Tag Archives: crime

Jane Casey’s ‘After the Fire’

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After the fireA fire rips through the top two floors of a tower block, leaving three people dead. One of the dead happens to be the controversial right-wing MP Geoff Armstrong – one who has no business being in those flat that night, so far from home. Of those who made it out before the blaze took hold, a young boy is separated from his mother, an illegal prostitute flees the scene with nothing but the clothes on her back and a child from one of the block’s more dubious families suffers horrific burns.

To make things worse, it soon becomes clear that the fire is arson and Geoff Armstrong may not have jumped to his death to avoid the flames – he may have been murdered. With such a high profile death, the force are under increasing scrutiny and pressure to get to the bottom of the situation as fast as possible. But with any number of motives, potential suspects and possible intended victims, narrowing down the search is an enormous ask. Continue reading →

Kathy Reichs’ ‘Bones Never Lie’

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Bones never lieThe latest installment in Kathy Reichs’ long running crime series featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, ‘Bones Never Lie’, continues in the vein of her previous novels – fast paced, full of twists and turns and a great main character that readers can relate to.

When young girls start showing up dead in circumstances that are strikingly similar to one of Tempe’s old cases, she is forced to face her demons as she, along with her team, try to catch ‘the one that got away’.

This ‘one that got away’ is a sadistic killer with every reason to hold a grudge against Tempe. But is the same person behind this latest spate of killings? With little evidence to go on, Tempe goes back over every detail of her old files, hoping to find the one thing that will break the case. But it’s not long before things get personal – and Tempe has to fight tooth and nail to stop the culprit before it’s too late.

Continue reading →

‘The Stranger You Know’ by Jane Casey

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The Stranger You KnowDetective Maeve Kerrigan has a strained relationship with her boss – the chauvinistic, obnoxious, but occasionally charming DCI Josh Derwent. But when a recent spate of murders in London starts throwing up parallels to the murder of Dewent’s girlfriend twenty years earlier, it soon becomes clear that her superiors suspect that he might have a darker side.

Despite being under strict instructions not to talk to Derwent about the details of their current investigation, Maeve finds herself increasingly torn between following orders and allowing Derwent to help her in her attempts to find out what really happened to his girlfriend all those years ago.

Although Maeve doesn’t believe Derwent capable of killing, the cases throw up more and more disturbing similarities. As more bodies are discovered, and the cold case brings old feelings to the surface, Maeve becomes increasingly unsure if she really knows her colleague at all. Continue reading →

‘The Ties that Bind’ by Erin Kelly

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The Ties that BindFleeing a bad relationship, struggling true crime journalist Luke runs to Brighton. Soon, he unwittingly stumbles across a story that has the potential to completely turn his career around. Joss Grand, now an upstanding business man and property owner, was once an infamous racketeer who ruled Brighton with an iron fist.

As he delves further into Grand’s murky past, and into the unsolved murder of his right hand man in the 1960’s, Luke soon finds himself increasingly over his head. His attempts to find the perfect story have stirred up old secrets that some people would prefer to leave buried. Someone is watching his every move, and it’s impossible to know who to trust. But by the time that Luke finds out just how high the stakes are, it’s too late.

There’s no doubt that Erin Kelly has a talent for writing skilful, well-structured mysteries, and this is no exception. It starts off quite slowly but then all of a sudden it picks up the pace and throws in a few curveballs to keep you guessing. The suspense gradually builds as the novel progresses and the twist at the end

My main problem with this book was that Luke wasn’t the most likeable main character. It was incredibly frustrating to watch his relationship with Jem develop. He then spends most of the book distrusting and ignoring his friends, whinging in self-pity when anything goes wrong and being wilfully stupid whenever the opportunity arises. Continue reading →

A detective story with a difference

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Rivers_of_LondonWhen PC Peter Grant stumbles across a key witness with a first-hand account of a violent crime, he sees it as an opportunity to save himself from the tedium of a career in paperwork. The only problem – his witness is a ghost.

As a result of this encounter with the supernatural, Peter is swiftly recruited into a special unit within the Met police – designed to help solve the cases where fact and reason have failed. He soon discovers a whole new side of London policing, complete with rivers that walk on two feet and ghosts that steal people’s faces.

Ben Aaronovitch’s creation has all the lure of the paranormal combined with the mystery, suspense and action of the crime novel. Continue reading →

Pierre Lemaitre’s ‘Alex’

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Alex PLIt’s very difficult to explain the plot of ‘Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex’ without giving away too much. We open with the kidnapping and torture of a girl. The attempts of the police to track down this girl, with no evidence to show that a kidnapping has even taken place, help to start unravelling a web of lies, violence and deceit.

The book is split into three separate sections, each of which turns the story on its head and takes t in a completely new direction. It’s like solving a mystery within a mystery – each section throws up a new conundrum and completely changes our views on what has come before.

All of the characters are hiding secrets and our perceptions of different people shifted depending on the titbits of information that the author slowly released over the course of the novel. The pace moves along at a breakneck pace, shifting how we see characters with just a few short sentences and well-timed revelations. Continue reading →

‘The Son’ by Jo Nesbo

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When Sonny was a teenager, his father took his own life. His suicide note revealed that he was a mole in the Oslo police force, passing information to the mysterious and shadowy figure of the Twin, a dangerous criminal with a network of resources at his disposal. This shattering revelation set his family on a path of destruction and ruin.

The SonNow a heroin addict, Sonny has been in prison for 12 years. Since his incarceration, he’s gained an almost mythical status amongst his fellow inmates as a receiver of confessions and a cleanser of souls. But when one of these confessions strikes particularly close to home, it throws everything that Sonny has ever believed about his father’s death into question.

Homicide Inspector Simon Kefas was once Sonny’s father best friend. On the surface, his current cases are random acts of violence, driven by petty theft or drugs. But as Simon investigates, he begins to suspect that the perpetrator is driven by a much more powerful motive. And he isn’t finished. When the crimes of the present become caught up with the ghosts of the past, Simon may be the only one that can help Sonny to uncover the truth he needs.

‘The Son’ is filled with a whole cast of unsavoury and untrustworthy characters and layer upon layer of deceit. But somehow, Jo Nesbo manages to turn our perceptions of good and bad completely on their head, as the lines between justice and law and right and wrong become increasingly blurred. Continue reading →