I really should know what to expect when I pick up a sci-fi thriller by AG Riddle. After all, I’ve read half a dozen of them and they share a comfortable formula. Half geek: half boy’s own adventure. This means you get thoughtful speculative extrapolation based around solid contemporary scientific concepts – something of a…
Who needs a plan anyway? Everyone on the planet must already be aware of the vast line of Jack Reacher novels, from the very first – Killing Floor – right up to the present day, with authorship duties split between Lee Child (not his real name) and his brother Andrew Child (possibly not his real…
I’ve been a John Sandford fan since the Prey series started in the late 1980s. Back then, Lucas Davenport tracked down gruesomely grisly serial killers and brutally despatched them with grim efficiency – before falling onto bed with any attractive woman who could be extracted from her underwear. Since then Lucas has aged almost gracefully…
Norwegian detective William Wisting has taken over where Wallander left off – which delights me, because I’ve always found Jorn Lier Horst’s world rather more rewarding to visit. This is a long-running series but if you’ve just come to the books – perhaps because you’ve seen the TV version – then this story is skilfully…
Tis the season of spooky stories – and here comes a collection of eleven standalone supernatural short stories to send shivers down your spine. These eerie and outlandish fables resonate with the traditions of true Victorian gothic – although you won’t encounter anything truly horrific in here. These are gently unsettling stories of the type…
Now this is a clever concept: techno-thriller meets grisly ritual in a locked-room mystery that would make Agatha’s head spin… plus a side-order of supernatural tribal mysticism. Count me in! A short way into reading this I remembered that I’d thoroughly enjoyed the author’s earlier mind-bending mystery, Five Minds, which quite literally crammed five personalities…
No one could ever accuse AG Riddle of writing stories crammed with highly detailed, hard science. Instead he’s perfected a form of 21st century techno-thriller – following in the footsteps of Michael Crichton – where a strand of scientific speculation provides a launch pad for a fast-paced adventure into the unknown. This approach typically takes…
Half of this book is brilliant. The other half? Not so. The Undiscovered Deaths… is one of those carefully constructed novels that’s concocted of complicated layers. A mystery disguises a secret that in turn conceals a hidden truth – usually a perfect premise for a psychological thriller. Problem is, the initially intriguing aspects are overwhelmed…
Don’t start here! This is the second in a superbly constructed sci-fi series, stacked with multiple meshed threads from ideologically estranged offshoots of future humanity. I waited eagerly for it to arrive after consuming the first part in short order, but you need to begin at the beginning to stand a chance of keeping up…
There’s a gritty elegance to Ed McBain’s 87th precinct detective series. The writing might be more than half a century old, but it packs all the punch of a modern murder investigation – and suffers from a lot less of the fluffy filling. I’m a big fan of series like Michael Connelly’s Bosch, John Sandford’s…
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