When a loved one takes their own life, we are stunned. Even if it was expected – and often it isn’t – we wonder how they can have taken themselves away from us. Dr Jo-Ann Rowland sought to investigate some of the whys by focusing on a specific sub-set of one community with a high […]
Forensics and psychological profiling are probably my favourite crime fiction elements. Kate Rhodes uses both effectively to create a fast paced and rather gruesome tale in ‘Blood Symmetry’, her fifth novel in her popular Alice Quentin series. What’s it about? Clare Riordan is out running with her son, Mikey, one morning when they are both […]
Six friends. Three secrets. One murder. The strapline of this novel suggests a crime thriller, but if that’s what you’re seeking, you might not find it here. A woman dies, that’s true, but somehow her death immediately becomes less important than the sex lives of the living. What’s it about? Maggie’s hen party is a […]
Louise Candlish is a thoroughly contemporary author. In this, her ninth book, she explores the awful impact of trial by media after a woman’s adultery leads to tragedy. I was really looking forward to reading this, having previously read and enjoyed Candlish’s later novels, ‘The Swimming Pool‘ and ‘The Sudden departure of the Frasers’, and […]
How do young lovers snatch time together in the 1930s? They play hide and seek, of course. But as a Christmas gathering in a great country house reaches its peak, one such game will result in murder, the unravelling of long hidden secrets and, potentially, a grave miscarriage of justice. What’s it about? When the […]
Dead Opposite the Church The factual title gives you a feel for how this crime novel will develop: facts are followed by facts and little intuition is needed to connect them, which is just as well, as our main protagonist is rather short on intuition… What’s it about? Edward Packman ran his weekly newspaper as […]
Puzzle fans rejoice: DI Manson is on the case. As part of their ongoing mission to revive excellent but neglected authors, Dean Street Press are reissuing some of the most entertaining golden age crime fiction. ‘Who Killed Dick Whittington’ (written by husband and wife writing team E. & M. A. Radford) is indeed a classic […]
‘I thought that love would last forever. I was wrong.’ So wrote Auden in his beautiful and haunting poem, ‘Funeral Blues’. But, what if it could? In these digital days of iPhones, iPads and iWatches, how far away are we from the possibility of an iRachel? Cass Hunter explores longing, loss, love and, erm, the […]
How do you make a witch? Sharon Bolton has some ideas, and her latest novel is a wonderfully chilling tale of conspiracy and murder in a small northern town at the foot of Pendle Forest. What’s it about? ‘I imagine that Patsy regained consciousness slowly, and that her first lucid thought was that she was […]
I’d not heard of Lisa Jackson before, but her books dominated a whole shelf on the library’s crime section, so I thought her books would be worth a read. Unfortunately, by the time I had finished reading the prologue, I was already feeling reservations… What’s it about? Dr Kacey Lambert was once targeted by a […]