It is my stop on the blog tour for ‘A Cut for a Cut’, the second book in the series to feature DI Kate Young. I loved the first book and so couldn’t wait to read this one!
Thanks to Damp Pebbles for inviting me on the blog tour and for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is out now! It was published on 29th June, 2021 by Thomas & Mercer.
Continue reading Blog Tour: ‘A Cut for a Cut’ by Carol WyerIn the place of my usual WWW Wednesday post, I have my end of my end of month wrap up and a look at what is coming up in my bookish world in April.
Links provided are affiliate links – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.
March Wrap-Up
It’s been a good reading month – I’ve read some great books, including a few outside my comfort zone! This month, I’ve read 13 books. I’ve struggled a bit with digital reading, so these have been mainly physical books – unusual for me and a lovely change.
My NetGalley is at 76% – this will be a focus for me in April as I really want to get back to that elusive 80%!
Continue reading March 2021 Wrap-Up and April TBRWelcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Seven Days’ by Michelle Kidd, the second book in the series featuring Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh.
I was lucky enough to be included on the blog tour last year for the first book in this series so I jumped at the chance to read the sequel!
This tour is organised by Damp Pebbles Blog Tours – thanks to them and Michelle Kidd for my free copy of the novel for review. As always, opinions are my own.
Book Blurb:
One killer. One city. One week.
July 2012 and a serial killer is terrorising the streets of London. With the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games in just seven days time, Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh and his team at the Metropolitan Police have one week to find him. With the killer’s motives unknown, and a mysterious clue being left at each scene, the case takes on a menacing and personal twist. Distracted by his own demons, will DI Jack MacIntosh solve the case before it is too late?
The clock is ticking.
Tick.
Tock.
My Review:
The first book in this series was a twisty, jet-setting thriller with a huge cast of characters, secrets galore and lots of tension.
With the second book, Michelle Kidd has produced an absolutely brilliant police procedural. Lots of the same cast, but a totally different feel to the first book – and I loved it.
The book opens with the discovery of the body of a woman in a London park. DI Jack MacIntosh, still struggling with the PTSD from his distant past, is called in to investigate and finds a mysterious clue…which makes a lot more sense with the death of a second woman and the deliberate placement of another clue. It seems that someone is taunting the police – but with only seven days to go before the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games turns the world’s eyes to London, there is a race against time to catch the killer.
Returning in this book is Isabel (a main focus on the first novel), Mac and some other familiar faces. I was particularly pleased to see Isabel again as the first novel really immerses the reader in her story and she is an interesting character. She has moved on from her past experiences and set up a cafe in London – but, as expected, she can’t seem to stay out of trouble for long!
One of the main strengths of this book is the clever plotting – I honestly thought I’d solved this mystery several times over, only to be confounded at every turn. At least I wasn’t alone – DI Jack MacIntosh and the Metropolitan Police seemed to be having the same problem!
I found the timeline easier to keep track of in this novel as it didn’t jump around as much as the first. I liked that each scene in the book had a clear time and place so it was easy to follow – it felt a lot more cohesive than the last book which was great but made my head spin with the time and location jumps!
Although this is the second in the series, I think it probably could be read as a standalone. There are some elements that carry across the books and it obviously would be better to have the back-story, but I think the plot absolutely carries this book in its own right. There are also a lot of flashbacks which help to explain the history behind Jack, Mac and Isabel.
A lot happens in this book and the pacing is generally good – I never felt like I was bored or waiting for something to happen. My only gripe would be that there did feel like there were some additional scenes that weren’t central to the plot, especially at the end – although I would guess that these may well feed into the sequel.
I’d recommend this to anyone who is looking for an engaging and immersive police procedural. There are properly scary, thriller elements too – but the real strength is in the clever plot, likeable (and familiar) characters and the wow-factor twists.
About the Author:
Michelle Kidd is a self-published author known for the Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh series of novels.
Michelle qualified as a lawyer in the early 1990s and spent the best part of ten years practising civil and criminal litigation.
