Category: reviews

THE PLACE: Seawings, a beautiful Art Deco home overlooking the sweep of the bay in Midtown-on-Sea.

THE CRIME: The gilded Holden family – Piper and Gray and their two teenage children, Riva and Artie – has vanished from the house without a trace.

THE DETECTIVE: DS Saul Anguish, brilliant but with a dark past, treads the narrow line between light and shade.

One late autumn morning, Piper’s best friend arrives at Seawings to discover an eerie scene – the kettle is still warm, all the family’s phones are charging on the worktop, the cars are in the garage. But the house is deserted.

In fifteen-year-old Riva Holden’s bedroom, scrawled across the mirror in blood, are three words:

Make
Them
Stop.

What happens next?

A new book by Fiona Cummins? Sign me up! I’ve been a huge fan of her books since the very first, Rattle. Last year we had the amazing When I Was Ten (which I have gushed about to anyone who’d listen, and several people who didn’t), and now we have Into The Dark.

Another author whose books I will devour in a single sitting, knowing that I am in very safe hands. There’ll be twists and turns and moments where you question everything and everyone, looking for the clues that are so deftly woven into the narrative.

Reader, I loved it. You know that I adore a good psychological thriller, and Cummins delivers yet another splendid one here. On the face of it there’s a missing family, disappeared without trace mid-breakfast. Cups still warm, phones still charging, cars in the garage. But there’s more to it than meets the eye, naturally. Why did they up and leave so suddenly? And why is there bloody writing on the teenage daughter’s bedroom mirror?

Into the Dark jumps around between multiple viewpoints and timelines, from the days leading up to the Holdens’ disappearance to the aftermath. Cummins carefully delivers little snippets of information as the plot unfurls, and you’re often left questioning what you thought you knew as each chapter plays out. Who do you trust, when no-one seems to trust each other?

Dysfunctional families, secrets, lies and mysterious goings-on. And a new police detective on the case with a bit of a dark past himself…

If you’re not already reading Cummins’ books, then get yourself to a bookshop pronto. I love her books.

Highly recommended.

Into The Dark by Fiona Cummins is published by Macmillan in April 2022. Many thanks to the publisher for an advance copy of the book via Netgalley

I really enjoyed this book. From the Paris setting to the delightfully odd cast of characters, it’s one which will draw you in and keep those pages turning as the secrets and lies of No. 12 Rue des Armants gradually come to light.

And what a cast of characters we have here. Jess, freshly arrived to visit her brother finds a suspiciously empty apartment. And none of the neighbours are saying much. Not Sophie, the rich old lady in the penthouse for who everything must be just so. Nor Nick, Ben’s old friend who invited him to stay in the apartment above his. Then there’s Mimi and Camille who live on the fourth floor. And not forgetting the concierge. Who knows what she’s seen whilst working there…

The book is told from the viewpoints of the residents of number 12, with each chapter seeing the events from one person’s point of view. The chapters are often short and snappy, which is perfect for a speedy read. You can’t help but want just one more chapter, to see what this new person thought of what was going on. It also jumps in time a little so we get to look back at the events before the arrival of Jess on that fateful night when her brother disappears.

It’s very cleverly constructed and kept me guessing all the way through. I thought I had it figured out, and whilst yes, I did spot some of what was going on, I was delighted to be surprised more often than not.

This is the first of Lucy Foley’s books that I’ve read, though I do have The Hunting Party on my kindle. I shall be bumping that up the list given how much I enjoyed this book!

Highly recommended.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley is published by Harper Collins and is out now. Many thanks to the publisher for the advance copy of Lucy Foley’s book, and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.

It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday.
You have been called to an interview for your dream job.
In a stunning office thirteen floors above the city below, you are all alone with the man interviewing you.
Everyone else has gone home for the weekend. 
The interview gets more and more disturbing.
You’re feeling scared.
Your only way out is to answer a seemingly impossible question.
If you can’t . . . what happens next?

Wow. That’s quite a blurb, isn’t it?

And I’m more than happy to confirm that the book lives up to it in every way.

PR Account Manager Kate Harding is invited for an interview at 5pm on Friday at the premises of Edge Communications. It’s an exciting opportunity to move up to bigger and brighter things, and despite the late appointment, she jumps at the chance. She’s shown into the building and past the bubbly team into the conference room where she’s to be interviewed. Except there’s a different interviewer than she was expecting. And whilst the questions start off easy, they very quickly take a turn, and we’re suddenly locked in a very different situation than she was expecting.

