations.  There’s no obvious theme to link them, except to say that I’m sure that everyone reading this post will find that at least one of these four books will absolutely delight them. The Final Minute by Simon Kernick.   Imagine that you’ve woken up from a car crash with no memory of who you are.  That’s what’s happened to Matt and even though he’s not well, his kindly sister Jane and a psychotherapist Dr Bronson are on call to help.  But as Matt struggles to make sense of a bloody and violent memory, he slowly realises that this set up doesn’t ring completely true.  As Matt tries to escape, a deadly chase begins and he stumbles upon Tina Boyd, thinking she can help, but in the process he finds out unpleasant truths about himself as well as putting himself and Tina in deadly peril.  Kernick has delivered a fast paced novel with large measures of menace, violence and a tremendous pace that seems as if it will never end.

Competition: The Chessmen Chain Selfie Competition on The Crime Warp (win a copy of Peter May's stunning Hebrides book in HB with amazing photography by David Wilson and a copy of his new book Runaway) As a very chuffed, slightly smug and decidedly honoured Peter May Super Fan, I am proud to Launch The Chessmen Selfie Competition with the prize of  a HB copy of  Hebrides  to a winner chosen at random... and straight from the publishers a copy of Peter's newest book  Runaway   (release date 15th january 2015) The aim is to make the longest and most far reaching selfie  Chessmen  Chain  possible... so come on all of you who have read one or more of the trilogy get Selfieing To Enter:  1/ email a Selfie photo of yourself and a copy of  The Chessmen  or one of the other books in The Lewis Trilogy     (kindle readers use the kindle title or cover page in your photo)   to:   thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk 2/ Write Chessmen Chain  in the subject column 3/ Provid

I’ve been working away from home a lot since Christmas, so blogging has taken a back seat.  Although I’ve got a huge backlog of reviews piled up, my first post of 2015 has to be a review of Gun Street Girl - the fourth book in the Sean Duffy series by one of my favourite authors, Adrian McKinty.    Duffy has made it through to 1985, with the latest novel set against a background of border gunrunners and riots on the streets of Belfast.  The plot starts with DS “Crabbie” McCrabban calling Duffy up and asking for his advice on a double murder – a wealthy couple found shot dead whilst apparently watching television.  The dead couple’s son, Michael Kelly, is missing and it soon looks like he has a likely motive for the murder – what else would you expect from a disgruntled university dropout?  After Michael Kelly is found dead in an apparent suicide Duffy’s even more reluctant to get involved.  He’s far more interested in some “off the record discussions” with Sara Prentice, a repo

Amazon kindle £10.44 HB £19.99 PB (May 2015) £8.99   It is 1657.  Cromwell is rumoured to be sick. At Westminster his spymaster, John Thurloe, sits at the heart of a web of spies and double-agents, opening letters, decrypting codes, sending them on. In Bruges Charles II and his entourage sit and wait. Loyalties are shifting. A whiff of regime change hangs in the air.

Kenny ‘Happy’ Drummond, given weeks to live embarks on a journey to rectify any past mistakes in his life for the people who matter to him.   When he initially fails to locate his childhood protector Callie he delves deeper only to discover that she’s disappeared and her husband is suspected of being responsible.  With seizures debilitating him he embarks on a radical course of action with dark repercussions. 

When Swedish journalist Annika Bengtzen ‘s unfaithful husband Thomas Samuelsson is kidnapped and held hostage by Somalian extremists whilst attending a routine conference in Kenya she is forced to work with his boss Jimmy Halenius to negotiate his release.  As the negotiations continue and the captives’ families are contacted one by one the tension mounts.  Annika finds herself on the receiving end of the Swedish press and is forced to consider her options whilst simultaneously her family and friends let her down at this crisis time in her life.  Meanwhile, The Evening Post, the newspaper she works for, strives to bag the media market by manipulating facts surrounding the recent murders of women in  the Stockholm area.

Competition: The Chessmen Chain Selfie Competition on The Crime Warp (win a copy of Peter May's stunning Hebrides book in HB with amazing photography by David Wilson and a copy of his new book Runaway) As a very chuffed, slightly smug and decidedly honoured Peter May Super Fan, I am proud to Launch The Chessmen Selfie Competition with the prize of  a HB copy of  Hebrides  to a winner chosen at random... and straight from the publishers a copy of Peter's newest book  Runaway   (release date 15th january 2015) The aim is to make the longest and most far reaching selfie  Chessmen  Chain  possible... so come on all of you who have read one or more of the trilogy get Selfieing To Enter:  1/ email a Selfie photo of yourself and a copy of  The Chessmen  or one of the other books in The Lewis Trilogy     (kindle readers use the kindle title or cover page in your photo)   to:   thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk 2/ Write Chessmen Chain  in the subject column 3/ Provid

There are more and more  crime short stories,  stories in parts and novellas on the market at the minute and I have to say I'm glad of it.  They're excellent for those of us who hate to waste the commute by doing nothing, yet find full length novels too heavy or convoluted for a stop/start read. so get yourself stocked up on these few gritty crime stories by some of my favourite authors.

Diana Bretherick is a historical crime novelist.  Her first book, City of Devils, is set in Turin and is darkly atmospheric.  Her second book, The Devil’s Daughters, is due for release in August 2015.  I first met Diana at an Arvon crime writing course and was fascinated not only by her writing but by the unique way she got City Of Devils published.

  When young James Murray, a Scottish doctor, trained by the great Dr. Bell of Edinburgh, the real life mentor of Arthur Conan-Doyle and inspirer of the character of Sherlock Holmes, arrives in Turin in 1887, hoping to work alongside the pioneering Italian criminologist, Cesare Lombroso, he is shocked to find himself plunged into a series of brutal murders which seem to implicate Lombroso as the prime suspect. 

Kindle £6.16 HB £11.89 I make no secret of the fact that I’m a huge fan of Stuart MacBride's books (both the Ash Henderson series and the Logan Macrae series) and his latest offering The Missing and The Dead is brill! The dynamic duo that are Logan Macrae and Roberta Steele are as entertaining, likeable and comical as ever!

I received this book on Christmas week and as soon as I read the blurb on the back cover I decided that My Bloody Valentine would be my ‘relaxing Christmas  read’ – Don’t get too relaxed reading this though – the tension  is high right from the get go. Recovering from life threatening injuries from her previous high profile serial killer case, Acting DCI Antonia Hawkins forces herself back to work when a woman is found murdered on Valentines’s Day and the press link her death to Valentines Day. Soon, as the murders mount up, Hawkins has another serial killer to chase whilst a new addition to her team seems determined to usurp her role and her boyfriend is over protective.

Competition: The Chessmen Chain Selfie Competition on The Crime Warp (win a copy of Peter May's stunning Hebrides book in HB with amazing photography by David Wilson and a copy of his new book Runaway) As a very chuffed, slightly smug and decidedly honoured Peter May Super Fan, I am proud to Launch The Chessmen Selfie Competition with the prize of  a HB copy of  Hebrides  to a winner chosen at random... and straight from the publishers a copy of Peter's newest book  Runaway   (release date 15th january 2015)