But the dream to write books was never far from her mind and in 2008 she began writing the manuscript that would become the first DI Jack MacIntosh novel – The Phoenix Project. The book took eighteen months to write, but spent the next eight years gathering dust underneath the bed.
In 2018 Michelle self-published The Phoenix Project and had not looked back since. There are currently three DI Jack MacIntosh novels, with a fourth in progress.
Michelle works full time for the NHS and lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. She enjoys reading, wine and cats – not necessarily in that order J
Bibliography:
The Phoenix Project (DI Jack MacIntosh book 1)
Seven Days (DI Jack MacIntosh book 2)
The Fifteen (DI Jack MacIntosh book 3)
Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorKidd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michellekiddauthor
Website: https://www.michellekiddauthor.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellekiddauthor/
Purchase Links:
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/3obLftd
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/3qNy2bM
Publishing Information:
Published in paperback and digital format on 22nd January 2020
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.
Links are provided for books mentioned – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
It’s been two weeks since my last WWW Wednesday so it looks like I’ve been extra-productive on the reading front!
I finished reading ‘Ruthless Women’ by Melanie Blake (from NetGalley) – this is due to be published in April but is well worth looking out for! It’s a Jackie-Collins-style novel packed with glamorous and strong women, high-powered jobs and tonnes of secrets and lies! It’s based around a soap opera set off the coast of Jersey and is a whole lot of fun. My review will follow nearer the publication date.
I finally finished ‘Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel’ by Sian Evans. It has taken me ages because it kept getting bumped by blog tour books, but it is absolutely fabulous! The golden age of transatlantic travel sure was glamorous for some, hard work for others and extraordinarily dangerous for those sailing during war time (or with Violet Jessop – the ‘unsinkable stewardess – who had an appalling track record of being on doomed ships!) My glowing review is here.
I also read (for a blog tour with Random Things Tours) ‘Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants’ by Fez Inkwright. This book is a beautifully-illustrated and fascinating guide to plants of the more lethal variety! Thanks to the publisher, Liminal 11, for the review copy in exchange for my honest opinions. My review is here.
I also managed to squeeze in two gripping and – quite frankly – terrifying crime novels. I raced through both of these with my heart pounding – watch out for them!
First up was ‘The Broken Ones’ by Carla Kovach, the latest in the series featuring DI Gina Harte. In this excellent instalment, young women are being taken off the streets and it is clear that a very disturbed character is responsible – someone who must be stopped before he kills again. My review will be on the blog nearer the publication date in March 2021.
I also read ‘Dog Rose Dirt’ by Jen Williams which also proved very scary! This is about a young woman who finds out that her mother was writing to a serial killer in jail throughout her life. After her mother’s suicide, a series of copycat killings begin and she is forced to confront her mother’s past in order to help the current investigation. This one isn’t published until July 2021 and my review will follow.
Both of these were NetGalley reads – thanks to NetGalley for my free copies in exchange for honest reviews.
What are you reading now?
I’ve got two buddy reads on the go at the moment – luckily they are so different that there’s no way I’ll get them confused!
I’m reading ‘Paris by Starlight’ by Robert Dinsdale with my Tsundoku Squad lovelies. This is a slightly whimsical tale of a group of displaced people who end up in Paris but bring the magical ways of their old country with them. The people live by night by the light of their beautiful illuminated flowers and according to their book, ‘The Nocturne’. I’m halfway through and the descriptions are glorious – but I cannot see at all where it is going!
I’m also reading (with the fabulous Write Reads gang) ‘Cemetery Boys’ by Aiden Thomas, a Latinx tale centred around a trans boy in Los Angeles who wants to join his family in being able to release the dead into the afterlife. I’m halfway through this as well and am still not quite sure what I think – the setting is fabulous, the Day of the Dead a very promising element still to come, the representation is great, characters good…but I am finding the plot a bit uneven at the moment.
