Stag nights have changed significantly over the years. No longer just an opportunity for a drink or three down the local boozer with your best mates, nowadays stag dos – and their not-to-be-outdone female companion, hen dos – and more likely to see the potential groom flying off to Prague or Amsterdam with every male […]
I’ve admitted before that I like to read books about babies / children / parenting. After all, the perfect way to spend my child-free time is to read about how to parent children, right? As you can tell from the rather fluorescent cover image depicting a ‘busy’ mum, this is quite an old book (first […]
‘Little Lies’ is Liane Moriarty’s sixth book, and it’s her best yet. I’ve previously read and thoroughly enjoyed two of her earlier books, ‘The Husband’s Secret‘ and ‘What Alice Forgot‘, though I had minor reservations about each, mostly around the amount of time and space given to the development of particular characters in each story, […]
I first heard of Matt Bendoris at Crimefest where he was moderating a panel on tech in crime writing. I liked his approach, his questions and his description of his second novel ‘DM for Murder’. (I think it was partially the idea of Piers Morgan being no more…) Unfortunately, having read the book, I think […]
Some books really do give you precisely what the blurb promises. Mavis Doriel Hay’s ‘The Santa Klaus Murder’ is one of them. Hay is an author whose three detective novels had long been forgotten, but a few years ago the British Library opted to bring all three out of retirement by reprinting them in their […]
Obsession can be innocent or deadly. With Joe, it’s deadly. When Guinevere Beck enters Joe Goldberg’s bookshop, she has no notion of the consequences their mildly flirtatious banter will enable. Joe ought to know better. Joe has experienced consequences before. But from the moment he sees Beck and salivates that ‘You’re so clean you’re dirty’, […]
‘Chains of Sand’ opens with a girl trapped in the rubble of her house. This perfectly constructed chapter illustrates the key themes of the book in slightly less than two full pages: loyalty, fear, peace, conflict, violence, feminism, extremism, the quest for knowledge, and the senseless brutality of every life lost. This girl, we will […]
I loved the premise of this book. Missing schoolgirl Bethan Avery suddenly seems to be writing letters to an agony aunt asking to be rescued, but Bethan went missing nearly twenty years ago and is presumed dead, so this must be a hoax, surely? The police dismiss the letters as a cruel joke, but when […]
A lamb is dead. It isn’t what you might think. Although this is the fourth installment in Aline Templeton’s police procedural series set in Scotland, this is the first book in the series I’ve read. I’ll certainly be trying another. What’s it about? An old man is shot on his doorstep, inspiring fear in the […]
Occasionally, a book can become a victim of its own publicity. Clare Mackintosh’s dramatic debut novel, ‘I Let You Go’, has been extensively marketed and reviewed as containing an ‘astonishing‘ and ‘shocking‘ twist. So, as a reader of many crime thrillers and psychological suspense stories containing big twists, I was obviously On Guard for hints […]