Really good book, this one, by an author who definitely knows the craft – though, if I’m being honest, it took me a fair while longer to read than I thought it would.  You can generally get away with a lengthy word count in the detective investigation genre, though I would say that Justice: A Hollywood Homicide is very heavily weighted in favour of character dialogue and interaction.  I don’t think it would be giving anything away to say that this case is pretty cut-and-dry from the sta...

This is a book obviously written from the heart, by an author clearly passionate about its subject matter.  Although Janna writes with a certain amount of detachment, you can see the heartache she feels at the injustice of mankind’s perceived dominion over animals; our inhumanity toward all nature’s creatures, including each other.  In this book, the protagonist Laura finds herself falling in love with a truly dreadful person, ignoring all warnings – so much so that you find yourself al...

Exceptionally articulate and hard worked, this is an admirable piece of investigative fiction by Madeleine Dale.  It is also, sadly, an incredibly depressing yet vitally important exposé into the despicable world of endangered animal poaching.  The author knows her subject intimately, and reports in detail on the human, corporate, law-enforcement and political aspects of the trade in, most specifically in this book, pangolin parts, this particular creature being one of the most ancient, crue...

This was a very tough book to read, in many ways, and I implore you to familiarize yourself before picking it up.  It wasn’t bad, by any means, but indeed very unpleasant to read; I don’t think it’s unfair or inaccurate to say that if you are sensitive to triggers relating to child sexual abuse and snuff themes, then this isn’t one for you.  In fact, and I don’t mean this to offend the author or readers, it’s difficult to ascertain who the book might particularly appeal to.  To su...

A particularly gripping drama thriller, this one, it has to be said; the author April Seymour really knows how to craft an intriguing, twisty, crime drama with a very tangible, ominous sense of threat permeating throughout.  The multi-viewpoint narrative of Violin starts to piece its tale together well, and as the reader you are watching it unfold at a very satisfying pace, from one character’s version of events to another.  When put together, it feels just the right length, and its mood hi...

This is a quirky little novella, which amounts to really only an hour or two of reading time, but it is a fun way to fill a couple of lunch breaks, a quiet evening or a day or two’s commute – though, if the latter, then you might want to practice a little discretion, and make sure nobody is sneaking a peek over your shoulder, as some of it is quite explicit, with some pretty graphic descriptions of the more adventurous of sexual tastes.  But don’t think this book is about pure titillati...

I always enjoy poetry, and I hugely enjoy Louise’s very dark and brooding, melancholy style of writing, so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of her latest collection – and it didn’t disappoint.  But be warned, this is no horror or fantasy fiction; this is, sadly and devastatingly, very real.  The theme of the collection is domestic abuse and violence against women, or more specifically women who snap and the consequences they face.  The pieces therein are about true-life cases, and furth...

If you like something different, hard to categorize, genre-crossing and interesting, this is definitely one for you, but be advised, it is one for the more broad-minded reader, and despite its high-fantasy elements (goblins, sluagh, shapeshifters, etc.), it definitely falls into the more gritty, adult mould.  I had a few issues getting along with the book myself, and some of it was a touch crude for my tastes, but from a creative point of view I won’t suggest that it doesn’t hit some real...

A very tough read – for lots of reasons – but a very good one.  I have to give you the forewarning I wasn’t: this is an incredibly harrowing book, with graphic, detailed and repeated accounts of the internal and external injuries of a murdered two-year-old.  Written by an experienced crime scene investigator of many years, and very clearly outlining a case which elicited very intense emotions in him, Immunity for Murder describes the day-by-day, true-life investigation into the particul...

I was once a big fan of true crime, which of course went with the vocation, but as I get a little older, not so much, as life becomes a little more serious and less fascinating generally.  That said, though, I really looked forward to reading Romeo Vitelli’s True Crime Stories You Won’t Believe for a change, and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed.  Romeo is a very good non-fiction writer, and he has done a tremendous job of curating true crime stories over the last two centuries o...

Two major bullet points stood out about his epic book for me.  First, it is a top quality, immensely crafted piece of writing, the work which has gone into producing it undeniably vast and conscientious.  Second, it is an incredibly hard book to read, for several reasons.

To begin, I want to say that Frederick Reynolds is awe inspiring.  His work rate and attention to detail are second to very few authors I have read.  Not just a writer but a man and a professional to be taken very seriously...

While a generally pretty easy read, you are certainly going to want to immerse yourself in this book right from the outset, otherwise you risk playing catchup throughout, so involved is the story.  Yet somehow it is also a relatively simple plot.  In some ways the Russian Roma gypsy identity of the story’s narrator seems a little by the bye; whilst this element is explained in some depth, it seems little more than a cultural explanation of the lifestyle choices of the characters; for the mo...