My next blog tour is ‘Seven Days’ by Michelle Kidd so I’ve also started reading this fast-paced and tense sequel to ‘The Phoenix Project’ (which I read last year). It is early days, but I’m enjoying my reunion with DI Jack MacIntosh so far! Review to follow on the blog next week.
What do you think you will read next?
I’m supposed to be doing a Poirot readalong but have failed to fit in ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ by Agatha Christie – I need to catch up before we move on to ‘Murder on the Links’.
I have rather over-enthusiastically embraced blog tours in March and so have a good few books to read. I’ll shortly be reading ‘The Shadowy Third: Love, Letters and Elizabeth Bowen’ by Julia Parry, ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith and ‘Behind Closed Doors’ by Catherine Alliott. All look absolutely brilliant and I cannot wait to dive in.
Thank to NetGalley for the books in exchange for an honest review.
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this excellent police procedural, ‘An Eye for an Eye’ by Carol Wyer. This is the first book in the series to feature DI Kate Young.
This tour was organised by Damp Pebbles. The book was published on 1st February 2021.
Book Blurb:
A killer running rings around the police. A detective spiralling out of control.
DI Kate Young is on leave. She’s the force’s best detective, but her bosses know she’s under pressure, on medication and overcoming trauma. So after her bad judgement call leads to a narrowly averted public disaster, they’re sure all she needs is a rest.
But when Staffordshire Police summon her back to work on a murder case, it’s a harder, more suspicious Kate Young who returns. With a new ruthlessness, she sets about tracking down a clinical, calculating serial killer who is torturing victims and leaving clues to taunt the police. Spurred on by her reporter husband, Young begins to suspect that the murderer might be closer than she ever imagined.
As she works to uncover the truth, Young unravels a network of secrets and lies, with even those closest to her having something to hide. But with her own competence—and her grip on reality—called into question, can she unmask the killer before they strike again?
My Review:
I love detective fiction with a female lead so I was pleased to be invited on the Damp Pebbles blog tour for this book, the first book in a series to feature DI Kate Young. The fact that is it set in Staffordshire – pretty close to my own home ground – was an added bonus!
In this book, DI Kate Young is called back to work after a traumatic incident that has demonstrably clouded her judgement. She is put onto a murder case with a small team – just two colleagues, Emma and Morgan – although it is also clear that senior management within Staffordshire Police are scrutinising her every move.
She is investigating the rather gruesome killing of a local businessman, Alex Corby, who was tortured and killed in his large, remote house. However, as she begins to uncover the events of Alex’s last day, it becomes clear that there are a lot of suspects , secrets and lies to work through – and Kate’s personal life and issues keep threatening to surface too.
I’ll admit I was worried about the PTSD element of the story as this is becoming quite a staple of this type of detective fiction – and, if I’m honest, I prefer my detectives to be a bit more straightforward! However, I needn’t have been concerned – in Wyer’s hands, the cliché of the broken and troubled police officer becomes something more realistic and compelling as we watch Kate struggle with her mental health issues and her loyal team questioning her capability.
What I really enjoyed about the story was the clever plotting. I’ll admit I just about beat Kate to the final solution, but only just! Throughout, I was caught up in the twisty narrative and the ingenious way that the story strands intertwined – there were so many twists that I didn’t see coming and the final denouement was so far from where I thought we would end up when the story began. For that reason, Wyer should be commended for producing a genuinely surprising narrative.
I liked too that the investigations were methodical and logical, something seen as the right way to do things by Kate. There was a real sense of the investigation stopping and starting which felt realistic – the police team hit dead ends as often as they found important clues, although this didn’t slow the pace of the novel at all. In fact, rather a lot happens to keep the story moving…
Overall, I’d recommend this as a clever and engaging piece of crime fiction. For those who love police procedurals (like me!), this is an excellent example of the genre. I really hope that the next DI Kate Young book will be available soon!
About the Author:
USA Today bestselling author and winner of The People’s Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer writes feel-good comedies and gripping crime fiction.
