Category: reviews

Fresh out of prison, former Detective Constable Scott Jericho is a desperate man.

Disgraced and penniless after his assault on a violent suspect, he is forced to seek refuge with the fairground family he once rejected. Now, troubled by his failure, Jericho’s brilliant mind stagnates.

That is until a series of bizarre murders reawaken his interest. Men and women with no obvious link to each other are being ritualistically slaughtered.

Slaughtered in ways that recall an old legend of the Jericho Travelling Fair.

Now, in a race against time, he must unpick the threads of a baffling mystery. But as his investigation unfolds and the corpses pile up, a shocking truth awaits him. A revelation that will test not only Jericho’s intellect but challenge the very core of his morality…

Another shortlisted book for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year!

This was the last of the six books I read, and picked it up alongside Mark Billingham’s The Last Dance.

I polished both books off in a couple of sittings. I absolutely loved the character of Scott Jericho – the first gay Traveller detective I’ve ever seen (albeit disgraced and therefore former detective by the time we meet him) investigating off-the-books a series of delightfully (can we say that?) gruesome murders which all appear to be leading back in his direction. Superb writing, tense, clever plotting – what more could you ask for?

Having read a lot of crime fiction over the years, it’s always great to see something new and fresh in the crime writing world and I really enjoyed this book.

Very much looking forward to book 2 (the good thing about being slightly behind on books is that it’s already out, hurrah!)

I’ll be keeping a close eye on William Hussey going forward. Top stuff! Very highly recommended.

Killing Jericho by William Hussey is out in paperback now from Bonnier.

It’s that time of the year again. Time for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year shortlist!

And for the first time ever, I’ve actually read ALL SIX books. Considering how much I read in this genre, it always surprises me when it turns out I’ve only read one or two. And until just over a week ago, I’d read half of the shortlist. Then my daughter gave me None Of This Is True for Father’s Day, and I realised I could complete the list. The challenge was on!

I finished William Hussey’s Killing Jericho this morning, so thought it would be a great idea for a roundup of the books and my thoughts.

In no particular order, here are the six shortlisted books

The Last Dance – Mark Billingham

(Sphere, paperback, own copy)

Mark Billingham is no stranger to the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year shortlist. He won the inaugural award back in 2005 with Lazybones, followed up by a shortlist spot in 2008 with Buried, a second win in 2009 with Death Message, and shortlists in 2010 for In The Dark and 2011 for From The Dead. Taking a year off in 2012 he returned to the shortlist in 2013 with Rush of Blood and 2016 with Time of Death.

The Last Dance marks his eighth(!) appearance on the shortlist, and a new detective, Declan Miller. Can this book make it a hat trick of wins?

I absolutely loved this one. Declan Miller is mourning the death of his wife and possibly back on the job too soon, but has a delightfully dark humour running through it, an intriguing case and some fantastic characters. Roll on book 2 (which is fortunately out now so I don’t need to wait!)

He’s a detective, a dancer, he has no respect for authority – and he’s the best hope Blackpool has for keeping criminals off the streets. Meet Detective Declan Miller. A double murder in a seaside hotel sees a grieving Miller return to work to solve what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. Just why were two completely unconnected men taken out? Despite a somewhat dubious relationship with both reality and his new partner, can the eccentric, offbeat Miller find answers where his colleagues have found only an impossible puzzle?

The Secret Hours – Mick Herron

(Baskerville, ebook ARC, thanks to the publisher for the review copy)

Now I have read a lot of Mick Herron’s books, especially his excellent Slough House series (now on Apple TV and well worth checking out if you haven’t already). The Secret Hours marks his sixth appearance on the shortlist. It’s now almost an annual event since 2017’s Real Tigers, followed by Spook Street in 2018, London Rules in 2019, Joe Country in 2020 and Slough House in 2022.

I’m a huge fan of Mick Herron’s writing, and also loved this book. If you’ve been reading or watching Slow Horses, you know just how good this is. Enough said.

Trying to investigate the Secret Service is like trying to get rid of the stink of dead badger. Hard.  For two years the government’s Monochrome inquiry has produced nothing more than a series of dead ends.  The Service has kept what happened in the newly reunified Berlin under wraps for decades, and intends for it to stay that way.  But then the OTIS file turns up.  What classified secrets does it hold? And what damage will it create?  All Max Janácek knows is that someone is chasing him through the pitch-dark country lanes and they want him gone.

