January 2025 - The Quick and the Read

Book Reviews: New Crime Fiction

I haven’t been great at keeping on top of my blogging recently. Sometimes life just takes over! However, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight some crime fiction and thriller gems that I’ve enjoyed in the past few months.

‘The Dark Hours’ by Amy Jordan

I loved the premise of this novel – seeing a police officer at the very start of her career in 1994, then when she’s called back as a retired detective in 2024 to pick up a case that has echoes of that traumatic first one.

Book Review: ‘The Bookseller’ by Tim Sullivan

This is the seventh book in the engaging DS George Cross series – thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.

‘The Bookseller’ takes us into the (who knew?!) murky world of antiquarian bookshops. When a bookseller is discovered dead in his store, it seems unlikely that brutal murder would strike at the heart of the sleepy, bookish community in Bristol. However, DS George Cross soon discovers that the book world is packed with shifting allegiances, hidden secrets and bitter rivalries – all he has to do is work out who has the motive to kill, picking from a pretty packed field. Add in the multi-generational nature of the family-run bookstores and there’s plenty of simmering resentments for him to examine…

Blog Tour: ‘The Serpent Under’ by Bonnie MacBird

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for the latest in Bonnie MacBird’s brilliant Sherlock Holmes series. ‘The Serpent Under’ is the 6th book in the series and is a great addition.

With thanks to Random Things Tours and Collins Crime Club for my place on the tour and my copy for review. Opinions, as always, are entirely my own.

Book Review: ‘Making a Killing’ by Cara Hunter

Cara Hunter is one of my favourite crime writers and a new DCI Adam Fawley book is always exciting! This is the seventh book in a brilliant series – although I think it would work as a standalone. It actually picks up the characters from a previous book in the series, although I didn’t know this until after I’d finished reading as I think it’s the only one of the series I haven’t read!