The Killing Season and The Samaritan by Mason Cross

It's taken me a long time to read the Mason Cross series - and I'm now kicking myself as they're brilliant action thrillers. These are certainly books for fans of Jack Reacher and Ben Hope. I'm reviewing these both together, as they've been out for some time. The third book in the series - The Time To Kill (previously called Winterlong) - is being published by Orion in June 2016 and I'll review this separately.


The Killing Season
By Mason Cross
Published by Orion (9 April 2015)
ISBN: 978-1409145691

Publisher's description

The first thing you should know about me is that my name is not Carter Blake. That name no more belongs to me than the hotel room I was occupying when the call came in.

When Caleb Wardell, the infamous 'Chicago Sniper', escapes from death row two weeks before his execution, the FBI calls on the services of Carter Blake, a man with certain specialised talents whose skills lie in finding those who don't want to be found. A man to whom Wardell is no stranger.

Along with Elaine Banner, an ambitious special agent juggling life as a single mother with her increasingly high-flying career, Blake must track Wardell down as he cuts a swathe across America, apparently killing at random.

But Blake and Banner soon find themselves sidelined from the case. And as they try desperately to second guess a man who kills purely for the thrill of it, they uncover a hornets' nest of lies and corruption. Now Blake must break the rules and go head to head with the FBI if he is to stop Wardell and expose a deadly conspiracy that will rock the country.

My verdict
In The Killing Season, I met Carter Blake for the first time. He's a man with a mysterious past and who clearly doesn't like to play by the rules. Yet he has principles and certainly has a heart (which reminded me more of Ben Hope than Jack Reacher, although the book will appeal to fans of both).

This is a highly intelligent thriller, with its fast-paced plot and non-stop action scenes. I found myself holding my breath on more than one occasion and I was hooked right until the last page. I didn't predict the ending at all, which led to a great finale.

And I loved the characters so much (yes, Carter Blake in particular) that I read The Samaritan straight afterwards.

The Samaritan
By Mason Cross
Publisher by Orion (31 December 2015)
ISBN: 978-1409146179

Publisher's description

When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered, LAPD Detective Jessica Allen knows she's seen this MO before.

A sadistic serial killer has been operating undetected for a decade, preying on lone female drivers who have broken down. The press dub the killer 'the Samaritan', but with no leads, the police investigation quickly grinds to a halt.

That's when Carter Blake shows up to volunteer his services. He's a skilled manhunter who shares some uncomfortable similarities to the man Allen and her team are tracking. As the slaughter intensifies, Blake must find a way to stop it . . . even if it means bringing his own past crashing down on top of him.

My verdict
The Samaritan is the second adventure featuring 'people hunter' Carter Blake. This is another fast-paced action thriller with plenty of twists and turns and a nail-biting finale.

The plot focuses on a serial killer who is targeting young women. The police are struggling with leads, but Blake believes he recognises the murderer's distinctive 'signature' so joins the hunt for the killer. Yet again, there are plenty of action scenes, well-rounded characters and a complex plot that kept me guessing all the way through.

The Samaritan feeds the reader snippets about Blake's past, which helped to flesh out his character. I am intrigued by the 'Winterlong' operation - this was mentioned throughout the book and seems to be the background for Book 3 (The Time To Kill), which is being published in June 2016.

Mason Cross books are ideal for fans of Ben Hope and Jack Reacher. I hope the Carter Blake series goes on and on.

I received Advance Reader Copies from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Inspiration behind Between You and Me - author feature by Lisa Hall - Blog Tour

I am delighted to kick off the blog tour for Between You and Me by Lisa Hall today. I would like to welcome Lisa to my blog. Read below to discover the inspiration behind Between You and Me, which is being published by Carina UK on 17 March 2016.

The Inspiration behind Between You and Me

If I’m completely honest, the inspiration for Between You and Me seemed to come out of nowhere – the ending of the novel was actually the first idea that came to me, and I decided it had legs after running it past Mr H and he gave it the thumbs up. Once I had the main idea, it was a question of going back and figuring out who my characters were and how they ended up in the situation that they did – something that was easier said than done.