I absolutely tore through this book (metaphorically, no ripped pages here) in a single evening. It’s the very epitome of a page-turner thriller, and whilst the term ‘unputdownable’ is bandied about a lot, it was quite literally the case here.

It was so gripping that I finished the book only to find the cup of tea I’d made for myself before I started was now absolutely stone cold.

Yeah, it’s that good. Make you forget your cuppa good.

I’ve been a big fan of Chris Ewan’s books for some years now, so I felt like I’d be in pretty safe hands here, and I was not disappointed. Cracking plot, nicely ramping up the tension from the off, great characters and a neat ending make this an easy recommend.

So, I’m recommending it – if you like your thrillers fast and furious, this book is for you. Splendid stuff.

The Interview by C.M. Ewan is published by Macmillan and is out now.

Many thanks to the publisher for the advance copy of the book to review, and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.

In the North West criminal underworld, a deal goes tragically wrong, resulting in war between the two main organised crime factions in the region. Shockwaves rock the 30-mile gap between Liverpool and Manchester – with retired detective Brendan Foley right in the middle of it all. 

For Brendan, six months after his resignation, life is all different. His marriage is a mess, he’s working as a nightclub bouncer, his brother is still missing and he just can’t stop searching for the crime family that destroyed his life. And at last, he’s found them – and he’s got them bang to rights.

Iona Madison, his one-time partner and now successor as a DI in Warrington Police, is tasked with a body pulled from the River Mersey – a teen-age boy that went missing the previous year, which might bring her own conduct into question. Not only that, Brendan is feeding her information whether she likes it or not – and his unsanctioned activities are causing her headaches.

And now, there’s a price on his head. A million pounds, dead or alive. 

And Your Enemies Closer is the follow-up to Rob Parker’s brilliant Far From The Tree, which I listened to on audiobook last year and loved. Warren Brown (DS Ripley from Luther) is back on narration duty once more, and does a superb job of capturing the many and varied characters in the book.

I was thrilled to discover Rob had written a second book in the series (now known to be a trilogy) and as soon as my new Audible credit arrived in January, I wasted no time in downloading it. Whilst book 1 kept me entertained on many long dogwalks, book 2 served as the backdrop for the daily college dropoff and pickup, meaning I got through it far more quickly than book 1.

And I’m glad I did! And Your Enemies Closer follows on six months after the events of the first book, and from the opening page (can it have a first page if it’s an audiobook?) I was hooked. I even found myself sat outside my house in the car for a couple of extra minutes’ listening time.

Brendan Foley has left the police and is working as a bouncer. His brother is missing and his home life is a mess. He’s still laser-focused on getting his own back on the crime family that ruined his life. What follows is a dive into the criminal underworlds of Liverpool and Manchester. Old criminals turn up with some new undesirables (and boy, are they undesirable) and the bodies start piling up. It’s up to Foley and his old colleague DI Madison of the Warrington police to bring them to rights. But it’s not easy when you’ve got a price on your head, as Foley is due to find out.

Parker has got a knack for creating compelling, flawed characters that half the time you’re rooting for, and the other half you’re wondering what on earth they’re doing. He’s also a dab hand at a dark, twisting plot and has some very creatively unpleasant ways for equally unpleasant people to get their just rewards.

Warren Brown’s narration is superb once more, bringing to life the ne’er-do-wells of the North-West and the people who try their best to stop them.

I can’t recommend these audiobooks enough. If you’ve got an Audible subscription, get them added to your list. And if you haven’t, you can get a free audiobook with their 30 day trial.

And Your Enemies Closer by Rob Parker is an Audible Original, and came as part of my own paid subscription.

It’s 1966. London is swinging, and the Cold War is spiralling.

Clear cut lines have faded to grey areas. Whispers of conspiracies are everywhere. Spies on both sides of the iron curtain are running in circles, chasing constant plots and counterplots. And MI5 agent Richard Knox is tired of all of it.

But when Abey Bennett, his CIA comrade in arms, appears in London with a ghost from Knox’s past and a terrifying warning that could change the balance of power in the Cold War for good, he has to fight to save the future.

He must also face an agonising choice: who will he believe, and who will he betray – his duty to his country or his loyalty to his friends?

