The Crime Warp

I’ve always thought of Stephen Leather as a versatile author – the Spider Shepherd series of thrillers, Jack Nightingale supernatural novels and a number of amusing short stories, particularly the inspector Zhang locked room mysteries. Leather also writes standalone novels.  The latest, First Response , is an unfolding drama of nine suicide bombers in separate locations around London who have handcuffed themselves to innocent people, taken group of bystanders hostage and are demanding the release of fellow jihadists from Belmarsh prison.  The drama begins during a weekday morning, with a deadline for the release of the prisoners for 6pm the same day. As Mo Kamran the Superintendent in charge tries to make sense of the unfolding events, he’s contacted by Shahid, the terrorist leader.  Despite Kamran’s attempts to negotiate, Shahid gives Kamran a simple binary choice – free the prisoners by 6pm or all the suicide bombers will blow themselves up.  The...

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 a...

This is just a short post to highlight a really interesting interactive video. If you're a Peter James fan, or are reading Want You Dead, click on the link below to go to a  video on YouTube called Can You Save Red?     The video lets you to choose one of three endings, so the heroine's fate is in your hands!    https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=u3SS3INvttc    Enjoy!     Romancrimeblogger

I’ve been reading lots of books since going back to work after the holidays and struggled to catch up with reviews and postings.  My September “Look Out For These” is later than expected, but I have made a really good selection this month with something for everyone. Believe No One by A D Garrett .  The second novel form the Margaret Murphy/Dave Barclay writing partnership sees DCI Kate Simms in the USA, escaping the fallout from her association with Professor Nick Fenimore in her last case.  Simms is working with the cold case unit in St Louis PD when she gets a call from Fenimore, who is also in America.  Fenimore wants her help with a case on Oklahoma – a mother is dead and a child vanished – painful echoes of Fenimore’s own personal torment.  Simms however is more occupied with an emerging pattern of murders in St Louis – young mothers murdered and dumped by the highway.  Fenimore and Simms find their cases are linked, revealing yet ...