Last year I had a tie for my favourite book of the year – Clare Mackintosh’s brilliant debut I Let You Go (now nominated for the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year) and Sharon Bolton’s Little Black Lies, a superb psychological thriller set in the Falkland Islands…
In A Dark, Dark Wood
28 April 2016 by Leave a Comment
Ruth Ware has a new book out this year, The Woman in Cabin 10, and it looks great. A proper Agatha Christie-esque mystery about a mysterious disappearance on board a luxury cruise ship. I’ll definitely be adding that to my never-ending to-be-read pile…
Dead Eyed
19 April 2016 by Leave a Comment
Publisher Carina has started a new online crime club, aimed at people who love crime fiction and who want to be able to interact with authors and other fans of the genre. Naturally I was completely sold on the idea and signed up straight away…
The Darkest Secret
5 February 2016 by Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago I read and reviewed Pretty Is and commented on how visceral and terrifying the thought of child abduction is, even to someone like me who doesn’t have children. It’s something that society as a whole is designed to fear and there are a number of newly released novels…
After You Die
3 February 2016 by Leave a Comment
I’ve done it again…. I’ve started reading a crime series several books in because I spotted the book on social media and decided that I HAD to read it. This time it’s Eva Dolan’s Zigic and Ferreira series, based in the Peterborough police’s Hate Crimes unit…
The Widow
1 February 2016 by Leave a Comment
Whenever I read a crime thriller, no matter how much I enjoy it, there’s a little part of my mind which strays a bit. Of course I’m interested in the victim and the detectives but there’s that bit which wants to know more about the wider set of characters…
Top Ten: Christmas Present Books
14 December 2015 by Leave a Comment
A few days ago I published my top ten books of 2015, these are the books that appealed to me most during the year. I am aware though that these aren’t ten books that will appeal to everyone else. Here are ten books that I think would make brilliant Christmas presents for various family and friends…
The Silent Dead
7 December 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last year I reviewed Claire McGowan’s The Dead Ground, the second in her Paula Maguire series about a forensic pathologist who returns to Northern Ireland from London and works with a Missing Person’s Unit to solve crimes. I enjoyed The Dead Ground…
Only The Brave
29 October 2015 by Leave a Comment
Mel Sherratt is one of those writers that I’ve heard a lot about but never actually got round to reading. Her name is always all over Twitter and Facebook and she has a number of firm fans among the book blogging community…
A Killing Moon
7 August 2015 by Leave a Comment
There are some cities in the UK which make perfect settings for gritty crime thrillers – Edinburgh with its dark closes, Belfast and its sectarian divide and troubled past, my home town of Glasgow with its (now mostly outdated) reputation for hardmen fighting deprivation…