If I’m honest, the first half of this book was tremendous, and I had really high hopes for where it was going, already starting to prepare an outstanding review in my mind.  In the sometimes disturbing story of a young girl, the daughter of a teenage rape victim, who is abandoned as a child and left to fend for herself, Tina shows immense character and resilience in her determination to overcome all adversity and support herself without the involvement of child social services.   She lives ...

There are crime books, and then there are serious books about crime – major crime; global, world-changing crime, the kind that we know goes on behind the scenes and is responsible for the ills in the world.  This book is about that, and offers an insight that very few books have the confidence, work ethic and subject expertise required to assume.  From a destitute African boy, Kalenga becomes an international arch-criminal – a genius supervillain who would catch even James Bond’s eye.  ...

There’s something of a feel of pulp about this well-crafted and well-written crime/wartime thriller.  With its cast of an abused teenage runaway rock star, a vicious Vietnamese gangster, corrupt cops, a sleazy senator and a warzone murder cover-up and conspiracy, the ingredients are definitely there for the tangled narrative you would expect from noir fiction – of course, they must be connected, but there are generally two separate storylines going on across the anthology.  And connected ...

I really like the premise of this hybrid supernatural paranormal/crime thriller, in which the spirit of a man who is the victim of an apparently random street attack remains earthbound to investigate the murky criminal activities surrounding either his murder or his attempted murder – if it sounds a little like Ghost with Patrick Swayze, here is where the similarities end; it has larger scale ambitions than this.  I particularly like the element of dark, malignant spirits lingering in the b...

The moment I picked up this book and started reading, one thing struck me immediately: this is a work of serious quality, by an author of real professional pedigree.  As well as being a lawyer, George Critchlow is an outstanding writer, with a tremendous poetry to his work. 

Be aware, his work might be considered subjective, in favour of a man who is clearly his dear friend, as well as skewed by George’s uncommon profession, as a liberally oriented defence and human rights lawyer.  This i...

This vivid and graphic crime thriller is perhaps in fact more an exposé of the shocking sex trade in Thailand, and other illicit activities of the Bangkok criminals; all on all, though, it seems to particularly emphasize the cultural exploitation of these desperate, destitute people by sex tourists from al over the world, and the lengths they will go to just to survive.  The Second Poison is detailed and holds nothing back in its candid portrayal of child prostitutes, ladyboys and their repu...

I’ve already read (and reviewed here) Reborn, the first in this superb spy series, and I do recommend that you do the same before reading this fine sequel.  Whilst it is not particularly necessary to make sense of the standalone Moscow Honey, reading the predecessor does give the characters and their respective backstories greater context, particularly that of Fairchild, whose childhood features quite prominently in the underlying narrative throughout the series, and is as pivotal to events...

The Iron Lady is an entertaining young adult thriller that does not stop moving.

Agatha Freeman is not your average grandma. She loves her grandchildren but has a secret history of espionage that she keeps well away from them up in the cupboard with the cake mix. But criminal minds have long memories and sooner or later, if you have a history of fighting evil, your past will catch up with you. Age, as it is often said, is no barrier. As Agatha’s comfortable retirement is brutally interrupt...

Fans of medical dramas will line up to buy this book and, if they don’t, they should.  The author writes with authority and I suggest must be a doctor, but the information is not difficult for the layman to understand.  Alongside the medicine is the excellent characterization and the novelist’s savoury intimation that something sinister has indeed infiltrated the life of the young woman lying motionless in a hospital bed.

Patricia Harding is 28 and works for a legal firm. Benjie is her g...

I initially thought that Burn Me Out was just another mafia-type novel but, as Barrows drew me skilfully into his story, I realized it promised something much more.

Al Vacarro is a hit man for Eddie Castella, the Italian crime boss who runs the local neighbourhood. Gang warfare, extortion and murder are all in a day’s work and his young family know only his pseudo-job as Vice President of Operations Castella Shipping & Transport. Al’s back story is rich with emotion, from the adolescent ...

A well-written crime comic-thriller, about an unassuming estate agent who begins an affair with the wife of a wealthy criminal and finds himself up to his neck in money laundering and drug smuggling.  This is a conventional and pretty simple tale which is not excessive in any capacity, but rather a cosy read; it is probably far more suited to readers who like low-action crime caper fiction based on witty dialogue and humorous personalities.  There is a touch of cynicism in Browne’s portraya...

Killer Instincts by Anna Lee Rose is the story of Hanna the virgin sex slave and Jake the caring hitman. For the most part, it was a lot of fun. Sex and crime sell books – and I won’t deny that this is what the author is doing here - but she has not lost her essential humanity (at least, I don’t think so). Booze, drugs and a Bacchanalian lifestyle haven’t dampened Hanna’s enthusiasm for sex either, and Jake shows his compassionate side by flashbacks to a lost love and a sister he fi...