A Loyal Traitor is the follow-up to Tim Glister’s 2021 novel, Red Corona. I must confess that I didn’t realise this when I was asked if I wanted to take part in the blog tour for the book, but you can happily (as I did) read this as a standalone. Though on the strength of A Loyal Traitor I’ll be jumping into Red Corona as soon as I can!

I loved this book. It’s a cracking spy novel with some definite shades of sixties-era Bond, with plenty of twists and turns and secret agent shenanigans. MI5 agent Richard Knox returns to London from a mission in Canada and meets a CIA colleague from his past, along with someone he thought long dead.

Great characters, solid action scenes, and a superb sense of time and place lift A Loyal Traitor above your regular spy novel. The wheels within wheels are intricately plotted but never confusing, and I found myself flicking through just one more chapter to find out what happened next.

A Loyal Traitor by Tim Glister is published by Point Blank in February 2022. Many thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the blog tour, and to the publisher for an advance ebook to review.

The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he’s a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who’s given in to drink after the death of Marlowe’s mother.
 
Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of COAST is Marlowe’s troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who’s unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy. Together, they will realize that one of their clients may be responsible for murder of her own husband, a washed-up director in debt to Albanian and Russian gangsters, and that the client’s trouble-making daughter may not be what she seems.

Now, I must confess that whilst I’m familiar with Chandler’s iconic hardboiled private eye Philip Marlowe, it’s been a long time since I read any. So I was intrigued when I was offered the chance to read Joe Ide’s reimagined version, bringing the detective into today’s City of Angels.

And what a story it is.

The Goodbye Coast sees Marlowe following a couple of missing persons cases – the daughter of a Hollywood star who disappeared after her father was murdered, and the son of a British woman who has been taken by his own father. Then there’s gangsters, a bit of double-crossing, you get the idea. Basically all the good stuff you want in a detective novel.

I loved The Goodbye Coast, and Ide’s interpretation of Marlowe as a modern-day PI. Los Angeles is brought to shimmering life by Ide’s superb writing and you can feel the gritty streets, the faded glamour of Hollywood stars past their heyday, the urban sprawl of the city under Marlowe’s feet.

Ide clearly loves these characters and this city. I loved the sharp dialogue, especially between Marlowe and his father Emmet, a grumpy cop on leave because of his drinking. Then there’s the relationship between Emmet and Cody, the young runaway looking for a new start.

This is the first of Joe Ide’s books that I’ve read, but on the strength of this I’ll be checking out his others.

The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 17th February 2022.

Many thanks to the publisher for the advance copy of Joe’s book to review, and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for inviting me to take part in the tour.

It’s not easy being a master criminal in lockdown. Almost all the rich people are at home with their valuables which makes it dreadfully inconvenient when you’re trying to rob them.

Catching up on box sets and ordering crap off the internet isn’t Violet Winters style and so she hatches a plan.

To pull of a socially-distanced heist.

Gathering her team together (over Zoom), she puts together a long-con wrapped in a heist and tied up with a bow. It’s perfect. Except for the bits that aren’t.

With a man planted on the inside, can Violet and the gang pull off an audacious robbery on a bunch of over-privileged celebrities or will the whole thing blow up in their faces?

Obstacles she can handle, but a social media star hell-bent on posting Violet’s picture online and a deranged Mixed Martial Artist with a grudge have changed the job from a walk in the park to a sprint over hot coals.

If she can just get everything back on track she might stand a chance…

…if she can’t she’s going to end up a dead body at the bottom of a lake.

Look out folks, Violet and the gang are back in town…

Well, they’re not actually out and about, per se, on account of the lockdown. And Violet gets bored when she can’t pull off any cunning heists, and Katie has been ordering things off the darker bits of the internet. Things that go boom. Clearly, something has to be done.

And Violet Winters is just the woman for the job.

I’m a huge fan of Adam Maxwell’s Kilchester books, from The Dali Deception to Kill It With Fire and onwards. Bizarrely (though not if you know Adam), Rockdown in Lockdown is book four in the series. Book 3 will be out at some point.

I’m assured it’ll all make sense.

Anyway, you don’t need to have read book 4 (or indeed any of the others) to enjoy Rockdown in Lockdown. Though you will be missing out on some splendid shenanigans (and you all know how much I love a good shenanigan).

I loved this book. It’s pure fun from start to finish. Violet and the gang are bored and decide that in order to relieve rich folks of their wealth, they need to pull off an extravagant heist – one involving a bunch of celebrities (and wannabe celebs) holed up in an expensive retreat. All goes to plan until naturally it doesn’t, and then the fun really begins.