A move from humour to the ‘dark side’ in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in LITTLE GIRL LOST and demonstrated that stand-up comedian Carol had found her true niche.
To date, her crime novels have sold over 750,000 copies and been translated for various overseas markets.
Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ”Irritable Male Syndrome’ and ‘Ageing Disgracefully’ and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’, featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and the Huffington Post.
She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr Grumpy… who is very, very grumpy.
When she is not plotting devious murders, she can be found performing her comedy routine, Smile While You Still Have Teeth.
Social Media:
Website www.carolwyer.co.uk
Blog www.carolwyer.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCarolEWyer/
Twitter https://twitter.com/carolewyer
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/carolwyer
Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/carolewyer
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-wyer-407b1032
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14925467.Carol_Wyer
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj5O-lvkAYO19S0AMW8VqJQ
Purchase Links:
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2LdJpdV
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/35y4g2j
Publishing Information:
Published in paperback, digital and audio formats by Thomas & Mercer on 1st February 2021
It has been – quite simply – the longest month ever. I’ve found it hard to concentrate on reading at times and have fallen back on the genre that I know keeps me engaged – crime fiction!
I’ve read 10 books this month, of which 7 were crime novels.
Links below are affiliate ones – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases.
January Wrap-Up
I started the month with the rather interesting ‘How Not To Be Wrong: The Art of Changing Your Mind’ by James O’Brien. I loved his previous book (‘How to be Right’), but was particularly fascinated by O’Brien’s exploration of his own prejudices and entrenched beliefs. It certainly gave me food for thought and I would recommend it.
Next up were a slew of brilliant crime novels that I would recommend whole-heartedly.
I read ‘Dark Memories’ by Liz Mistry, the latest in the DS Nikki Parekh series set in the seedy underworld of Bradford. This is a shocking tale of crime and abuse, but the fabulous Parekh/Malik investigative team at the heart of the novel makes it compelling. My review (for a blog tour for Rachel’s Random Resources) is here.
Another blog tour read was ‘Silent Graves’ by Sally Rigby and this proved another excellent police procedural. Although is the 9th book in the Cavendish and Walker series (a female duo of investigators), I think it works well as a standalone. In this book, West Mercia Police are grappling with a historical case as two skeletons turn up on a building site. You can read my blog tour review (for Damp Pebbles) here.
This was followed by ‘The Appeal’ by Janice Hallett which I read as a buddy read organised by Viper Books. Along with the lovely LockyLovesBooks, I tried to guess the murderer in this innovative and engaging crime novel – a novel presented through the emails, voicemails and texts of its main protagonists. I proved a terrible detective but had a lot of fun – you can read my review here.
Next up was ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ by Agatha Christie. I read this with my blogger friends at The Write Reads and we had a lot of fun discussing it – although, once again, I got nowhere near the solution! A classic crime novel with such clever plotting – Christie really was a master of her craft!
After this, I had a brief break from crime to read Margaret Atwood’s new poetry collection, ‘Dearly’. This is a beautiful and insightful book about loss, grief, ageing, female bodies and the environment – and I loved it. I was lucky enough to have both the hardback (purchased) and audiobook (from NetGalley) – you can read my review about both formats here.
Following this, I went back to crime for the tense and pacey ‘The Jigsaw Man’ by Nadine Matheson – I won a copy of this from the publisher and was so excited to read it ahead of publication. This serial killer crime novel is gruesome and terrifying – and I raced through it. My review will follow nearer publication later on in February.
Another blog tour read followed, ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney. This is a very funny and lively YA comedy which sees its heroine, Alex, try to stage a version of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ at her strict Catholic boarding school. Thanks to the publisher (Penguin) and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review. My review, for The Write Reads, will be on the blog tomorrow.
My last books of the month took me back to crime fiction (of course!).
I read ‘An Eye for an Eye’ by Carol Wyer for a Damp Pebbles blog tour – this is another brilliant police procedural with a female lead, in this case the damaged but insightful DI Kate Young. The plotting of this one, based around a serial killer in Staffordshire, is so clever and it is an absolute page turner. My review is due up on 7th February.
