I’ve followed this series since the beginning and have thoroughly enjoyed all of the books – this is the fifth. I was delighted to be granted a review copy by NetGalley and couldn’t wait to read about DI James Walker’s latest terrible Christmas.
Because DI James Walker always has a horrific festive season! All the books take place over the Christmas/New Year period and it seems the only time of year that serial killers appear in (usually sleepy, small-town) Cumbria.
This latest book takes place in DI Walker’s home village, making him the first on the scene as the snow starts to pile up. The deceased – dressed as Santa Claus – is someone he knows and someone who oddly hasn’t been reported as missing, even though he’s been in the snow a while. When another body is found, Walker and his team have to face up to the fact that there is another killer loose in Cumbria – and the villagers aren’t at all happy with the fact. Walker needs to keep his neighbours happy while finding the killer among them…
This series is always entertaining and engaging – there’s always lots of twists but also really solid police procedural elements that keep the story moving forward. I did guess the killer slightly ahead of DI Walker, but I’m quite a seasoned armchair detective these days! I liked the village setting as it put the crime scene/possible suspects/police team all in close proximity – something that made the setting quite claustrophobic as the snow fell and the village was isolated from the outside world.
If you’ve enjoyed the previous books in the series, there’s lots to like here – I think this was one of my favourites. If you haven’t discovered DI Walker, these are perfect winter reads and you’ve got 5 to enjoy!
Thanks to Random Things Tours and Laurence King Publishing for my invitation to join the blog tour for this puzzle book based on the Queen of Crime’s best-loved novels.
Opinions, as always, are entirely my own.
From the Publisher:
Can you work out whodunnit, with what and why like Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot? Put your armchair detective abilities to the ultimate test…
Do you have the flair, order and method of Poirot,
or the unassuming, shrewd intelligence of Miss Marple?
You’re going to need it…
A mystery is afoot. With a missing librarian and 100 perplexing clues left behind, can you solve the mystery and follow the trail of the crime?
Brush off your moustache, collect your knitting needles and put your little grey cells to good use with this puzzling series of events.
Immerse yourself in the world of Agatha Christie.
My Review:
What’s not to like? Agatha Christie and puzzles? Sounds like a match made in heaven to me, especially when the book is produced by the brilliant Laurence King Publishing who are also responsible for some beautiful literary jigsaw puzzles (including an Agatha Christie collection).
I was intrigued by how the book would hang together, but it actually works well – there’s little bits of narrative and a selection of puzzles arranged around a number of the most famous and popular of Christie’s books. It’s a book that you can easily dip into whether you know everything about Christie’s writing or whether you know absolutely nothing.
The puzzles themselves are varied and engaging – some (the word searches and gridwords) are quite easy, but there’s some really tricky ones in there too. I love logic puzzles and I was well served with some fiendish tests of reasoning. I liked the fact that the puzzles were themed too, e.g. lots of train-related puzzled for the ‘4.50 from Paddington’ chapter, word puzzles for ‘The ABC Murders’, hieroglyphics and pyramid-puzzles for ‘Death on the Nile’. The puzzles were varied and generally well explained (I only found one where the instructions baffled me!)
There is a final puzzle that brings together a solution to the over-arching story by asking you to revisit some of the puzzles. I love this idea, but haven’t managed to solve it yet because the puzzles themselves are keeping me very busy. There’s certainly plenty to do in this book!
This would make a great Christmas present for the puzzle fans in your life. Obviously, the core audience will be Agatha Christie fans who also like puzzles, but I did a few of these with my teen daughter and they were accessible to her, especially the crosswords, word searches and word grids. There’s so much variety that everyone will find something to enjoy. It’s a nice, gift-able book (and the answers are in the back for those moments when you’re completely stumped!)
Highly recommended!
About the Author:
Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie became, and remains, the bestselling novelist of all time. She is best known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections, as well as the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation too. Agatha Christie Limited (ACL) has been managing the literary and media rights to Agatha Christie’s works around the world since 1955, when the company was set up by Christie herself. The company is managed by Christie’s great-grandson, James Prichard. Follow Facebook @OfficialAgathaChristie, Instagram @officialagathachristie and X @agathachristie to keep up to date.
M W Craven’s writing is always a cut above, as anyone who has discovered the brilliant crime series featuring Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw knows. This series (of which this book is the second) takes a different genre – the thriller – and proves that Craven can turn his hand to this genre just as well.
I love this crime series featuring the brilliant DI Grace Archer. This latest book is a great addition to the series and one I recommend fully!