Strap yourself in for another wild ride with Violet, Zoe and the inimitable Katie, who once again gets to hit people a lot. And that never gets old. Glorious fun.

You can read an excerpt from Rockdown in Lockdown at Adam’s website. Tell him I sent you.

Or you can buy a copy from Amazon (affiliate link – I might earn a tiny amount if you buy it, but you’ll pay the same)

Rockdown in Lockdown by Adam Maxwell will be out soon…

As 2021 starts to roll to a close, it’s time to pull together the list of books I’ve loved over the year.

We’ve already seen my 2021 picks of crime & thrillers, but if science fiction and/or fantasy is more your beverage of choice, this is the list for you. It’s a bit shorter than the crime list, I seem to have read fewer of these books this year!

As before, in no particular order, I hereby present my favourite sci-fi and fantasy books of 2021:

The Fall of Koli – MR Carey

Book 3 in M.R. Carey’s superb Ramparts trilogy. We followed Koli on his adventures from The Book of Koli back in April 2020, through The Trials of Koli late in September, and now to this final book, nigh on a year since we started. And what an adventure it is. Gorgeous writing, superb characters and a properly good finale. Hugely recommended.

These Lifeless Things – Premee Mohamed

A novella that’s just packed to the rafters with sublime writing. Told from two viewpoints – the invasion, where humanity was attacked by the ‘things’ and pretty much wiped out, and from fifty years later where an anthropologist delves into what happened. Superb.

Eye of the Sh*t Storm – Jackson Ford

Teagan Frost is back. Following on from The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind (hi, Teagan) and Random Sh*t Flying Through The Air (err, hi again Teagan), we find our psychokinetic heroine up to yet more and even bigger shenanigans. But our pesky Jackson Ford has cranked the dial all that way up to eleven on the action, peril and snarky internal monologue scales, probably cackling to himself at the same time. Oh, wait. He did that with book 2. Somehow he found the boss-mode setting on those dials. Strap yourselves in folks, it’s a wild ride.

A Deadly Education – Naomi Novik

Book 1 of Naomi Novik’s Scholomance, we have here a story about a school of magic. But we’re a world away from wands and wizards and pumpkin juice. Here there are no teachers, no rules, and the school is actively out to kill the students. Survival here is key, and the only way to leave is to graduate.

Glorious worldbuilding, monsters and magic and shenanigans aplenty. Adored this, and raced through it. Book 2 is out now, and I’m going in…

Call of the Bone Ships/The Bone Ship’s Wake – RJ Barker

Kind of a two-for-one deal here. You’re going to want to jump straight into Wake immediately after finishing Call. Barker takes us on a journey through turbulent waters, giant sea monsters, the incredible Gullaime and the adventures of our hero, Joron Twiner. I was assured that book 3 ended with kittens and balloons and a ‘they all lived happily ever after’, but seriously, where would the fun in that be?

It’s an incredible trilogy, and one which I highly recommend.

A Master of Djinn – P. Djèlí Clark

Cairo, 1912. Just not our Cairo. The Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities is on the case of the murder of a secret brotherhood. Agent Fatma el-Sha’arawi, fresh from saving the universe on a previous job, is sent to investigate. There’s magic and monsters and some very sharp suits. Glorious fun from the first page to the last. Highly recommended.

Trail of the Cursed Cobras – Barry Nugent

This is an absolute blast, and one of the most fun, enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time. Aimed at middle-grade readers (typically between 8 – 12 years old, and something I am very much not), it’s a cracking tale of adventure set in a North London comprehensive school the early 80s. Echoes of Grange Hill, mixed with a bit of the X-Files and maybe a dash of Scooby-Doo make this a properly fun read. One of my favourite books of the year.

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So those were my sci-fi and fantasy books of the year. Have you read any of them? Agree, disagree? Got any that I should have on my list for 2022?

As ever, I’d love to hear what you think. Thanks to all the fabulous authors, publishers and publicists for sharing their books with me this year.

Stay tuned for the list of my favourite non-fiction and others!

I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict. It’s a little different from your regular tours as all the posts will have a clue, and you can win a prize!

If you’ve been following along with the tour, you should have ten clues already. The first letter of each word over the days will spell out a 12 letter phrase. What could it be?