I haven’t been a victim of a violent relationship, but I do know others who have, so I had a lot of research to do in order to get things just right. I spent hours reading the stories of victims of domestic violence, and talking to several people who had been involved and managed to leave, and it really brought it home to me just how common an occurrence this kind of behaviour is – it was completely harrowing and by the time I was finished with the research my characters were screaming to get put down on the page.

The other side of the story is the idea that people can look at others’ lives and deem them ‘perfect’, without ever really knowing what goes on behind closed doors. We all know people who are ‘lucky’ – they might live in a bigger house than us, drive a better car than us, have better behaved children than us (probably most definitely in my case, Team Hall do love a bit of naughtiness) but we don’t know the circumstances that put them there, or the struggles that might have taken place. How do we know what really goes on behind closed doors? None of us knows for sure what happens once the curtains are drawn.

About Lisa Hall

Lisa Hall loves words, reading and everything there is to love about books. She has dreamed of being a writer since she was a little girl – either that or a librarian - and after years of talking about it, was finally brave enough to put pen to paper (and let people actually read it).  Lisa lives in a small village in Kent, surrounded by her towering TBR pile, a rather large brood of children, dogs, chickens and ponies and her long-suffering husband. She is also rather partial to eating cheese and drinking wine.

Readers can find out more about Lisa on her website and Facebook page and follow Lisa on Twitter - @LisaHallAuthor 

Between You and Me
By Lisa Hall
Published by Carina (17 March 2016)

Publisher's description

They say every marriage has its secrets.

But no one sees what happens behind closed doors.

And sometimes those doors should never be opened …

Sal and Charlie are married. They love each other. But they aren’t happy. Sal cannot leave, no matter what Charlie does – no matter how much it hurts.

Click here to read my review

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Between You and Me by Lisa Hall - Blog Tour Review

Between You and Me
By Lisa Hall
Published by Carina (17 March 2016)

Publisher's description

They say every marriage has its secrets.

But no one sees what happens behind closed doors.

And sometimes those doors should never be opened …

Sal and Charlie are married. They love each other. But they aren’t happy. Sal cannot leave, no matter what Charlie does – no matter how much it hurts.

My verdict
Between You and Me is a fantastic book, but certainly not an easy one to review without giving away any spoilers. It's not always a comfortable read either because of the subject matter, but is definitely a book that MUST be read, especially if you're a fan of domestic noir.

Sal and Charlie appear to have the perfect marriage, but behind closed doors it's an entirely different scenario. As the book progresses, the tension builds up and the truth about their relationship bubbles slowly to the surface, leading to a dramatic finale.

This is an emotional book covering some serious complex underlying issues that are not always addressed in the public arena, and it will certainly get people talking. Not all of the characters are easy to like, but they are certainly very believable and help to get the reader right into the centre of the plot. I felt like I was living every moment of Sal and Charlie's marriage, as every little detail is vividly described. I could visualise it and even feel it in places.

Lisa Hall is an incredibly talented writer, with a plot that keeps you guessing, and is clearly the queen of twists, with a story that left me reeling. This is the first book I have HAD to read twice, certain I missed something crucial the first time round.

But there's far more to this book than any twists or turns. And you shouldn't be put off reading Between You and Me if someone has given away the story - it's an amazingly written novel provoking real emotions for the characters.

I look forward to reading more of Lisa Hall's books in the future - and can't wait to see what else she has in store.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from the Publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Click here to read about Lisa Hall's inspiration for the book.

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5 Top Tips on writing a psychological thriller by Lucie Whitehouse - author feature - Blog Tour

I would like to welcome Lucie Whitehouse to my blog today, for her Keep You Close Blog Tour. Read below for Lucie's 5 top tips on writing a psychological thriller. Keep You Close is being published by Bloomsbury on 10 March 2016.

5 Top Tips on writing psychological thrillers
By Lucie Whitehouse

In the past handful of years, psychological thrillers have taken the reading world by storm. Before I Go To Sleep, Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, this year’s The Widow and countless others – one by one they’ve dominated the bestseller lists and sold in the millions.

