Tag: book review

Just finished reading: A Wanted Man by Lee Child

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cover of A Wanted Man

cover of A Wanted Man

What the cover says: “When you’re as big and rough as Jack Reacher – and you have a badly set, freshly busted nose, patched with silver duct tape – it isn’t easy to hitch a ride. But Reacher has some unfinished business in Virginia, so he doesn’t quit. And at last he’s picked up by three strangers – two men and a woman.

But within minutes it becomes clear they’re all lying about everything – and then they run into a police roadblock on the highway. There has been an incident, and the cops are looking for the bad guys …

Will they get through because the three are innocent? Or because the three are now four? Is Reacher just a decoy?”

 

Firstly, I have to confess, that I bought the hardback of this book as a little treat for myself back in the Autumn, and got it signed by Lee Child at the CWA panel event in November.

Since then, it’s sat on my bookcase waiting for me to read it. I promised myself it would be my Christmas treat although, as it turns out, it’s been more of a New Year treat.

But it was totally worth the wait.

It’s a classic Reacher story. Told in Lee Child’s signature style: slick, fast and as gripping as ever.

When Reacher finds himself a pawn in a criminal getaway, and ends up a suspect in a murder, he has to decide what to do – run, or find out who did it.

In true Reacher fashion, he sets out to work out who did it and why. Half suspect, half unofficial partner to Special Agent Julia Sorenson, they work the case. It’s a real ‘why dunnit’ with plenty of twists and turns thrown in to keep the reader on their toes.

I can’t wait for the next one.

 

Guest review on the Mean Streets Crime Fiction blog: Snakes and Ladders by Sean Slater

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This week I’ve been guest reviewing over on the awesome Mean Streets Crime Fiction review blog.

Here’s a sneaky peek at my review:

A smart, rapid-paced crime thriller that’ll keep you guessing to the end

Detective Jacob Striker is facing the most shocking case of his career.  Called to attend a suicide death in a bad part of town, Striker expects to find another life lost to drug addiction. But this time the victim isn’t just another sad statistic, it’s someone Striker knows. And he’s sure it wasn’t suicide.

Striker and his partner, Felicia, investigate, uncovering connections between the victim and the support group overseen by psychiatrist Dr Erich Ostermann. As they delve deeper in the goings on at the Riverglen Mental Health Facility, Striker discovers his good friend and recent patient of Ostermann, Larisa Logan, has gone missing.

Striker battles to discover the identity of mysterious killer ‘The Adder’ while also searching for Larisa. With every lead Striker finds, The Adder makes a brutal move. As the body-count rises, Striker risks his professional and personal lives to bring the killer to justice.

Detective Jacob Striker is a bold and likable character. He’s smart, brave and wants to do the right thing – even if it’s not exactly following orders. He’s also a single parent, trying to care for his troubled teenage daughter while staying on top of his cases. Larisa, his work partner (and on/off lover) is equally smart, courageous and focused, and together they make a formidable team.

And they need to be …

Hop over to the Mean Street Crime Fiction blog to read the rest http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/crimefiction/2012/11/snakes-and-ladders-by-sean-slater/

Review: The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

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Cover of "The Killer Inside Me"

Cover of The Killer Inside Me

Brutal. Compelling. And Utterly Absorbing: first-person narration at its finest

“Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas.  The worst thing most people can say against him is that he’s a little slow and a little boring.  But, then, most people don’t know about the sickness – the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger.  The sickness that is about to surface again.”

I have to admit I was rather unsure how I’d find this book. On the cover is an endorsement from Stanley Kubrick. It reads, “Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.” This made me worry that the book might be a little too much for me to handle.

But I didn’t need to. Because although Kubrick is absolutely correct: the story is both chilling and believable, and there is no doubt that the first-person narration of Lou Ford is decidedly warped. It’s also brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

A true story of gritty noir, Thompson’s honest and darkly charming style pulls you into the story and gets you to care about Lou Ford, even though you know things are going to get bad. And despite the fact that you know “the sickness” is coming, and that Lou is preparing to do some very bad things, you can’t help but want to read more.

But, let’s be clear, this isn’t a first-person narrated killer like Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter. Lou Ford’s not doing anything that’s justifiable or righteous in any way. And when the bad stuff happens, although you knew it was coming all along, it slams into you quicker than you think.