I finished this month with ‘Dark Truths’ by AJ Cross, another cleverly-plotted police procedural featuring DI Bernard Watts and his rookie sidekick, PC Chloe Judd investigating the brutal murder of a jogger on a rural trail. They are being helped in their investigations by forensic psychologist Will Traynor, but he seems to have his own agenda… This is the first in a series featuring Traynor and I look forward to reading more. The paperback is published on 4th February and my review will follow on the blog.
As always, thanks to blog tour organisers, publishers, authors and NetGalley for granting me access to books in exchange for an honest review.
February TBR
As always, I have more books to read than I can possibly get through! Any TBR I write is always a small proportion of books I have to read for blog tours, books I should read for NetGalley and a wish list of many other fabulous-looking reads. I am never accurate in predicting what I will actually read!
So, here is my best guess of books that have caught my eye for February. Affiliate links are at the end of the list for anyone who likes the look of any of these…
That’s the plan anyway. See you here in a month’s time when I reveal that I actually read 10 more police procedurals because I am OBSESSED…
Header photo with thanks to Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash.
Have a fab Feb – K x
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.
Links are provided for books mentioned – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
This week, I read ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney, a YA comedy about a rebellious girl stuck in a Catholic boarding school. In an attempt to get kicked out, she plans a production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’, much to the consternation of pretty much everyone! This is funny, feminist and was a very welcome light read on these dark January days.
The book is published in February 2021 and my review will appear on the blog as part of The Write Reads blog tour soon.
I also read ‘An Eye for an Eye’ by Carol Wyer for a blog tour in February. This is an excellent police procedural set just down the road from me in Staffordshire. The lead detective, DI Kate Young, is reeling from a horrendous incident where she was a first responder when she is called in to investigate the gruesome killing of a wealthy businessman. Highly recommended!
What are you reading now?
I’m embarrassed to still be reading ‘Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel’ by Sian Evans but it is genuinely one to savour. I love the portrayal of women’s lives between the wars and (as a huge fan of cruises) am enjoying the descriptions of the impressive and opulent cruise liners. A glorious book!
I’m also reading ‘Perimenopause Power’ by Maisie Hill (from NetGalley). I liked her previous book, ‘Period Power’, and thought this might be a good one for my ageing self! It is interesting, but not a page-turner so I’m making slow progress – I am learning a lot though!
What do you think you will read next?
When I’m really tired (as I am now), it seems I need fast-paced fiction to keep me reading. With this in mind, I’m going to keep going with the crime novels – ‘Dark Truths’ by A J Cross is my starting point (from NetGalley).
I’ve also got to catch up Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ so I can join in a Poirot readalong next month. I got my Kindle copy of this free from Project Gutenberg.
I’m also planning on reading Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ so I can catch up with a Poirot readalong next month. I got my Kindle copy free from Project Gutenberg.
I hope you’ve had a great reading week! As always, thanks for reading and please do follow my blog for more updates.
Thank to NetGalley for the books in exchange for an honest review.
Header photo with thanks to Taisiia Shestopal for sharing their work on Unsplash.
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.
Links are provided for books already published – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
Since my last update, I finished ‘Dark Memories’ by Liz Mistry, the third book in the series featuring DS Nikki Parekh and her partner DC Saj Malik. This is a nail-bitingly tense instalment in which the Bradford-based detectives rush to uncover the links between a sequence of brutal murders – and is seems the connection is closer to Nikki than she would like. This is – as the title suggests – incredibly dark, but the lead detectives are a fabulous pair and this is a pacey and lively read.
A full review will follow on my blog later in the month as this is a blog tour book. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Also for a January blog tour, I read ‘Silent Graves’ by Sally Rigby, a crime fiction novel in the Cavendish and Walker series. Although this is the ninth book in the series (but my first), I had no problems with immersing myself in the world of Lanchester Police and their investigation into a double murder that took place in 1980 but only uncovered 40 years later.