That’s enough of the regulars. It’s great to see a list with mostly first time shortlistees (is that a word?) on there.

In The Blink of an Eye – Jo Callaghan

(Simon & Schuster, audiobook, Audible subscription)

I reviewed In The Blink of an Eye a while back. Very late to the party, this was a book that everyone in the bookblogging world seemed to be talking about. A twist on the standard police procedural and super topical given the inexorable rise of AI in our lives, AIDE Lock is a fascinating character. On the off-chance you’ve not read this book, here’s my review:

Go read it.

Slightly longer version: I really enjoyed it, you should definitely read it. Like, now. Then grab book 2 as somehow it’s even better than book one. And book one is on the Crime Book of the Year shortlist!

In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds. Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye.  DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat’s instincts come up against Lock’s logic. But when the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal.  AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?

Killing Jericho – William Hussey

(Zaffre, paperback, own copy)

This was the last of the six books I read, and picked it up alongside Mark Billingham’s The Last Dance. I polished both books off in a couple of sittings. I loved the character of Scott Jericho in this – the first Traveller detective (albeit disgraced by the time we meet him) investigating off-the-books a series of delightfully gruesome murders which all appear to be leading back in his direction. It’s always nice to see something new and fresh in the crime writing world and I really enjoyed this book. Very much looking forward to book 2, and will be keeping a close eye on William Hussey going forward. Top stuff!

The gothic, helter-skelter thriller debut that introduces crime fiction’s first ever Traveller detective, Scott Jericho.  Scott Jericho thought he’d worked his last case. Fresh out of jail, the disgraced former detective is forced to seek refuge with the fairground family he once rejected.  Then a series of bizarre murders comes to light – deaths that echo a century-old fairground legend. The police can’t connect the victims. But Jericho knows how the legend goes; that more murders are certain to follow.  As Jericho unpicks the deadly mystery, a terrifying question haunts him. As a direct descendant of one of the victims in the legend, is Jericho next on the killer’s list?

None of This Is True – Lisa Jewell

(Penguin, paperback, own copy)

I’d heard a lot of good things about this book, and Lisa Jewell’s books in general. Like a LOT. I absolutely raced through this one and had to keep stopping to go OH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED. It’s utterly brilliant, with more twists than a curly wurly. It kept me up well past my bedtime!

Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie is also celebrating her 45th birthday. They are, in fact birthday twins.  A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for Alix’s series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.  Alix agrees to a trial interview. Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep digging. Slowly Alix starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life – and into her home.  Soon she begins to wonder who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

Strange Sally Diamond – Liz Nugent

(Simon & Schuster, ebook ARC, thanks to the publisher for the review copy)

Last, but by no means least, and I think the first of the shortlist I read. Sally Diamond is an incredible character and this book will stay with you for a very long time.

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.  Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.  But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again…

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Blimey. Six fantastic books to choose from. But how to choose? A dancing detective, a disgraced Traveller detective or a holographic AI-powered one? A strange girl, or one who you never know whether they’re telling the truth? Or a spy, operating at the murky edges of our world?

Not long left to choose, and you can vote here.

https://harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com/vote/

Have you read any of them? Which one will you pick?

Lynch, a burned out con-artist, arrives, broke, in London, trying not to dwell on the mistakes that got him there. When he bumps into Bobbie, a rehab-bound heiress – and when she briefly mistakes him for her missing brother – Lynch senses the opportunity, as well as the danger…

Bobbie’s brother, Heydon, was a troubled young man. Five years ago, he walked out of the family home and never went back. His car was found parked on a bridge overlooking the Thames, in the early hours of the same morning. Unsettled by Bobbie’s story, and suffering from a rare attack of conscience, Lynch tries to back off.

But when Bobbie leaves for rehab the following day, he finds himself drawn to her luxurious family home, and into a meeting with her mother, the formidable Miranda. Seeing the same resemblance that her daughter did, Miranda proposes she hire Lynch to assume her son’s identity, in a last-ditch effort to try and flush out his killer.

As Lynch begins to impersonate him, dark forces are lured out of the shadows, and he realises too late that Heydon wasn’t paranoid at all. Someone was watching his every move, and they’ll kill to keep it a secret.

