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.
The novel is set in Ireland and we see the young Gardai Julia Harte walking into a horrific crime scene – one where women are killed and their bodies staged, and where tragedy strikes at the heart of her police team. An investigation follows where Julia helps to bring down a prolific and brutal serial killer. This turns out to be the case she can’t forget, so it comes as no surprise that (in 2024) she’s retired and living in a small, safe community in order to get over the events of her past. When new murders start with the old modus operandi, Julia is called back into the police team and is forced to face her demons. It’s an older, wiser Julia who picks up the modern-day investigation, but can she meet the challenge?
I was really impressed by this twisty crime novel, especially given that it is a debut from Amy Jordan. It’s definitely quite dark, dealing with graphic crime scenes, brutal murders and psychological trauma. However, it’s also well written and definitely one you won’t want to put down once you start reading. I’d definitely be interested in reading more from this new writer.
This book will be published on 30th January, 2025. Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy.
‘The Woman in Room 13’ by Leah Konen
I absolutely loved ‘The Perfect Escape’ by Leah Konen, so I was delighted to read ‘The Woman in Room 13’. Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy. This book will be released on 30th January, 2025.
This book has all the makings of an absolutely terrifying thriller – a remote motel in the Catskills, some very inhospitable weather that renders the motel even more inaccessible, plus the total lack of any trustworthy locals. It’s a creepy setting and one that I could feel myself wanting to yell at the main character about! Why would you want to be a motel caretaker when there’s no other guests? Why would you go there alone? Why on earth would you not take the horrendous weather as a terrible omen and stay home? Why would you seek out help from some odd neighbours?
Why, why, why?!
Still, into this horrific personal nightmare goes our main character, Kerry. When she gets there, she discovers that the previous caretaker hasn’t exactly left…there’s all her belongings left in one of the rooms, then the discovery of a body in the snow. By the time the police arrive, the body has disappeared and Kerry is left questioning what she saw. Questioning, and potentially avoiding a killer in the motel…
This is an enjoyable thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat, even as you question Kerry’s choices and watch her blundering around in the snow. I didn’t always know what to believe, but enjoyed trying to work it out. I definitely wanted to see what happened and it had some good twists along the way.
‘The Examiner’ by Janice Hallett
I love Janice Hallett’s books and this is one of my favourites – it took all the humorous style and quirky characters that I enjoyed in ‘The Appeal’ (and ‘The Christmas Appeal’) and added in the slightly darker elements that we saw in ‘The Alperton Angels’. As with the previous novels, it’s all told through emails, WhatsApp messages and other relevant documentation, a style that I’ve come to really enjoy.
This book centres around an art course at Royal Hastings University. Its tutor, Gela Nathaniel, needs to make it a success in order to keep her funding and she recruits six students from different walks of life who have promise. As we follow the course through the interactions of the students, the reports on the work they produce and their documented preparation for their final assessment, we start to notice that things are wrong. There’s students going AWOL, others falling out, some not pulling their weight for the group project…and, it seems, one in mortal danger.
It’s not the most realistic of scenarios and denouements, but it’s so much fun trying to piece together and solve the mystery. Reading this is time well spent!
This is out now in hardback – paperback due May 2025.
Header photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