The lead characters, DCI Whitney Walker and Dr Georgina Cavendish, are a formidable pair – both prickly and tough – and this is a solid police procedural.
My review will follow later in January – with thanks to Damp Pebbles Blog Tours and the author for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
Rounding off my week of obsessively reading crime fiction, I also finished ‘The Appeal’ by Janice Hallett. This is a hugely inventive murder mystery where the reader is put into the position of investigator! Alongside two legal trainees reviewing the case notes, the reader works their way through emails, voicemails, texts and notes from all the key characters. It’s immersive and mind-boggling and I loved it!
I read this as a buddy read with Locky Loves Books and my review will be on the blog on the book’s publication date (tomorrow!). With thanks to the kind people at Viper Books for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
What are you reading now?
As crime fiction seems to be the thing that is cutting through my brain fog, I’m reading ‘The Jigsaw Man’ by Nadine Matheson. I was lucky to win a proof copy of this book which is due out in February 2021. So far, it’s thrown me in the deep end with a whole load of gruesome discoveries – and I can’t wait to read on!
I’m still reading ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ by Agatha Christie as a readalong with my blogger friends at The Write Reads. I had to stop halfway through so we could discuss it and that was so hard to do – I need to read the rest!
I’m also still reading ‘Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel’ by Sian Evans. I absolutely love this book – it is a fascinating insight into the history of women at sea, from those working as stewardesses on the huge ocean liners to those enjoying the luxuries afforded to the first class passengers. The accompanying pictures in my hardback edition are also interesting. This book has already sent me off on several Google trips to find out even more about these amazing women.
What do you think you will read next?
I really need to clear some of the NetGalley shelf, but I’m finding it harder to read electronically at the moment. I’ve got my eye on ‘Dark Truths’ by AJ Cross (a forensic mystery) and ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney (YA humour) as books that I think will keep me going!
So that’s me for this week! As always, thanks for reading and please do follow my blog for more updates.
Header photo with thanks to waad samah on Unsplash.
Something a bit different on the blog today – a blog tour stop for a new murder mystery card game!
This blog tour has been arranged by Damp Pebbles Blog Tours – with thanks to After Dark for my copy of the game in exchange for an honest review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.
From the Game Creators:
FOUL PLAY
The Murder Mystery Card Game
The Manor House Murder
A game for 2 – 5 players | Age 14 +
£8.95 + p&p
www.foulplaygame.co.uk
Facebook : @afterdarkmystery | Twitter : @afterdarkmurder | Instagram : @afterdarkmurder
Email : info@afterdarkmurder.co.uk
The Game
Welcome to Edwardian England. The Lord of the Manor is dead! The servants are our lead suspects and it’s up to you to unearth the evidence, seek out the suspects and catch the culprit in order to scupper the other sleuths, and win this game of murder!
There’s more than one way to catch a killer though. So what’s it gonna be? Good Cop or Bad Cop? These two game versions come with their own set of rules and tactics to crack the case and finger your suspect, but will you use fair play or FOUL PLAY?
The Game is Afoot! Playing as detective, you’ll need to find the three evidence cards that point to a specific suspect in order to catch a killer in this crazy criminal caper. Will you uncover them in the crime scene? Could the other detectives be willing to collaborate and share their findings? Or will you resort to more tricky tactics, and plunder the proof you need to solve this crime?
History of Foul Play
What’s a Murder Mystery Events Company to do?
With a pandemic sweeping the nation and no sign of being able to perform their confounding criminal cabarets or incredible interactive investigations any time soon, they needed to come up with a plan, another way to provide mystery to the masses (and provide income to keep themselves afloat)!
