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Book Review: ‘A Memory for Murder’ by Anne Holt

I’ve developed a bit of a taste for Scandinavian crime thrillers – so I was very pleased to be introduced to Anne Holt’s writing by Readers First. Thank you to them and Corvus for my review copy. As always, opinions are entirely my own.

The book starts with the assassination of a Norwegian MP in a cafe – an attack in which private investigator, Selma Falck, is also hit. Looking for answers about who killed her friend, Selma works sometimes alongside the police, sometimes with journalists and her own contacts to piece together a puzzle that has far-reaching implications for her country. In doing so, she finds her life in danger again as yet more killings threaten to undermine the stability and peace of Norway…

Blog Tour: ‘We Are All Liars’ by Carys Jones

Thanks to NetGalley and Orion for my copy of this book for review and my place on the blog tour.

From the Publisher:

We’re best friends.
We trust each other.
But…

We are all liars.

Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail have been by each other’s sides for as long as they can remember. The Fierce Five. Best friends forever. But growing up has meant growing apart. And little white lies have grown into devastating secrets.

When Gail invites the increasingly estranged friends to reunite at her Scottish cabin, it could be the opportunity to mend old wounds and heal the cracks in their friendship. But when a freak snowstorm rocks the cabin and one of the girls is found dead on the ice, their weekend away becomes a race against time – and each other – to get off the mountain alive.

Blog Tour: ‘For Your Own Good’ by Samantha Downing

I’m delighted to take part in the blog tour for the brilliant ‘For Your Own Good’ by Samantha Downing. Thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for inviting me on the tour and for my copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour: ‘Cold Sun’ by Anita Sivakumaran

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Cold Sun’ by Anita Sivakumaran, a lively and engaging police procedural set in Bangalore.

With thanks to Random Things Tours and Dialogue Books for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

From the Publisher:

‘Cold Sun is a stylish and exuberant, fish-out-of-water, crime thriller… A wonderfully observed, whip-smart, India-set thriller.’
Amer Anwar, author of Brothers in Blood and Stone Cold Trouble

Bangalore. Three high-profile women murdered, their bodies draped in identical red saris.

When the killer targets the British Foreign Minister’s ex-wife, Scotland Yard sends the troubled, brilliant DI Vijay Patel to lend his expertise to the Indian police investigation.

Stranger in a strange land, ex-professional cricketer Patel must battle local resentment and his own ignorance of his ancestral country, while trying to save his failing relationship back home.

Soon, the killer’s eyes will turn to Patel. And also to Chandra Subramanium, the fierce female detective he is working with in Bangalore.

This breathless thriller will keep you guessing until the final, shocking revelation.

My Review:

I’ve read a few police procedurals set in India – both Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee write fabulous crime novels set in the country.

However, what appealed to me with ‘Cold Sun’ was the idea of a British Indian detective helping to solve a crime in Bangalore. DI Vijay Patel of Scotland Yard is sent in to investigate a series of high-profile murders and finds himself totally lost in India’s policing practices. Kind of a bit ‘Death in Paradise’ but grittier and in India!

DI Vijay Patel is called in when three high-profile women (one of them the British Foreign Minister’s ex-wife, hence the UK link) are killed. There are key similarities between the crimes and each of the women is clothed in a red sari when she is found. Patel needs to work with the often-hostile local police in order to stop a killer before they strike again…

I really liked the way that DI Patel was forced into a balancing act and his position was continually precarious. He has to work hard to gain the trust of the local police while finding their policing methods alien. He works hard not to trample on Indian customs while really struggling with his lack of awareness of his own ancestral heritage. All of this makes him quite a sympathetic character, even as the reader watches him make some huge errors and faux pas.

For me, the character of Chandra Subramanium was one of the real strengths of the novel. I loved that this tough, feisty female detective is partnered with Patel and they make an extremely unlikely pairing – she gets things done in often unconventional ways, while he is much more used to softer policing methods. I really enjoyed the relationship building between the two characters and hope that we will see more of them in future books.

The Indian setting is vibrant and vivid – regular visitors to my blog know that I’m all about the setting! I really enjoyed being immersed in a culture and place so different from rainy Cheshire in August. There was a sense of the heat and the dust, the poverty and colour, the people and customs of Bangalore. I’m a huge fan of novels that can transport me to other places so this was a hig bonus.

The plotting of the novel is well done – it was suitable twisty so that I didn’t guess the denouement at all, even as the book was racing towards its conclusion. I found myself caught up in the story and wanting to read on as the tension was ramped up and the stakes became ever higher.

I’d recommend this to lovers of police procedurals, those who enjoy a ‘fish-out-of-water’ detective, those who love immersive settings, those who like strong female characters…just about everyone really. There is plenty to enjoy in this clever and tense thriller – and I hope to read more by this talented writer.

About the Author:

Anita Sivakumaran was born in Madras and has lived in the UK since 2004. Her historical novel, The Queen, based on real events, has been made into a major television series. Cold Sun is her first novel in the DI Patel detective series.

Book Review: ’56 Days’ by Catherine Ryan Howard

Too soon for a novel about the pandemic?

In a word, no! This is a lively and cleverly structured novel that takes us through a lockdown mystery. I raced through it in two sittings because I really needed to know what happened.

‘Truth or Dare’ by M J Arlidge

A new book by M J Arlidge is always a cause for celebration and this one – the tenth in the excellent police procedural series to feature Detective Inspector Helen Grace – is no exception.

Blog Tour: ‘Dead Ground’ by M. W. Craven

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Dead Ground’, the fourth novel in the Poe and Bradshaw series of crime novels by M.W. Craven.