What starts off as a Jane Doe body mystery gradually increases in tension and menace, in this gripping, lighthearted semi-action detective thriller.  With a seedy underbelly emerging to the victim’s life, and the progressive sense of a bigger and more organized threat on the horizon, Suicide Squeeze is formula three-act action, in the mould of Hollywood blockbusters – the type starring Mel Gibson, Will Smith and Bruce Willis – if perhaps a little lighter on the action than may be expect...

Yvgeny Yedynak is an undertaker with panache.  He employs a gravedigger the police mistake for a zombie, carries the finger of his dead father in his pocket and drives a hearse called Cerberus, in Greek mythology the dog who guards the gates of Hades.  He is selectively honest and sees no harm in pawning anything of value remaining on a corpse once the relatives have surrendered it for burial. However, when he discovers the headless and handless body of an elderly man in one of his freshly-du...

If you’ve ever wondered how academics justify their existence, then Ivy is a Weed by Robert M. Roseth is the murder mystery for you.  Set within a university in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, the novel is sophisticated yet still on planet Earth, and the plotting is as finely crafted as any novel I have read by well-known crime writers.  One cares about the protagonist Mike Woodsen, university reporter turned amateur sleuth, so it is a rewarding journey taken with him to investigate his s...

I have been fortunate enough to read all of Robert’s books in the “Rob and Tex” series, helping him work on one or two of them, and this is certainly one of the better ones.  Without the gung-ho action of Freedom’s Light, or the profound wartime trauma of Bullets and Bandages, Butterfly Lake is perhaps a more understated and subtle piece of work, and this certainly suits it.  Set in the beauty and tranquillity of the Pennsylvania mountains, which Rob clearly loves, there is more an ai...

In the beautiful forest hills of Boulder County, Colorado, Buddy cultivates weed on his conservation land.  Whilst the growing of weed is not illegal in the state, he is unlicensed and pays no tax… suffice also to say that he grows slightly more than the few plants permitted for personal use.  Now, whilst Buddy has never bothered anybody before with his lifelong hobby and livelihood, he is suddenly attracting all sorts of unwanted attention – the wrong kind - from Colorado’s neighbourin...

Unlike its more journalistic predecessor in the series Father Divine’s Bikes, there is a more discernible air of ‘forties noir pulp fiction about this book.  Whilst its prequel focused heavily on cultural differences and animosities, this is more story led, with a greater role on crime fiction, and more prominence given to two of its resuming lead characters, detectives Nick Cisco and Kevin McClosky.  Other than this, the intertwined stories, subplots and backstories have only the most su...

I found this to be a somewhat surprising book, in that it taught me a lot about New Zealand and, in particular, its devastating drug-culture.  This eye-opening indictment was perhaps a little saddening, in the respect that it hits home reading that nowhere is safe from the scourge of class-A drugs – specifically in the case of this book, meth-addiction.  Incredibly well-sourced and researched, the fiction is perhaps by the bye, as Almost Persuaded focuses primarily on the country’s cultur...

“Ghost Dog” is a pretty entertaining, gripping crime adventure story, with a short enough word count to fit in over an evening or two.  Tim White is a pleasant and engaging author to read, though, although - for the most part - well-written in good, articulate English, his language may be a touch simplistic in nature for some; if you are expecting a dark and downbeat crime drama, you will not get that with “Ghost Dog”.  Instead, it is a quickly paced and very dialogue-driven small-tow...

This crime thriller is entertaining and engrossing right from the off, at least in the first half – midway it appears to change genre and audience entirely. What began as a clever young-adult mystery, with all the usual character and plot cliches, develops in the final third, into pure, glossy pulp-fiction thriller, with all the far-fetched character development and Hollywood gloss. It initially strikes as YA for the main reason that most of the lead characters do seem to ...

When you read Lin Wilder, you pretty much know what you are going to get: writing of the highest quality, from an incredibly learned professional author, and “The Fragrance Shed By A Violet…” falls firmly into this category.  I’ve recently read this and its sequel “Do you Solemnly Swear?  A Nation of Law: The Dark Side”, albeit in the wrong order, and have, on both occasions, been awestruck by the depth of Wilder’s knowledge.

Though, if I am to be ruthlessly honest, I have to a...

I’ve read alot from this author, and have come to the conclusion that he is a master of metaphors – the satisfying kind, which make one give a little smile and an understanding nod.  With a penchant for first person narration, he draws the reader immediately into the world of his characters, unsavoury, yet as normal as you or I – a world in which life can change in an instant.  Another trademark of Michael Irwin, apparent in this bite-sized cautionary tale of villains, blags and remorse...