Well, lockdown does strange things to people, especially actors who can’t go out and perform. So one fateful evening, Ben & Lee Cooper-Muir decided to come up with a whole new way to murder people. Keeping their cards close to their chests they plotted and schemed until Foul Play : The Murder Mystery Card Game was born. So, what to do next? This is where After Dark enters the picture. After all, Ben and Lee were two of the operators of the infamous murder mystery company. Maybe they could collaborate to bring the game to the masses. When Lockdown restrictions were eased a top-secret meeting was held with the other criminal masterminds behind After Dark, Helen Burrows, Sophie Webster & Tom Fisher and a pact was made. The game would be launched and licensed under the After Dark banner. In true After Dark style, the team burst into action and then began the beta testing, design updates, promotional planning, character changes, proofing, proofing and more proofing until finally all the kinks were ironed out, mysteries solved, and FOUL PLAY came to life!
We hope you enjoy playing it, and although we all hope to be back performing soon, WATCH THIS SPACE! Now we know we can create and produce games we’ve got a lot more fun things planned for the future!
My Review:
I jumped at the chance to review a murder mystery card game on my blog – my family love a game and Cluedo is a favourite so I hoped we would enjoy this one.
The premise is easy to understand – you either play the ‘good cop’ version where you race to find the culprit, or ‘bad cop’ mode where you try to frame anyone you can!
We played the first go through as a bit of a dummy run but that was all we needed – after this, even my 10 year-old took to the game quickly and had no problems following play. The trickiest bit was working out the playing space with the ‘crime scene’ and other piles of cards. We did find the ‘bad cop’ version a bit easier to follow for the children though as this was more about collecting combinations of cards and so a bit simpler than competing to deduce the single solution in the ‘good cop’ mode.
The game itself isn’t complicated but takes a bit of brain-work and following the cards held by other players – if you lose concentration then you are in for a frustrating time as you chase clues and try to avoid the useless red herrings!
The game cards are well made and the illustrations are appealing – I loved the range of culprits and the way that the clues gradually narrow them down based on their clothes, physical appearance and other items in their pictures.
We played mainly as a 3 – me and my 12 year-old son and 10 year-old daughter. This worked really well and we had a lot of fun stealing clues from each other, collaborating or passing off the dreaded red herrings. The game worked well as a game for 4 too on the occasion we managed to rope in my husband for a round.
The game is suggested for those aged 14+ but my children had no problems picking up the game and there was no unsuitable content – nothing they aren’t already familiar with through Cluedo, anyway. In fact, my daughter won every single game we have played so far which is either incredible luck or more skill than the rest of us have!
I’d recommend this as a fun family card game. It doesn’t take long to learn to play and I think it has plenty of scope for repeated playing – each round would be different and varied. It certainly was a winner with my family and will be a game we play many more times over this Christmas period.
Welcome to my stop on the tour for Gary Raymond’s hilarious book, ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’.
This is a blog tour organised by Emma at Damp Pebbles and I’m grateful to her, Gary Raymond and Parthian Books for the chance to be involved in the tour and for my free copy of the book for review.
From the Publisher:
RARELY HAS THE POWER OF CINEMA BEEN FELT BY SO MANY, IN SUCH OPPOSING WAYS…
“Love Actually dulls the critical senses, making those susceptible to its hallucinogenic powers think they’ve seen a funny, warm-hearted, romantic film about the many complex manifestations of love. Colourful Narcotics. A perfect description of a bafflingly popular film.”
By any reasonable measurement, Love Actually is a bad movie. There are plenty of bad movies out there, but what gets under Gary Raymond’s skin here is that it seems to have tricked so many people into thinking it’s a good movie. In this hilarious, scene-by-scene analysis of the Christmas monolith that is Love Actually, Gary Raymond takes us through a suffocating quagmire of badly drawn characters, nonsensical plotlines, and open bigotry, to a climax of ill-conceived schmaltz.
How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics) is the definitive case against a terrible movie. With a foreword by Lisa Smithstead.
My Review:
Surely everyone likes ‘Love Actually’, the 2003 Richard Curtis comedy?
Who could not enjoy the sight of Hugh Grant (as the Prime Minister) sashaying around Number 10 Downing Street to a Girls Aloud tune? Who doesn’t love a film packed with national treasures – Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy (to name just a few)? Who could fail to have their heart warmed by the various entwined stories of love in the build-up to a gloriously perfect Christmas?