Thanks to Beth Wright at Little Brown UK for inviting me onto the tour and for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

‘The Islanders’ by S V Leonard

This book was published on 11th March by Canelo.

I’ll admit that I was intrigued by the prospect of this book – a crossover of Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ and Love Island! The idea of a murder mystery under the all-seeing eye of a reality TV programme was definitely an attraction as I’d read and enjoyed ‘Dead Famous’ by Ben Elton on a similar theme many years ago.

This book centres on an ex-police officer, Kimberley King, who is invited to take place on a reality TV programme on a remote Greek island. The show – ‘LoveWrecked’ – is scheduled to have a number of young, beautiful people take part, but only a few make it to the island before it is cut off from the outside world. Along with the show’s producers and a cameraman, the contestants are pulled into a dark and disturbing situation when corpses start turning up with alarming regularity. Who is the Judge pulling all the strings and will anyone survive?

This was an engaging and fun read – I raced through it to find out what happened. It is cleverly plotted and fast-paced – I liked the fact that the narrative was broken up with chapters of news reports or social media feeds or emails. I also enjoyed the fact that – like Kimberley King – I was useless at working out the solution and was kept guessing to the end.

I found I didn’t have much sense of the characters as individuals, although I guess that is partly due to the reality TV element – how much do you really know about people just from watching them interact? The focus is mainly on Kimberley and you do get a bit more of a sense of her. I think I just accepted that the surface-level characterisation and back-stories were inevitable given the social media and reality TV premise.

Yes, some of it is far-fetched and perhaps doesn’t hold water entirely, but I’d recommend you suspend disbelief and just immerse yourself in the story. There’s certainly plenty to keep you reading – lots of dodgy characters to suspect, lots of twists, lots of deaths. It’s a lively story with a fun setting – so just enjoy!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash.

‘Lie Beside Me’ by Gytha Lodge

Happy publication day!

This is the third book in the DCI Jonah Sheens series by Gytha Lodge, following on from ‘She Lies in Wait’ and ‘Watching from the Dark’. Both the previous books were excellent, so I was pleased to be granted an advance copy of ‘Lie Beside Me’ for review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.

This book opens with a nightmarish scene – a young woman wakes in her bed with a dead man next to her. She doesn’t recognise him and she cannot remember the events of the night before. DCI Sheens and his team at Southampton Police are called in, but by the time they arrive, things have changed…

What follows is a clever police procedural in which Sheens and his team are called upon to investigate some tangled relationships and shady people with things to hide. As they get nearer to the truth of what happened that snowy night in Southampton, the stakes are raised once again and it is clear that the death is part of something much bigger.

As expected, this is a compelling and engaging story that covers all aspects of the police investigation – we see the interviews with suspects, the pathology, the crime scene examination, the digital analysis and the lives of those investigators at the heart of the Southampton team. For crime fiction fans (me included), this is pretty fascinating stuff – although it might not hit the spot for adrenalin junkies who like their reading more on the thriller side of things. There are some genuinely tense and creepy moments, but the focus is the unpacking of the story of what happened on the night in question.

I really liked the way that the narrative shifted between the investigation and a first-person insight into the woman at the centre of the investigation, Louise Reakes. It was interesting to hear how she started to piece together the events of the evening in tandem with the police team.

Normally I prefer crime novels that focus on the investigation and do not dwell too much on the private lives of the police officers. However, there was a sub-plot in this book centred around a female police officer, Juliette Hanson, which I thought was intriguing – I’d love to see her developed as a character even more in the next novel as she felt particularly authentic and convincing.

Overall, this is another excellent addition to the DCI Jonah Sheens series and one that I would recommend. Although this could easily be read as a stand-alone, I would still suggest starting with the first book in the series as it would enhance your understanding of the team dynamics. This is a lively and well-paced story that will keep you turning the pages to the (satisfying) end.

If you would like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo by J Shim on Unsplash.

‘The Broken Ones’ by Carla Kovach (Detective Gina Harte – Book 8)

Happy publication day to this brilliant crime fiction book! This is the eighth book in the series featuring DI Gina Harte.

I have read a lot of this series now and they do just seem to keep getting better! The earlier ones in the series focused a lot on Detective Gina Harte’s own personal story but – now this storyline has played out to a greater extent – I love the new focus on the ingenious plotting, creepy scenarios and casts of suspicious characters!

This book opens with the death of a student, Amber, whose body is found in Cleevesford Park – she went out on a date and never returned to her worried housemate. Harte and her team begin their investigations and begin uncovering some weird characters and lots of secrets surrounding the dead woman. The leads begin to mount up and Harte and her team struggle to prioritise their work – but a second disappearance has them scrambling to find connections before there is another murder.

I’m already bought into this series and like the character of DI Gina Harte – she is a likeable character and I also like the fact that she is a strong older women (she has a grown-up daughter) who is in control. Her relationship with her team is positive and (mostly) problem-free, which is great as the focus is on the investigation rather than the police team. The team themselves are often not particularly distinctive, so it was brilliant that one of them got a more important role in the plot this time around.

The plotting itself is cleverly done – there’s always lots happening and plenty of red herrings to fall for. In fact, this series seems to be getting more tense – the sections narrated by Meredith were really quite creepy and kept me on the edge of my seat! I read this book really quickly as I couldn’t wait to find out the next twist.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend this for readers who love police procedurals, especially if a female lead is a draw for you (as it is for me). I’d suggest you start at the beginning of the series really, to fully appreciate the strength of DI Harte, but this would be fine as a stand alone.

Header photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash.

If you’d like a copy of this fabulous police procedural, please use my affiliate link below. Thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.