‘I know who you are’ by Alice Feeney. Having read and LOVED Alice Feeney’s debut novel, ‘Sometimes I Lie’, I was delighted to spot her second book, ‘I know who you are’, at Crimefest this year. Would it live up to the twisty masterpiece of her first book? The short answer is, not quite, but […]
‘At first I mistook the severed head for something else. It wasn’t until I was very close that I realised it was Lucy.’ I do love an effective opening sentence, and my word this one grabbed me. To my delight, the words and chapters that followed were equally compelling, and all of a sudden it […]
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 […]
‘An elk emerges from the overgrown pines and it is monstrous.’ Tuva Moodyson, isolated Gavrik’s newest reporter, is less than keen on being surrounded by overgrown forest and occasionally charged at by an elk, but Gavrik is home and home is near where her terminally ill mother lives, so she’s learned to live with her […]
‘Again! Again!’ The men bind her again…This time they carry her into the water. This is the much anticipated follow-up to ‘The Girl on the Train’, so of course all the publicity focuses on comparing the two and declaring this book to be “even better”. If by “better” the blurb writers mean “completely different”, then […]
Schooldays. Whether you loved them or loathed them, their impact on your life can last well beyond the 13 years you actually have to attend. In her debut novel, Laura Marshall explores the after effects of one schoolgirl’s determination to get in with the in crowd – and whether we can ever really know another […]
Imagine. A small, unfamiliar boy is standing, parentless, companionless, by the swimming pool reception. The pool is closing. The receptionist wants to go home. You want to go home. The receptionist asks you to take the boy home and you agree, reluctantly. But when you get there, the house is clearly not a home. What […]
I may be something of an unusual crime reader. As a rule, I’m really not bothered about the detectives; I mostly just want to know about the crimes, the clues and the solutions. Oh and the motivations, obviously! I think this is probably why I don’t typically get attached to crime series featuring recurring characters: […]
Hands up: who loves a novel with more twists than a slinky? Me! Me! Me! As long as they make sense in the wider context of the plot and characterisation, of course, which these do. Oh they do so beautifully. ‘Buried Secrets’ is the first of DC Lisa Cutts’ crime novels I have read, but […]