This is the first book by Joseph Knox that I’ve read (though I must confess to a couple lurking on my TBR shelves) and I loved it. The writing is compelling, the characters dark and often unpleasant, and it’s had me reading way past my bedtime to find out what happened. Strong echoes of Highsmith’s Ripley (no bad thing) and more twists and turns than a seaside ride. Who is Lynch? Why did he leave Paris with nothing more than the clothes on his back? Who are the mysteriously weird Pierce family and what are they trying to hide?

It’s a splendidly dark tale of lies and deception where you have no idea who to trust. Fantastic, compelling read, and hugely recommended.

And now I need to go and find the other books by Joseph Knox on my shelves, as he’s now an author I will very much be looking out to see what he does next.

Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Knox is published by Transworld in June 2024. Many thanks to the publisher for an advance copy to review via Netgalley.

Outside the island there is the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay.

If the murder isn’t solved within 92 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don’t even know it…

Regular readers will know how much I bloody love Stuart Turton’s books. First we had the intricately plotted, fabulously mind-twistingly clever and utterly brilliant The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Then we found ourselves in 1634 on the the good ship Saardam with the world’s greatest detective (albeit locked up below decks) and a growing pile of bodies in The Devil and the Dark Water.

And now, Stuart Turton, master of the impossible murder (in book form, thank goodness), is back again with his third book, The Last Murder at the End of the World.

One hundred and seven hours until humanity’s extinction. Though most of humanity is already gone, wiped out by a mysterious fog and leaving us fully in a dystopian future where a mere 122 villagers survive on a small Greek island along with three scientists. Oh, but the island is surrounded by the same strange fog that killed everyone else. Yikes.

Then one of the scientists is killed, and the defences holding the fog at bay break down. Double yikes. The book starts with ninety two hours to solve an impossible murder and save the world.

Pfft. Easy.

Turton has taken the locked room mystery and turned it into a locked island – there’s no way on or off (and nowhere to go other than that deadly fog if you did escape). And there’s Abi, the voice inside the villagers’ heads which tells them what to do and how to behave. And a strange curfew each evening where everyone falls asleep at the same time, no matter where they are or what they’re doing. And the curfew wiped everyone’s memory from the night of the murder, so whilst everyone is technically a suspect, no-one really has the knowledge or ability to do kill anyone. They’re not even really sure what murder is, and even the murder wouldn’t remember doing it.

Look, it’s hard to talk too much about this without spoiling things. It’s brilliant, it’s twisty, it plays with your perceptions and makes you question what it is to be human. It’s a shorter book than the first two, but packs so much into it. Turton was already one of my favourite authors and this book merely strengthens that.

And can we talk about that title? I was listening to a podcast earlier today (the excellent Quick Book Reviews by Philippa Hall) in which he said that in a world of one-word titles, he wanted something which jumps out and grabs the readers attention. The last murder? I’m in. At the end of the world?? I’m so in I can’t even see the way out. Genius.

I was lucky enough to get my grubby bookblogger hands on an ebook advance copy of this book to review, but I’ve had my order in for a signed special edition since last August. It should be here tomorrow, and I can’t wait to read it again.

And I hardly ever read books again, given the state of my TBR pile.

THAT’S how good it is. Go buy a copy. Buy two, one for you and one for a friend.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton is published by Raven Books. Many thanks to the publisher for the advance copy ebook to review.

The third best assassin. A second rate mercenary crew. One terrifying demon.

As Sharaam crumbles under siege, a mercenary crew hires an assassin to kill the king. For Tash, it’s a chance at glory—to be the best blade in the dark Sharaam has ever known. For Pitt, it’s a way to get his cutthroat crew past the Tsarii siege and out of this hellhole, maybe even with some gold to their name. For Iananr the Bound One, it’s a dream of shadows and human blood.

In The Shadow Of Their Dying is short, punchy, and brutally grimdark. And if I loved it. My only complaint was that it wasn’t twice as long! Michael R. Fletcher & Anna Smith Spark have combined their talents to produce something which is nigh on pitch-perfect, and which I heartily recommend.

Tash (third best assassin) is tasked with killing the king to end the war. But there’s a demon in the way, and it’s bound to protect the king.

Hijinks ensue. Oh so many hijinks. And blood, war, lots of bodies (well, bits of them), a smattering of necromancy, bit more blood, occasional mayhem etc.

A short tale which fairly rattles along and refuses to pause for breath or to wipe the gore from the swords. Absolutely fabulous. Yes, it’s a short review. It’s a short book. All you need to know is that if you have even a passing interest in grimdark fantasy, you need this book.

