Category: Crime

The Word is Murder

Steven Leave a comment

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz is a clever riff on the the Watson and Holmes meme. Horowitz, who has previously written House of Silk an authorised new Sherlock Holmes novel, puts himself in the Watson role alongside Hawthorne, an ex Scotland Yard homicide detective with a mysterious past.

Diana Cowper walks into an undertaker’s shop and makes plans for her own funeral, a few hours later she is found murdered. Horowitz finds himself becoming Hawthorne’s chronicler and publicist as Hawthorne sets out to solve the murder before Scotland Yard. His reluctant and tetchy relationship with Hawthorne provides a neat subplot. The path of their investigations is reminiscent of the Holmes stories until Horowitz strikes out on his own.

This is a good read, the plot device of Horowitz playing himself and peppering the story with some personal details works well. The ending is very Holmesian and leaves room for a follow on novel with the same characters.

3.5/5

 

 

 

The Penn Cage series

Steven Leave a comment

The Penn Cage books by Greg Iles are a cracking series.

I’ve just finished reading the last 3 volumes, The Natchez Trilogy, which build to a superb climax.  The series is based around Penn Cage, a lawyer in Natchez, Mississippi, uncovering the racial history of the south, the dark past of his home town and some secrets within his own family.

This is pacy, dark, tense reading and difficult to put down. If you like James Lee Burke (one of my top favourites) then you will enjoy this series. It’s worth starting at the beginning.

4.5/5

Birdcage Walk

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There is a dark tension about Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore. This historical thriller/mystery is set in the radical community of Bristol at the end of the 18th century.

Lizzie Fawkes’ mother Julia is an iconic pamphleteer in the radical politics of the time, Lizzie moved from town to town with her mother and stepfather until they settled in Bristol where she met her husband John Diner Tredevant, a builder and developer. As the story unfolds, Lizzie’s husband and mother pull her in different directions while uncertainty gnaws at the reader.

The period and setting are fascinating, the dark tension is pervasive from early on and builds to a good climax but overall there was something contrived and unsatisfying about Birdcage Walk

3.5/5

Crimson Lake

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Crimson Lake by Candice Fox is set in a small town outside of Cairns in Northern Australia.

Ted Conkaffey is an ex police officer accused of abducting and assaulting a teenage girl, the prosecution was abandoned but he is never cleared of the crime that he denies. He moves to Crimson Lake in an attempt to restart his life. Amanda Pharrell runs a private investigations agency in Crimson Lake after her release from a 10 year sentence for the brutal murder of her friend. this unlikely pair of private detectives are trying to solve the mystery of a missing author while at the same time their personal back stories are unwinding.

This is a tense mystery thriller, right to the end you are uncertain of the guilt of the detectives or the fate of the author. Crimson Lake bowls along at a good pace, I liked the characters and the treatment of the alleged child abductor by the local vigilantes is thought provoking.

Well worth a read, there is a second novel planned with these characters which I will look out for.

4/5

Butterfly on the Storm

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Butterfly on the Storm is the first in the Heartland Trilogy by Dutch author Walter Lucius.

A young boy is found outside Amsterdam, the victim of a hit and run incident, he mutters a couple of words to journalist Farah Hafez who recognises a fellow Afghani refugee which starts a fast paced political crime thriller that spans the Afghan revolution, the Russian invasion, attitudes to refugees, people smuggling and child abuse at the higher levels of society. This is a cracker of a novel, inevitably it will be compared to Larrson’s Millennium Trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc) but I found it more grounded and less dependent on techno miracles. I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series.

4/5

The Gin Palace Trilogy

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The Gin Palace Trilogy by Daniel Judson is set in Southampton, Long Island. The hero ‘Mac’ MacManus is a working class detective in a small town who ‘helps people out’ and gets into some pretty tough situations as a consequence, particularly with the corrupt chief of the local police. Through the series his back story unfolds along with that of his deceased parents, the chief, his friend Augie and the dark figure of Frank Gannon.

These are fast paced, dark and gritty novels, there is a lot of violence and perhaps a few too many unlikely escapes but even so worth a read.

3.5/5

Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions

Steven Leave a comment

I picked up Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano because of the intriguing title, which stirred thoughts of some of the Scandi humour of the last couple of years. Auntie Poldi is a middle aged German widow who has chosen to while away her latter years in a small Sicilian village with her nephew (hence the ‘Auntie’) and sisters-in-law except that she can’t just soak up the local colour and alcohol. She finds herself drawn into solving the disappearance of her handyman, Valentino which involves a close encounter with boss of the local Mafia and an enchantment with the investigating detective.

This is a charming humorous novel with some good characters and and a lovely Sicilian flavour, it isn’t heavy crime but it has sufficient twists to keep you interested. Definitely worth a read and I’m looking forward to the next Poldi novel in 2018

3.5/5

Police at the station and they don’t look friendly

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Police at the station and they don’t look friendly is the 6th in a series by Adrian McKinty. How could you resist a novel with a title like that? This was an Amazon “daily offer” which grabbed my attention (but why oh why if you want to get me hooked do you send me the 6th in the series rather than the 1st?).

Sean Duffy, the principal character, is a catholic detective in the Royal Ulster Constabulary based in a staunchly protestant area during The Troubles. A drug dealer is found murdered by crossbow, soon after a similar attack. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Are one of the paramilitary groups responsible? It appears that someone wants to prevent Duffy from getting to the truth but inevitably he is determined to get his man even if they try to murder him as well (wouldn’t be much of a crime novel otherwise).

This is brilliant. It’s dark, gritty, full of twists, turns and surprises and has a nice touch of humour running through it, while providing a very convincing impression of the challenges facing the police in Northern Ireland in the 80’s. McKinty seems to be a real gem and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.

4.5/5 (because almost nothing is perfect)

Prussian Blue

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I first discovered Philip Kerr on a visit to Partners & Crime bookstore in New York in 2007 (now closed unfortunately). A chat with one of the staff seeking some recommendations for new crime writers introduced me to Philip Kerr, I have been a fan of his Bernie Gunther series ever since. Gunther is a tough murder detective struggling to maintain his integrity, pursue criminals and steer through the political maze of Nazi Germany. Gunther is a great character that you return to in each novel with enthusiasm, Kerr also has a good eye for historical detail and the realities of surviving and/or flourishing under the Nazi regime.

Prussian Blue is the 12th in the series, each book stands alone and their is next to no dependency on having read it’s predecessors so you could jump in with Prussian Blue or start at the beginning with March Violets. Prussian Blue starts in 1956 with Gunther working in a hotel on the French Riviera trying to lead a quiet life, he becomes entwined in an operation ordered by Erich Mielke the head of the Stasi and things go downhill from there. The plot flits between 1956 and a case that Gunther had in 1939 just before the start of the war. It’s tense, atmospheric and at times quite humorous, well worth reading.

4/5

Written in Bones

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Written in Bones by James Oswald is the seventh in the Inspector McLean series, somehow I read the first and then skipped to the seventh by mistake (I will have to go back and work my way through these as they are very good).

A body is found impaled on the top of a tree, how did it get there? Why was it placed there? As McLean teases out leads it becomes apparent that the case is in someway linked to the murky past of some of his senior officers who are keen to distance themselves from the investigation.

Oswald has been described as being in the style of Ian Rankin which is a somewhat simplistic comparison of another dark crime set in Edinburgh,  and McLean is certainly not yet as absorbing or well rounded a character as Rebus but if you like Rankin then this is well worth reading.

4/5