This story opens with the death of a young woman near a stream in North London. The last number dialled on her phone, found nearby, is DI Grace Archer – our hero of the Metropolitan Police who has worked to free women from sex trafficking. Archer wants to take the case because of her personal connection but is refused and instead finds herself investigating the death of a woman left in an abandoned house many years previously. cases have similarities, but Archer’s attempts to make connections continue to be knocked back by her superiors who just want the cases closed as quickly as possible. This leaves Archer with no choice but to toe the line…or break the rules!
As with the previous books, I love that DI Grace Archer is a strong female lead who is unafraid to take on those who don’t have the correct priorities – she believes that the violent deaths of all women should be given equal attention by the police, regardless of the women’s status and activities during life. This gives her a single-mindedness in her investigations and a determination to do her best by the victims which is commendable. Grace’s colleague, DS Harry Quinn, is similarly empathetic and likeable, putting a strong detective duo at the heart of this police procedural.
The plotting is clever and kept me reading – this is one of those books that you won’t want to put down, even as you are also slightly scared to be reading it late at night!
Although this book sits within the DI Grace Archer series, it would work as a standalone too – in case anyone is holding back from reading it because they don’t have the back-story. Each book is gripping in its own right so dive right in!
This is one of my favourite detective series and I love this latest instalment. Fennell can’t write these fast enough for me, so I hope the next book is in the pipeline…
I don’t know why it took me so long to read the second book in Richard Osman’s series about a group of amateur detectives living in a retirement community. It just got pushed down the TBR list and I’ve only just (finally) picked it up.
This book follows the four characters from the first novel – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibraham – as they embark on a mystery featuring a character from Elizabeth’s past, £20 million of diamonds and a whole host of murders.
As with the first book, the writing is engaging and humorous, although there is a poignant dimension to the story too – in this case, around a knock to Ibrahim’s confidence and also an Alzheimer’s plotline. This makes the novel more than a simple cosy crime novel. The mystery element of the novel is also cleverly done and kept me guessing to the end.
The range of characters is interesting – I loved Elizabeth, with her intriguing past and fierce intelligence. Joyce, whose narrative perspective drives some of the chapters, is also a fabulous character – witty and sharp and learning her true capabilities as the investigation progresses. The police who work with the group are also charmingly portrayed – I like that they all have back-stories and insecurities and flaws in the same way as the main characters do.
I also listened to the audiobook, which is brilliantly read by Lesley Manville. I’d recommend this whole-heartedly as she brings out the warmth of the characters, especially in the Joyce chapters.
This is a strong sequel to ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ and I’ll keep going with the series – hopefully in a slightly more timely way than with this book!
It’s out now! The last book in the brilliant Tennison series – this is Book 10 and it’s another great mystery.
Thanks to Compulsive Readers for inviting me to join #TeamTennison and to Zaffre Books for my review copy. Opinions, as always, are my own.
I’ve loved this series and it has been a treat to read it from the start with other bloggers as part of #TeamTennison. It’s been great to see Jane Tennison develop from a new recruit in the Metropolitan Police to a DCI in the prestigious AMIT unit. Along the way, she’s investigated IRA bombings, serial killings, cold cases, armed robberies and a fair dose of police corruption – it’s been a varied career and an enjoyable one to follow.
I’m delighted to start the blog tour for ‘The Continental Affair’!
With thanks to Random Things Tours and Bedford Square Publishers for my spot on the tour and copy of the book for review. Opinions, as always, are my own.
From the Publisher:
With gorgeous prose, European glamour, and an expansive wanderlust, Christine Mangan’s ‘The Continental Affair’ is a fast-paced, Agatha Christie-esque caper packed full of romance and suspense.
‘Reads as if Jean Rhys and Patricia Highsmith collaborated on a script for Alfred Hitchcock; it is an elegant, delirious fever dream of a book.’
The Irish Times
Meet Henri and Louise. Two strangers, travelling alone, on the train from Belgrade to Istanbul.
Except this isn’t the first time they have met.
It’s the 1960s, and Louise is running.
From her past in England, from the owners of the money she has stolen―and from Henri, the person who has been sent to collect it.
Across the Continent―from Granada to Paris, from Belgrade to Istanbul―Henri follows. He’s desperate to leave behind his own troubles and the memories of his past life as a gendarme in Algeria.
But Henri soon realises that Louise is no ordinary traveller.