In The Shadow Of Their Dying, by Michael R. Fletcher & Anna Smith Spark is published by Grimdark Magazine and is out now. Many thanks to the publisher for an advance copy to review.

~You can get a copy here:

US: https://amzn.to/3S08HeP

UK: https://amzn.to/3TKdbrw

Henri Koskinen, intrepid insurance mathematician and adventure-park entrepreneur, firmly believes in the power of common sense and order. That is until he moves in with painter Laura Helanto and her daughter… As Henri realises he has inadvertently become part of a group of local dads, a competing adventure park is seeking to expand their operations, not always sticking to the law in the process… Is it possible to combine the increasingly dangerous world of the adventure-park business with the unpredictability of life in a blended family? At first glance, the two appear to have only one thing in neither deals particularly well with a mounting body count. In order to solve this seemingly impossible conundrum, Henri is forced to step far beyond the mathematical precision of his comfort zone … and the stakes have never been higher..

Ah, it’s good to be back with the (mis)adventures of everyone’s favourite actuary-turned-adventure park owner. Following on from the excellent The Rabbit Factor and splendid The Moose Paradox, The Beaver Theory rounds out Henri’s story (for now, at least).

And what fun it is. Facing down the threat of a rival adventure park, Henri and the YouMeFun gang have to figure out how Somersault City can offer free entry, and free food to their customers, and why they want to bankrupt Henri. All while Henri seems to have fallen into the local dad group who are organising fundraising events for a school trip to Paris and simultaneously navigating the perilous world of family life with his girlfriend Laura and her young daughter Tuuli.

Henri has moved on a long way from his days as an actuary, and isn’t above a spot of mild industrial espionage whilst on the run for an alleged murder…

There’s a glorious vein of dark Finnish humour running through these books which I just adore. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it once again here – Antti Tuomainen is one of my favourite authors and I will gladly put everything to one side to spend a couple of hours in the worlds he creates. Tuomainen is on top form as ever, with a cast of brilliantly odd characters playing out their lives against the background of the YouMeFun adventure park.

This is not the place to start with Henri Koskinen, and if somehow you’ve managed to miss me nagging you to read these books, get yourself all three in the series, pour a large mug (or glass) of something delicious and settle in for quite the adventure.

Any review of these books must acknowledge and give a tip of the hat to the excellent translation by David Hackston.

As a way of rounding out the trilogy, The Beaver Theory is quite simply, highly recommended. I shall miss Henri, Laura and the others.

The Beaver Theory by Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston, is published by Orenda Books and is out now. Many thanks to Karen Sullivan from Orenda Books for the review copy.

In infinite parallel universes, there’s a version of you who already has everything you’ve ever wanted. But 24 year old drop-out Bridge is paralysed, by all the other lives she could have lived, the choices she could have made, and now, whoever she’s supposed to be in the wake of her mother’s premature death.

They’ve always had a complicated relationship. Jo was the teenage runaway turned maverick neuroscientist who threw everything away chasing after an impossibility – a mysterious artefact – the dreamworm – that allows you to switch between realities. And now she’s dead and any chance of reconciliation with her.

But is Jo really gone… or only in this universe? When Bridge and her best friend Dom stumble on the dreamworm, that does indeed open the doors to other worlds, otherselves, she becomes convinced her mom is lost out there. But the dreamworm is more dangerous than she can imagine, and she’s not the only one hunting across time and space.

Bridge is one of my favourite books of the year. I’ve been a huge fan of Lauren Beukes since stumbling across Zoo City back in 2013 and every book since has been a wild ride for the imagination. The Shining Girls, with its time-travelling serial killer. Broken Monsters, which starts as a police procedural before twisting away into the dark depths of a nightmare.

And now we have Bridge. The story of Bridget, a woman in search of her mother, wrapped in the grief of her loss to brain cancer. But her mother Jo was a scientist in search of wilder things, of a dreamworm that would let you visit alternate realities, albeit briefly, swapping places with her other selves in search of… something. A dangerous obsession which drove Jo to some very dangerous places.

Bridge and her friend Dom find her mother’s diaries and what follows is a story told not only across different timelines (the diary flashbacks and the present day), but also across the different realities, each startlingly similar to our own, but each one very slightly, very subtly off. Beukes handles this with a deft touch, layering hints to the not-quite-rightness of each of the worlds Bridge and her mother land on.

