He said / she said: many rape cases are fought over belief; who will the jury trust? When Laura witnesses a brutal attack on a traumatised young woman, she calls the police and so begins a process of events that will leave her panic stricken, in hiding and fearing for her life. Now-husband, then-boyfriend, Kit, […]
What if…the worst thing that ever happened to you wasn’t what happened, but not being believed? What if…that lack of belief in you left a killer free to kill again? This is Alex Taylor’s life. Will it also be her death? What’s it about? Usually, I like to give my own take on what a […]
Facebook: the platform where many of us embrace contact with “friends” we would never embrace in Real Life. Maybe we knew them, once. Maybe they attended our school. Maybe they’re a friend of a friend you keep meeting. These “friends” could become Real Friends, they could become the main source of irritating cat memes in […]
Grief is a challenging topic for any novelist to explore. This is presumably even more pertinent when the novel involved is your debut and the grief involved was once your own. Mary McCluskey, journalist and short-story writer, tackles this subject with knowledge and care in her subtle portrait of a couple whose marriage is struggling […]
When is a patient not a patient? When they have no desire to get better, and every intention of causing you harm… Jenny Blackhurst’s debut novel, ‘How I Lost You’, caught my eye a few months ago at Crimefest16. It looked fascinating but somehow slipped out of my immediate TBR pile and disappeared. Having found […]
Last year I read and LOVED G. J. Minett’s debut novel, ‘The Hidden Legacy’. Since then I’ve been looking forward to reading his second novel, so I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to read it ahead of publication. ‘Lie in Wait’ is very different from Minett’s first novel – there’s an ongoing police investigation as […]
You might think this story is about a ring. That’s only the lure. It’s a story about deception, myth, manipulation and family feuds, and it positively seethes with blackmail and corruption. What’s the story? Tim Harding agrees to do a favour for a friend by bidding on his behalf at an auction for an ancient […]