Here’s clue #11

Tricky? Or not? Don’t forget to check out tomorrow’s post on the blog tour to get your final clue!

And now to the book itself!

Follow the clues. Find the fortune. Solve the Mystery. This Christmas is to die for. Let the game begin…

‘Endgame has kept our secrets for half a century, now it’s time for it, and its secrets, to have a new owner.’

When Lily returns home to her aunt’s manor house, she discovers that in order to inherit, she and her estranged cousins must stay together over the Christmas week and take part in a family tradition: the annual treasure hunt.

But as they are drawn deeper into the game, the clues seem to point not to the deeds to the manor house, but to the key to a twenty-year-old mystery: what really happened to Lily’s mother?

As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, it becomes apparent that the game has turned deadly and that Lily is fighting for more than just an inheritance: she is now fighting for her life. Does she have what it takes to survive?

12 clues, 12 keys and 12 days of Christmas for the heirs of Endgame House to find their inheritance, but how many will die before Twelfth Night?

Oh, this book is a huge amount of fun. A locked room (well, house) mystery where a bunch of people are stuck in an isolated manor house in Yorkshire in a snowstorm. Their aunt has left them a series of clues, one for each of the twelve days of Christmas. Each clue will reveal the location of a key, and at the end of the game, one of the family will inherit the house itself.

But Lily is there for more than just the game. Her aunt has suggested that the game will also reveal what happened to Lily’s mother all those years ago.

Glorious fun. I loved everything about it. Endgame House, the wonderful cast of characters with their own secrets and reasons for being there, the enigmatic Mrs Castle, the housekeeper and only person in the house not playing the game.

It reminded me of the movie Clue (and of course the game Cluedo) in that there was a lot of people who are suspects in one way or another, moving about the house trying to figure out answers. Huge fun trying to figure out the twelve clues as they’re presented to the players, though I’d have been rubbish at it as I didn’t get any of them!

If you like your locked room mysteries with a side order of tinsel, then this book is perfect. Pop a copy under the tree for your favourite booklover, or maybe for yourself.

Highly recommended.

The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict is published by Zaffre and is out now. Many thanks to Eleanor Stammeijer for the finished hardback copy to review.

DODGING FACELESS DEMONS, TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD, AND BEING HASSLED BY YOUR DEAD MUM – IT’S JUST ANOTHER SCHOOL DAY FOR BOBBY GIBSON AND ADA AMAYA.

An ill-advised short cut pulls the twelve-year-olds into a deadly plot involving secret agents, an ageless sorcerer, and an artefact of devastating power.

As the children race against time to solve the mystery, they must face their fears, outwit their foes, battle monsters born of shadow and nightmare, and make their way through traps to the heart of it all: the Apocalypse Chamber.

It’s 1982 and five kids from a North London comprehensive school are fighting the End of the World.

I’d say the odds are about even… 

Well, that was an absolute blast, and one of the most fun, enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time.

I’d spotted Trail of the Cursed Cobras via @runalongwomble’s excellent review, and the author very kindly offered to send me an ebook copy. I dove straight in, and raced through the book in a couple of hours, enjoying every minute.

Aimed at middle-grade readers (typically between 8 – 12 years old), it’s a cracking tale of adventure set in a North London comprehensive school the early 80s. Echoes of Grange Hill, mixed with a bit of the X-Files and maybe a dash of Scooby-Doo make this a properly fun read.

Regular readers may have spotted that I am not a twelve year old (though do have the sense of humour of one, apparently). However, Trail of the Cursed Cobras can be (and indeed should be) enjoyed by anyone. It’s got everything – a brilliant cast of well-formed characters (better than some ‘grown-up’ fiction, for sure), an exciting, well-plotted story with some tense action and it’s just a joy to read.

I loved the gang of kids. Ada, the super smart detective. Bobby, who still talks to his dead mum. DJ, who can get into anthing. Nikki, who loves nothing more than causing trouble and pinching lollipops from anyone. And our way into this gang, Tony, the new boy. He’s not sure he wants to be part of it, but gets drawn along with the adventure against some sorcery, mysterious government types, school bullies and more.

One of my favourite books of the year, I can highly recommend picking up a copy. And I can’t wait to find out what happened to the kids in Norfolk…

Trail of the Cursed Cobras by Barry Nugent is out now from Batten Press. You can find Barry on twitter @unseen_shadows. Huge thanks for a copy of the book to review.

Runalongwomble also has a great interview with Barry Nugent