The characters, as you’d expect from a Lauren Beukes book, are fantastic. Key of which of course are Bridge (and her many alternates) and Jo, but also Bridge’s friend Dom, with their unwavering determination to help their friend. There’s also a multiverse-hopping cult, determined to halt the dreamworm. Caden, the musician who helped Jo unlock the dreamworm’s power, and his own mission to make use of it.

It’s a cracking book, chock full of tension and wild ideas. Not an easy read at times, with scenes of domestic violence and abuse, but one which will leave you in wonder at the end.

Strongly recommended. One of my favourite authors at the top of their game.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes is published by Michael Joseph and is out now in hardback. Huge thanks to Jamie at Black Crow PR for the advance copy to review.

In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathé news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago. Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France. No longer than 2.5 minutes long, it featured half a dozen sequences, including a lone rider crossing a bridge.

Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence – studying each frame, face and building – until he had squeezed the meaning from it. It sets him off in fascinating directions, encompassing travelogue, history, mystery story – to explain, to go deeper into this moment in time, captured on his little film.

Join him as he explores the history of cycling and France just five years after WWI – meeting characters like Henri Pélissier, who won the Tour that year but who would within the decade be shot dead by his wife’s lover. And Theophile Beeckman – the lone rider on the bridge.

I love the Tour de France. I look forward to those three weeks in July when we get to follow the lycra-clad across alps and cols, down the cobbled pavé and past legions of adoring fans. The Tour isn’t the Tour without the commentary of Ned Boulting, and I’ve been regularly picking up and enjoying his cycling books over the years.

I picked up his latest, 1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession as part of my Audible subscription recently. Narrated by the author himself, what better way of passing a few hours (10 hours, 16 minutes to be exact) in the company of Ned talking about bikes?

In 2020, Ned acquired a fragment of archive footage from the 1923 edition of the Tour de France. It was a short piece of Pathé news film, and with the country on lockdown, became an obsession. Boulting began to delve into the history of the fourth stage of the 1923 Tour, and one rider in particular, Theophile Beeckman.

It’s a fascinating story, though goes far beyond just that stage of the Tour, and becomes more of a history of the wider events in Europe of that time. If you’re looking for a book purely about cycling and the Tour, this may not be the book for you.

It’s a meticulously researched book, going down a veritable warren of rabbit holes. There are times when Boulting’s writing drifts toward the florid, like when he describes the rain falling on the roof window of the house he’s holed up in with Covid, but before long we’re back on the detective trail of the scrap of film and the elusive Beeckman.

If you’re a fan of cycling, I’d recommend you give this a go. The audiobook was good, and Boulting is an excellent narrator, as you’d expect.

1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession, by Ned Boulting is published by Bloomsbury Sport and is out now. I listened to the audiobook as part of my subscription, narrated by the author.

DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat’s instincts come up against Lock’s logic. But when the two missing person’s cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal. 

AI versus human experience. 
Logic versus instinct.
With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statist

I’m very late to the party with this book, as a lot of the bookblogger community seem to have already read and raved about it!

So on the off-chance you’ve not read this book, here’s my review.

Go read it.

Slightly longer version: I really enjoyed it, you should read it.

I was intrigued by the premise -with the seemingly inexorable rise of AI in the real world, it’s extremely topical. Here we have an AI detective joining a pilot scheme with the police, but they’re only allowed access to cold cases. Except cold cases never seem to stay cold for long in these sorts of stories, and before long DCS Kat Frank has to put aside her prejudices and work alongside her hologram partner to solve a couple of cases which suddenly have some similarities.

I really enjoyed this book. Callaghan has taken the police procedural and given it a great new twist. The dynamic between the cold, logical, almost Spock-like AI and the all too human Kat Frank, still grieving for the loss of her husband is played out really well. The banter between the emotionless Lock and the humans adds a lovely dash of humour too.

I guessed a few of the clues along the way (one of the perils of reading so much crime fiction), but the plot was nicely done and the characters highly engaging, and I’m delighted to see that it’s going to be the start of a series.

Very much looking forward to seeing Frank, Lock and the gang back in action soon!

Highly recommended.

In the Blink of An Eye by Jo Callaghan is published by Simon & Schuster and is out now. I bought my copy on Kindle.