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…
What have you been reading recently? These three novels all fall into the ‘crime fiction’ category, but they couldn’t be more dissimilar. A brilliantly bizarre British mystery which plumbs the dark depths that ‘Inspector Corner of the Yard’ would never dare explore; a breathless, twisting EuroCrime caper which aims to confuse and certainly succeeds, and…
This month’s selection of recommended reads includes a couple of slightly supernatural stories, a BritCrime police procedural with an intriguing central character, an atmospheric Alaskan adventure with the Aleut, snappy short stories, soulful investigations – and, as usual, one book which we rather wish we’d not bothered with. We’ll come to that a little later.…
The days are getting shorter and autumn’s storms have started to arrive. Time to settle down with a gripping thriller and ignore what’s going on in the world outside. This time we have two top-notch Scandi crime novels from best-selling Nordic noir authors; an historic spy story set in WW2; the Lincoln Lawyer’s most important…
We began our exploration of new titles and recommended reads with exotic adventures overseas from small publishers and independent authors. This time we’re staying closer to home with a selection of stories based in and around the United Kingdom – but not necessarily told by British writers. You may be unfamiliar with some of these…
The name of this series instantly engaged my interest. UNSUB. Ooh, that sounds like an FBI profiling serial-killer procedural, along the lines of TV’s Mindhunter. And look; the central character is a determined, accomplished female investigator with more than a little of Clarice Starling and Dana Scully about her (and let’s face it, if I…
This complex indie thriller highlights the dilemma which faces so many debut authors. Write something stylish, provocative, imaginative and challenging and you may never connect with an audience who would appreciate it. Write a Jack Reacher clone or a domestic drama gussied up as a ‘psychological thriller’ and you stand a better chance of selling…
The books we’ve read in the past 12 months have been packed with murder and mayhem, crime and punishment, despair and redemption – the very essence of the human condition, boiled down to brilliant crime-thriller fiction. We read more than 200 mystery and thriller books in 2019, from literary fiction by big-name bestsellers to dazzling…
If you’re seeking mystery and thrills then we’ve got a cracking selection of killer crime fiction for you. British detectives, fatal females; private eyes and serial killers; psychological page-turners and a spooky crime unit, from indie authors and bestselling big names. Here are the recent reads that we loved (and one we didn’t!) ALTERED LIFE…
A cunning stalker story about the perils of social media and becoming too involved with your audience, which features an author writing about being an author being stalked by a blogger, with both of them writing each side of their story. It’s nirvana for narcissists (and let’s not mention that the resulting book is now…
MurderMayhem&More 