Lou’s actions are brutal and horrifying, yet you find yourself wanting to stay with him and keep following the story to find out where it leads. Because warped and wrong as what Lou does is, he’s a compelling and complex character that you can’t help but keep reading about.

Written in 1952, and adapted to film in 1976 and 2010, Jim Thompson’s novel still seems fresh and contemporary.

Highly Recommended.

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Review: Come the Fear by Chris Nickson

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Come the Fear book cover

An atmospheric and chilling historical mystery

“March, 1733. Richard Nottingham, Constable of the City of Leeds, joins others trying desperately to put out a fire in an empty house before it destroys the entire street. The next morning, searching the blackened ruins, he finds the charred corpse of a girl, and something placed on her chest. Had the fire been started to conceal her murder?

Starting with just a single clue, Nottingham his deputy John Sedgwick and Rob Lister slowly piece together the girl’s past, a journey that takes them into the camps of the homeless, the homes of rich merchants, down to the poor and those beyond hope, deep into the dark secrets and lies that families keep hidden.”

I have to admit that I’ve not read much historical crime fiction, so this book was a bit of a first for me.

It’s the fourth book in Chris Nickson’s Richard Nottingham series. And, although it’s part of a series, I found it easy to get into the story having not read the books that precede it.

What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the way in which the multiple plot-lines crossed and then joined together. The gruesome discovery of the murdered girl in the burnt-out house is the main story, but through the eyes of the main characters the reader also discovers what it was like to police the city of Leeds during the period. Nottingham, Sedgewick and Lister encounter troubles with prostitution, theft (and thief-takers) and violent crime, and it’s through how they deal with these challenges, and the issues that they face in their personal lives, that the reader gets an insight into what it must have been like to live in those times, to have a relationship with someone outside the social class society deemed appropriate for you, to raise a family, and to cope with the joys and the tragedies that living in that period made commonplace.

Nickson paints a rich picture, conjuring the sights, smells and sounds of the period through his vivid narrative. That said, the novel moves with a quick pace and, as the reader uncovers the clues and events with the main characters, you’re soon swept up in the story and in trying to work out who did it and why.

Come the Fear gives a fascinating glimpse into life and crime in the 1730s, as well as providing an engaging mystery for the reader to unravel alongside Constable Richard Nottingham and his team.

Highly recommended.

Come the Fear is published by the Crème de la Crime imprint of Severn House on 30th August 2012 (UK) and in November 2012 (USA).

 

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Review: Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah

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A superbly chilling and complex psychological thriller

“Amber Hewerdine knows more than she is telling. She knows that she hasn’t slept since the arson attack which killed her best friend. She knows that it is not normal for four members of your family to disappear one Christmas morning, and then reappear the next day, refusing to explain or ever speak of it again. And she knows that somewhere, buried deep in her subconscious, is the key to what happened all those years ago at Little Orchard.

Kind, cruel, kind of cruel.  These are the words she keeps coming back to. But what do they mean? Any why is she arrested within hours of first saying them, for the murder of a woman she has never met?”

An insomniac, Amber is struggling against her own body, and consults a Hypnotherapist to she if they can help. Instead of the relief she needs, the session unlocks memories that Amber has unknowingly pushed from her consciousness. These confusing and still unplaced memories start Amber on a quest to discover where they come from and why the Police believe she holds the key to an unsolved murder case.

As Amber tries to piece together a series of seemingly unconnected events, and consults the Hypnotherapist for further sessions, things become murkier rather than clearer, and the demons in her past threaten to overwhelm her.

For me, Amber wasn’t a character I instantly liked, but the situation she found herself in, and how she reacted, made her highly intriguing.

As the story progressed, and I found out more about Amber: how she’d taken in her best friends young children after her death, how she always felt in the shadow of her perfect sister-in-law, and how she decided to help DC Simon Waterhouse solve the case, she became someone I really wanted to root for.

I’m a big fan of Sophie Hannah’s brand of complex psychological thrillers, and this story didn’t disappoint. It has a wealth of interwoven connections challenging the reader to solve them.

Kind of Cruel is a chilling and unsettling tale of how unseen pressures and secrets within a family can distort and twist the everyday into the chilling. A shocking glimpse behind the mask of a seemingly ‘perfect’ family, and as much of a ‘why done it’ as a ‘who done it’.

Highly Recommended.