Gary Raymond, it turns out. And me.
I’ve never really liked this film. While I really enjoyed ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ and ‘Notting Hill’, this one didn’t hit the spot for me. Given that I saw it on my honeymoon in a packed cinema in Florida – an idealised slice of Britishness being serves for an applauding American audience and a young honeymooning couple – that takes some saying. It should have been a winner. I never even knew clapping at a movie was a thing, but I’ve never felt further from applause.
While I was absolutely on board for Hugh Grant’s shimmying and I can’t wholly condemn anything either Colin Firth or Emma Thompson are in, I just couldn’t get my head round what I’d seen. It was altogether TOO MUCH – too many stories, too much sentimentalism (even for a Curtis film), too many awful characters, too much wasting of the impressive cast list, too much sadness in something marketed as jolly…I could go on forever.
This book brilliantly explores all the reasons I had for not loving the film and a whole lot I hadn’t even thought of (as I have deliberately avoided too much repeated exposure to this movie!) Gary Raymond has clearly spent a long time watching and thinking about this film and this book is the outcome – a gloriously funny and (I think) fantastically accurate diatribe.
The book takes us through the whole film, scene-by-scene. Here, laid bare, is the entire movie in all its horrific wonder. I’d actually forgotten some of the strands of the narrative which is absolutely understandable – as I’d thought, there are just too many and some are pretty pointless.
Raymond perfectly skewers each scene with wit and razor-sharp observation. Yes, Liam Neeson’s character seems like a wildly inappropriate parent figure. Yes, Emma Thompson proves to be the worst friend ever. Yes, Kris Marshall’s character is essentially a deluded sex pest. And yes – the romance strand with the 11 year-old child feels horribly inappropriate and weird. And what on earth is going on with the timeline?!
That’s not to say this book is all ‘bah, humbug’! In fact, it is the opposite. Raymond has no beef with Christmas or love or any of the people involved with the film, but merely points out that its messages are a bit off-beam. He is right – Christmas isn’t celebrated for being a festival of truth (‘What lovely novelty socks, Auntie Jean! How did you know what I wanted?’) and this film has some iffy ideas on class and gender too.
The strength of the book is the humour. There were many points where I laughed out loud, either at Raymond’s descriptions of the cast grappling with weird scenarios and terrible dialogue or the analysis of these. The description of Mia’s attempt at a seductive pose for Alan Rickman’s character (and his subsequent response) is worth the price of the book alone! The detail with which Raymond takes apart these scenes is to be commended – it is forensic and obsessive, but also hilarious.
I really cannot recommend this book highly enough – it is a light, humorous read that does have some serious messages in there under all the funny bits. As someone who feels very similar to Raymond about ‘Love Actually’, I was extremely receptive to his arguments. However, I think even lovers of the film (who perhaps know it better than me) would find something fun and interesting in this book – it is a well-argued and witty take that I think most people could appreciate.
As a postscript, I also love the fact that Raymond wanted to call the book ‘Colourful Narcotics’. It’s all explained within the pages, but I think it is absolutely spot-on as a description!
About the Author:
Gary Raymond is a novelist, critic, editor, and broadcaster. He is presenter of The Review Show for BBC Radio Wales and editor of Wales Arts Review. He is a regular writer on film, music, literature, and theatre, and can often be heard on BBC Radio 3 and 4 as an arts commentator and reviewer. His novels include For Those Who Come After (Parthian, 2015), The Golden Orphans (Parthian, 2018), and the upcoming Angels of Cairo (Parthian, 2021).
Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GaryRaymond_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goldenorphans/
Purchase Links:
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/35h5uPH
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/35i7hE4
Parthian Books: https://bit.ly/35sAs7z
WHSmith: https://bit.ly/2UcvsNZ
Publishing Information:
Published in paperback and digital format by Parthian Books on 2nd November 2020