What makes them so successful? They’re unputdownable – so much so that Marian Keyes recently coined the term ‘grip lit’ to describe them. The suspense is there from the start, hooking us then building and building until we’re flying through the pages. Atmospheres are tense and uncertain, everything and everyone shifting and unreliable. ‘Trust no one’ is the rule of the road not only for the protagonist but us, the reader. Unlike action thrillers, where the excitement comes from explosions or heists, psychological thrillers derive their power from mental and emotional developments so that a single line of dialogue can chill us to the bone. And the other pure pleasure? The twists – being kept guessing all the way to the end.

Here are my tips for writing one of your own.

1. Choose the right point of view. Psychological thrillers are almost always narrated in the first person, I, or in a close third person told ‘over the shoulder’ of the protagonist, allowing access to his or her private thoughts and fears. For the reader to experience the character’s uncertainty and terror for herself, there needs to be as little barrier as possible between the two so seeing inside the character’s mind is essential.

2. Ask a major question at the beginning of the book and withhold the answer until the end. This will give your novel the narrative spine it needs and grab your reader from the start. In Gone Girl, for example, we are faced almost immediately with the question of what has happened to Amy Dunne. Is she dead? And if so, was it her husband who killed her? In Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a classic of suspense, we know from the start that the nameless main character and Maxime, her husband, can never go back to Mandalay. The action of the novel tells us why.

3. Make your characters complex – and flawed. If psychological suspense as a genre has a central question, it’s this: can we ever really know another person? Most frighteningly, can we know the people we think we know best: our closest friends, our partners? In her new novel, You Will Know Me, to be published in June in the UK, Megan Abbott asks if we can even know our own children. Characterisation of the major players in a good psychological novel is like a striptease: we are presented with one version and then, gradually, tantalisingly, the layers come off to show us what’s really underneath.

Unreliable narrators are of the essence here. Many of the protagonists of these novels have a condition that prevents them from being reliable: Kate in The Girl on the Train is an alcoholic who blacks out when drinking; Christine in Before I Go To Sleep has a form of amnesia that wipes her memory every night. Dissociation, fugue states and denial are common. And of course, these things leave a person vulnerable…

… To characters who have an agenda. Because almost everyone in these novels is flawed and therefore has something to hide. Whether it’s criminal or just shameful is for your reader to decide. And that takes us back to the rule of the road: trust no one. In these books, even the protagonist to whose thoughts and fears we have access shouldn’t be completely visible to us straight away. Some characters – Kate and Christine, above – show us from the start that they are unreliable witnesses, others don’t so much as hint at it. When they’re revealed, we are thrown completely – thrillingly – for a loop.

4. Do the twist. But when setting out to wrong-foot your reader, pay careful attention: readers are watching for the slightest hint, knowing that in a well-written book, nothing is included without a purpose. The trick is to disguise that purpose, to make it look as if you’re including the relevant information for a different reason. In other words, while you’re planting the seeds with one hand, distract the reader with the other.

5. Make sure that every development is logical and bears second reading. An attentive reader wanting to understand how he or she has been duped will often go back to find out. The ingenuity of the puzzle is a major part of the appeal of these books so everything has to make practical and psychological sense. Be ready!

About Keep You Close

Keep You Close

By Lucie Whitehouse

Published by Bloomsbury (10 March 2016)

Publisher's description

They said it was a tragic accident.

She knows better...

The brilliant young painter Marianne Glass is found dead in her snow-covered garden.

Rowan Winter, once her closest friend, knows it wasn't an accident.

Marianne had vertigo, paralysing vertigo.

She never would have gone that close to the edge.

About Lucie Whitehouse

Lucie Whitehouse was born in Gloucestershire in 1975, read Classics at Oxford University and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of The House at Midnight, the TV Book Club pick The Bed I Made and Before We Met, which was a Richard & Judy Summer Book Club pick and an ITV3 Crime Thriller selection. Keep You Close is her fourth novel.

Find Lucie Whitehouse on Twitter: @LWhitehouse5

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