 

 

 

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Book Review: Speak No Evil by Martyn Waites

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A rapid-paced noir crime thriller with twists and turns a-plenty

“Anne Marie Smeaton is back in the hometown she hasn’t seen for forty years, trying to live a normal life with her partner and teenage son.  But that’s impossible for Anne Marie.  Because forty years ago, when she was eleven years old, she did something unspeakable.  Something so horrifying that society has shunned her ever since.

She’s trying to make peace with her past by telling her story to journalist Joe Donovan.  But it’s not that simple.  By dredging up memories she usually keeps repressed, Anne Marie is unleashing old nightmares from the past.  Suffering from horrifying visions, she sometimes does bad things.  Things she has no memory of afterwards.

So when a teenager on her housing estate is murdered and she wakes up with blood on her hands, Anne Marie naturally fears the worst. Desperate, she turns to Donovan for help.  But Joe Donovan might have his own reasons for getting involved.  Reasons which have to do with the disappearance of his son …”

This is a hard-hitting, noir thriller centred around the murder of a child by a child.  It gradually peels back the surface layers of a community, and exposes a more sinister underbelly lurking just beneath the surface.

I found the multiple plotlines within the story highly intriguing: What did Anne Marie do when she was eleven years old, and why did she do it? Where is Donovan’s son, and can he get him back?  What’s the secret that Donovan’s daughter is hiding? Who is responsible for the murders?

Waites uses multiple point-of-views to tell the story, giving the reader a unique perspective on the present day events, and the history that came before them.  From Donovan and his team we see the private investigation, and through Donovan himself the emotional and personal impact of his son’s abduction. While from Anne Marie we discover the situation that drove her to do what she did (and how it still haunts her). The kids on the housing estate show us how life is for them, the unspoken hierarchies of the block and how sometimes life is regarded so cheaply. Then from news-writer Tess Preston we what a big story means to her, and how she’d do anything to get her big break.

Each character feels alarmingly real, and as the story twists and turns towards conclusion we see how each element (and character) links together, like an intricately created web.

An emotive, rapid paced, rollercoaster of a story it grabbed my attention and had me hooked from the very beginning.  Dark, gritty and utterly believable, I devoured this book over a weekend.

Highly recommended.

Review: S is for Silence by Sue Grafton

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 A real page-turner of a mystery

In July 1953 Violet Sullivan, a local good-time girl living in Serena Station, California, drives off in her brand new Chevy, leaving behind her husband and young daughter, Daisy.  Violet is never seen again.

Thirty-five years later, Daisy wants closure.

Reluctant to open such an old, cold case, Kinsey Millhone agrees to spend five days investigating, believing at first that Violet simply moved on to pastures new.  But a lot of people shared a past with Violet, one that some are still desperate to keep hidden.  And in a town as close-knit as Serena there aren’t many places to hide when things turn vicious …

S is for Silence is the nineteenth novel in Sue Grafton’s “alphabet” series, featuring her female PI, Kinsey Millhone.  The story is told from two points in time: 1953, when Violet goes missing, and 1987 when Kinsey picks up the investigation.

Grafton uses the two time points to great effect – showing the reader what life was like for Violet before her disappearance, the community she lived in, and the things that where troubling her.  She shows Violet through the eyes of different characters, and we see not only the ‘good-time’ aspects of Violet’s life, but also how the web of relationships she’d become entangled in could provide a motive for several people to wish her gone.

With the interconnected 1987 story, the reader is able to see how the years have changed (or not) the characters from 1953, and as the story progresses it becomes clear that several characters aren’t as honest and truthful as they’d like Kinsey to believe. For me, this ‘insider knowledge’ added to the feeling of suspense.

The story moves at a quick pace and I found myself compelled to keep on reading. The element of mystery, of not knowing if Violet (and her little dog) had run away, or if something more sinister had occurred, was key to this.  As a reader, I wanted to figure out the puzzle along with Kinsey. And if something bad had happened to Violet, I wanted to work out who had done it and how.

I found Kinsey Millhone is a sassy, dynamic character. Riding shotgun as she worked the case, and watching her dealing with the situations and people she encounters with her practical, non-nonsense approach, was fun.

This book is not as noir as I would usually read.  But that said, it’s an interesting and cleverly told story that kept me interested and turning the pages right to the end.

Recommended.

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