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Blog Tour: ‘End Game’ by Liz Mistry

I’ve followed the DI Nikki Parekh series from the start and was delighted to be invited onto this blog tour – thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the tour and for providing the book.

Opinions are entirely my own.

About the Book:

Four dead bodies. One missing person. Let the game begin.

When an anonymous tip-off leads Detective Nikki Parekh and DS Sajid Malik to the sprawling Salinger estate, Nikki’s senses are on high alert. The brutal murder of all four members of the Salinger family has shocked the sleepy Bradford village to the core.

A mother, father, daughter, and son. . . all killed in exactly the same way – whilst sat around the coffee table, playing a game of monopoly.

But Nikki notices that there are five pieces on the board. One of the players is missing… Did they manage to escape the killer, or was the killer part of the game?

Book Review: ‘All the Dangerous Things’ by Stacy Willingham

Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy of ‘All the Dangerous Things’ in exchange for an honest review. I liked Willingham’s first book (‘A Flicker in the Dark’) so was very intrigued to see what would follow…

This book is told from the point of view of Isabelle Drake, a mother trying to make sense of her young son’s disappearance from his bedroom a year before. As she tells her story at true crime conventions, she attracts the attention of many people who all have their own theories about what happened to the toddler – including podcaster Waylon Spencer who convinces Isabelle to collaborate on his show. As Isabelle’s past is raked over, some unexpected and disturbing truths come to light.

Book Review: ‘A Bitter Remedy’ by Alis Hawkins

This was always going to be a hit for me – a pioneering heroine taking on the exclusively male Oxford University in Victorian times. Yes, yes and yes. Add in poison, intrigue and murder and I’m totally sold.

The story follows the investigation into the death of a solitary undergraduate from Jesus College, Oxford, in 1881. His body is discovered in his lodging house by his landlady – but a search of his possessions yields little but some dodgy-looking proprietary medicines. Both his tutor at the university (Basil Rice) and a headstrong young woman attending lectures at the university (but not allowed – by virtue of her gender – to be a student) suspect that all is not as it seems…

Book Review: ‘Grave Danger’ by Alice James

Long-time readers of my blog might remember me raving about a book called ‘Grave Secrets’ a while back – if you missed it, my enthusiastic ramblings can be found here.

I totally fell in love with the sassy, funny, feisty necromancer Lavington Windsor at the heart of that book – so I was delighted to be gifted a copy of the sequel, ‘Grave Danger’, by the author. Regardless of how the book got into my hands, opinions are entirely my own.

Book Review: ‘The Close’ by Jane Casey

Long-standing fans of the DS Maeve Kerrigan series can rejoice – the latest instalment (the tenth) is here and it is a good one!

In this book, DS Kerrigan goes undercover with DI Josh Derwent – they move into Jellicoe Close posing as a couple to investigate some shady goings-on around the death of a vulnerable adult. As they get to know their new neighbours, they start to realise that danger lurks in this most perfect-seeming suburban street. Nothing is as it seems, and peril gets increasingly close to Maeve and Josh’s new domestic set-up.

Book Review: ‘The Night Man’ by Jorn Lier Horst

Thanks to the lovely people at Penguin Michael Joseph for my copy of ‘The Night Man’ by Jorn Lier Horst. I was delighted to win this in a giveaway but – as always – opinions are entirely my own.

I love Scandinavian crime fiction and was intrigued by this – especially when I saw that it has been made into a major TV series which will be my next port of call! I came to this expecting a dark, tense thriller and wasn’t at all disappointed.

The story opens with the gruesome discovery of a severed head on a stake in the centre of a small town called Larvik in Norway. Police Inspector William Wisting is called in to investigate, but the media are also circling as they seek out a sensational story – and the media pack are led by Wisting’s own daughter, Line. When a second body is recovered from a lake, Wisting is forced to confront the fact that Larvik has been infiltrated by a dangerous and ruthless criminal network…

Book Review: ‘The Night Watch’ by Neil Lancaster

This was my first book by Neil Lancaster – and I don’t think it will be my last!

The reviews for this series are amazing, so I was pleased to be granted a copy by NetGalley so that I could make up my own mind.

The book opens with the deaths of a high-profile lawyer and one of his past clients, one of Scotland’s most notorious criminals who has just been released from prison. As the bodies begin to stack up, DS Max Craigie starts to suspect that they have a murderer taking revenge on those who have done bad things – a vigilante killer who seems to have insider knowledge of the police’s methods and processes. The investigation team is forced to face the fact that the culprit may be one of them – but how are they going to uncover someone who knows their every move?

Book Review: ‘The Sanctuary’ by Emma Haughton

I absolutely loved Emma Haughton’s first fiction book for adults, ‘The Dark’, set in a research centre in Antarctica. This was the perfect claustrophobic locked-room mystery with the inhospitable surroundings meaning escape was impossible.

I gulped that book down in one – so I was thrilled that NetGalley granted me access to Haughton’s next book, ‘The Sanctuary’.

In this book, Zoey wakes in an unfamiliar environment – she doesn’t remember much about the night before, a night out in New York, aside from a few troubling flashbacks. Now she’s in the desert in The Sanctuary, a high-end establishment helping people to kick their various addictions and face their problems. Zoey doesn’t want to be there…but how can she escape when the centre is miles from anywhere and surrounded by the threats of the endless, empty desert? Instead, she begins to get to know the other residents and participate in some often-unorthodox treatments. But is the desert really more of a threat than the perils lurking within The Sanctuary’s walls?

Book Review: ‘Murder on the Christmas Express’ by Alexandra Benedict

I’d not read anything by Alexandra Benedict before but this book ticked a lot of boxes for me – a sleeper train, a whole load of shady characters thrown together and murder! Add in Christmas and I hoped for a lovely festive crime novel with shades of Agatha Christie.

Blog Tour: ‘The Politician’ by Tim Sullivan

From the Publisher:

A ransacked room. A dead politician. A burglary gone wrong–or a staged murder?

THE DETECTIVE

DS George Cross loves puzzles–he’s good at them–and he immediately spots one when he begins investigating the death of former mayor Peggy Frampton. It looks like a burglary that went horribly wrong to most but George can see what others can’t–that this was murder.