As the train hurtles toward its final destination, Henri and Louise must decide what the future will hold―and whether it involves one another.
Stylish and atmospheric, ‘The Continental Affair’ takes you on an unforgettable journey through the twisty, glamorous world of 1960s Europe.
My Review:
I’d read and enjoyed ‘Tangerine’ by Christine Mangan, so it was a pleasure to be asked to join the blog tour for ‘The Continental Affair’. What’s not to like about a 1960s tale of glamour and mystery and romance playing out across some of Europe’s most gorgeous cities?
The story is told from both Henri’s and Louise’s perspectives, and across a dual timeline. In the ‘Now’ timeline, they are meeting on a train heading across Europe. It seems to be a meeting of strangers forced to share a train compartment, but we soon discover that Henri knows exactly who Louise is – and what she’s up to. The ‘Before’ sections then take us into the back-story so that we discover more about the characters and their motivations. The longer the cat and mouse game goes on, the more the tension rises…
What I really loved about this novel was the sense of place; the detail in the descriptions of the cities is vivid and sumptuous. I particularly loved the focus on the Alhambra, beautiful and serene, where the two first ‘meet’. While the visual description throughout the novel is fabulous, what’s really striking is the fact that the novel is a sensory treat – this is a world where orange blossom and creponne add tantalising smells, thumbs rub against banknotes, local delicacies are tasted and the characters move in and out of the warm golden sunlight and shadows.
It’s a world – glamorous in an old-fashioned way – that is evoked so vibrantly that it feels like Mangan has dropped us into a movie. Enhancing this is the sense of claustrophobia that Mangan weaves into the novel – although European travel is open to the travellers, their personal situations mean they are trapped in different ways, be it grief, the past, money…
I found that I was more strongly drawn to Henri at the start of the novel – although his situation is morally very dubious, I really felt for his back-story and how he had managed to get into this situation far from his home in Algeria. He seemed a much more human character than the slightly aloof and detached Louise, but this initial impression soon shifted as Louise’s back-story was explored with a key moment outside a Parisian cemetery. I really started to root for her as she – this quite reserved and naive English woman – started to relax into the European way of life and make her own choices.
I did like the fact that the story kept moving between the perspectives and timelines, although it also took a bit of getting used to. I did think it was a bit of a slow-burner – the initial sections were quite slow, but I found myself totally immersed in the story once Louise left Spain with Henri following at a distance.
I’d recommend this to readers who like tense and tightly-wound noir thrillers; there’s a simmering sense of menace within the glamorous and gorgeous locations, a seductive subtext in the interactions between characters, and mysteries and secrets at the heart of the main characters. It’s a heady and appealing mix.
About the Author:
Christine Mangan is the author of the national bestsellers ‘Tangerine’ and ‘Palace of the Drowned’. She has her PhD in English from University College Dublin, with a focus on 18th-century Gothic literature, and an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Southern Maine. She lives in Detroit.
I’ve enjoyed previous books by Lucy Foley, so was pleased to be granted a review copy of ‘The Midnight Feast’. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley – opinions, as always, are entirely my own.
This book centres on the opening of an exclusive resort, The Manor, on the beautiful Dorset coast. Guests flock to the high-end luxury and anticipate a fabulous solstice feast, all overseen by the owner of the great house, Francesca. However, the site has a dark past and some of the guests are perhaps not welcome. When a body is discovered at the base of the cliffs the day after the solstice party, the police have a task on their hands to unravel the events of the past that have brought The Manor and its guests to its latest tragedy.
If you haven’t discovered this brilliant series featuring DI Anjelica Henley, then what are you waiting for?!
This is the third book in the series, following on from the excellent ‘The Jigsaw Man’ and ‘The Binding Room’. Of course they’re best read in order, but ‘The Kill List’ would also work as a standalone – there’s enough new mystery and anything you need to know about past events is explained.
I absolutely love this series! This is Book 11 in the DS Maeve Kerrigan series – and it’s yet another brilliant, tense and precisely-plotted police procedural. You’ll want to clear the diary for this one as you won’t easily put it down.
The story opens with Maeve being called to what seems to be a murder-suicide of an older couple, the Marshalls. However, things don’t quite make sense at the crime scene and the investigation soon becomes a double murder. This would be tragic enough, until the couple’s links to a child’s disappearance 16 years previously are uncovered – and it seems that the motives for the double murder lie in the earlier tragic event. It’s up to Maeve to unravel the truth about the Marshalls and the cold-case of the missing child – as the answers are inextricably joined.
