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?
A new Cara Hunter book is always a treat – and this is no exception. I read A LOT of crime fiction and think that Cara Hunter’s books are among the best.
This is the sixth book in the series featuring DI Adam Fawley and his team – although there are some plotlines that run across the books (mainly to do with the team’s personal lives and relationships), I think this could be enjoyed as a standalone novel.
A new book by M W Craven is always a treat – usually a gory, gruesome, twisty treat, but a treat nevertheless!
This book – the fifth featuring Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw – is another excellent addition to the series. Regular readers will not be at all disappointed, but if you haven’t made the acquaintance of Poe and Bradshaw before then I’d recommend that you start with Book 1, ‘The Puppet Show’. This novel makes total sense as a standalone, but you really don’t want to miss the rest of the books!
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…
I love historical crime and this series ticks all the boxes for me (if we are OK with calling the 1960s ‘historical’!) – this isn’t my first book in this series and so I knew more or less what to expect. I wasn’t disappointed and actually think this is one of the stronger instalments in the series.
Welcome 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
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Sally Rigby’s ‘Silent Graves’, the ninth book in the Cavendish and Walker crime fiction series.
This tour was organised by the lovely Emma at Damp Pebbles and I’d like to thank her and the author for my free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
This book was published in paperback and digital formats on 15th January 2021.
Book Blurb:
Nothing remains buried forever…
When the bodies of two teenage girls are discovered on a building site, DCI Whitney Walker knows she’s on the hunt for a killer. The problem is the murders happened forty years ago and this is her first case with the new team. What makes it even tougher is that with budgetary restrictions in place, she only has two weeks to solve it.
Once again, she enlists the help of forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish, but as she digs deeper into the past, she uncovers hidden truths that hurtle through the decades and into the present.
Silent Graves is the ninth book in the acclaimed Cavendish & Walker series. Perfect for fans of L J Ross, J M Dalgleish and Rachel Abbott.
My Review:
I love police procedurals and doubly so when there’s a strong female lead – so I jumped at the chance to join this blog tour.
I hadn’t read any of this series before (this is the ninth book) but I managed just fine with it. This book works well as a stand alone – everything relevant is explained.
The opening pages introduce us to DCI Whitney Walker who is about to meet her new team in the shiny new Lenchester police station. She’s worked with some of them before, but there are new additions and she has a new boss – all very unnerving for her, but useful for those of us catching up with who’s who!
The team’s first case comes about when two bodies are found on farmland that is being developed for a housing estate. The two skeletons present a problem – this is clearly a historical case and there will be limited forensic evidence. When the bodies are established to be connected to the 1980 disappearance of two teenage girls, Walker and her team are faced with the difficulties of investigating a cold case with limited time – Lenchester Police are unwilling to fund a long investigation that might ultimately lead nowhere…
This is a solid police procedural with a good range of characters – Walker’s team are an interesting bunch, all recognisably real and human, from the slightly cocky new DS who has big career plans to the timid researcher whose brilliant work gets overshadowed by her more confident teammates.
Walker herself is also engaging – although she is slightly prickly and would be terrifying to actually work for, I think! Her friendship with Dr Georgina Cavendish, a forensic psychologist and another spiky character, is well developed and the two women have complementary skills that further the investigation.
I have no clue as to whether this is a realistic portrayal of police work – I did have a few questions – but it is an enjoyable and well-plotted police procedural. I thought there would be issues with keeping the momentum going on a 40 year-old case, but this is well managed and I was keen to keep reading.
I would recommend this to lovers of crime fiction with a strong (female) detective at the helm. It isn’t gruesome or full of peril, but it is an engaging and interesting read – and equally accessible whether you are a die-hard Cavendish and Walker fan or (like me) brand new to the series.
About the Author:
Sally Rigby was born in Northampton, in the UK. She has always had the travel bug, and after living in both Manchester and London, eventually moved overseas. From 2001 she has lived with her family in New Zealand (apart from five years in Australia), which she considers to be the most beautiful place in the world. After writing young adult fiction for many years, under a pen name, Sally decided to move into crime fiction. Her Cavendish & Walker series brings together two headstrong, and very different, women – DCI Whitney Walker, and forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish. Sally has a background in education, and has always loved crime fiction books, films and TV programmes. She has a particular fascination with the psychology of serial killers.
This is the third book in the series featuring Leo Stanhope, a hospital porter turned journalist living with a big secret that could jeopardise everything he has worked for. This series, set in Victorian London, has been a treat from the beginning and this is another satisfying instalment.
This book will be published on 12th November, 2020.
This story follows Leo as he investigates a murder in a backstreet gaff, a low-rent wrestling venue packed with it’s own cast of tough men, dodgy management and street urchins looking for shelter. Leo, struggling to make his name on the front pages of the newspaper, writes an article that gets all the wrong sort of attention and finds himself caught up in something he cannot control or understand.
The story here is pacey and there are plenty of false turns and red herrings to keep readers guessing. The setting is appropriately seedy and the characters interesting.
What will appeal to readers returning to the series is the cast of Leo’s friends – Rosie and her pie shop, Alfie and Constance, Jacob and family, even the familiar Constable Pallett – who are all here.
This probably could be read as a stand alone novel, but I would really recommend that you start at the beginning of the series as there is so much to enjoy for lovers of historical fiction.
If you would like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog! I’ve also added a link for ‘The House on Half Moon Street’ in case you wanted to start at the beginning of the series:
Header photo with thanks to SHOT for sharing their work on Unsplash.
This lovely, funny, historical crime novel is now available in Kindle version – the hardcover is to be released on 3rd September (if you can wait that long!)
This is the third in the series of books featuring Inspector Betty Church, the only competent police officer in Sackwater, Suffolk. I’ve read all the previous books and Kasasian’s other series about Sidney Grice (who, along with his sidekick March Middleton, occasionally also pop up in the Betty Church books) so I knew what to expect here: a quirky crime story with eccentric characters and plenty of humour.
The story begins in 1914 when teenage Betty Church is playing rounders with a group of the local children in Sackwater. Her friend, Etterly Utter is last seen by the ‘ghost tree’, possibly in the company of a shadowy man, before she vanishes. Twenty six years later, Betty (now a Police Inspector) is called upon to investigate some human remains and the disappearance of Etterly again becomes her focus.
Many of the characters I loved from the previous novels are here, including daft Dodo, sleazy Banthony and love interest Toby. Also present are Church’s horrible but funny parents and the rest of the useless Sackwater Police crew. The humour is still very much present, although it’s bittersweet in the context of World War Two events closing in on Sackwater; the Dunkirk landings and RAF raids play small roles in the backdrop of the novel.
My only real criticism is that the book is quite slow-paced – I wouldn’t usually mind, but I did find the 1914 section quite long and was looking forward to getting back to the 1940s setting and the characters who I think are the strength of the book.
This is another satisfying installment in the series that would only have been improved by a trim of the flashback section. If you’ve followed the series to now, you won’t be disappointed. If you’re new to the series, enjoy! You have a cosy treat ahead!
I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
You can buy this title using the link below – The Quick and the Read may receive commission at no extra cost to you. This link is for the Kindle version – the hardback is not yet available.
