My recent reads - 1

Like many people at the moment, I'm struggling to concentrate on reading, even though this used to be my main form of escapism. I'm also struggling to write reviews in any great detail. But when particular books manage to retain my attention, I do want to recommend them. So I am going to write some short reviews on here.

Hopefully once life returns to some form of 'new normal' and my anxiety and concentration levels settle down, my words will flow again. Watch out for this new series of posts, featuring a few books at a time.

The Toy Makers by Robert Dinsdale

I raced through this fairytale, which is set around the time of WW1. It involved embracing the magical element and immersing myself in the story. I thought it was beautifully written, cleverly plotted and very emotional, about love, war and family relationships. My OH picked it up after me and I don't think I have ever seen him read a book so quickly!


Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan

This is an intriguing, intelligent mystery. I found it difficult to put down, and loved everything about it, from the characters to the setting (a bookstore - how can anyone not love that?) and the compelling plot. It is an easy read (some people may call it 'quiet' crime novel) but also a very twisty (and clever) one, featuring secrets from the past, with a horrific killing and a suicide at the heart of it.


The Holiday by T.M. Logan

I have been meaning to read this book for ages and finally took it off my shelf when the author's next book (The Catch) arrived in the post. It's a psychological thriller (domestic noir) set in blazing sunshine in a Mediterranean paradise - perfect escapism from my current location. This is a gripping read, all about family dynamics, friendships and the hazards of parenting teenagers. It kept me guessing to the end and now I'm looking forward to reading The Catch.


The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts

This is another book that's been lying around here for a while, and I am glad that I chose to read it now, as it proved to be great escapism. It's a very dark and disturbing story about two children, one convicted of murder and the other given a new identity, following the killing of an even younger child. I found myself trying to analyse the two main characters and their motives and personalities. The book explores the justice system, the nature of 'evil' and childhood trauma, and features a brilliant ending!

That's all for now! 

Back soon with some more recommended reads. 

Keep safe and well, everyone!

BEST OF CRIME with Jonathan Pinnock

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

JONATHAN PINNOCK

to share his BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

I’m very much looking forward to whatever Gillian Flynn comes up with next, because Gone Girl was such a wild, mad ride. But in the meantime – and this might be cheating slightly, because they’re strictly speaking spy stories, but then again I don’t have a lot of time for genre boundaries – I’m currently working my way through Mick Herron’s Slough House series, and they are an absolutely marvel. Imagine looking at Le Carré and thinking “Nah, way too upbeat.”

If I can be ever so slightly pretentious for a moment, I’d also like to chuck in a third preference vote for Jorge Luis Borges, if only for Death and the Compass, which is possibly the single greatest crime short story ever written. As I’m sure everyone knows, the central conceit was borrowed by Umberto Eco for The Name of the Rose, which is why one of the key characters is called Jorge de Burgos. As slightly fewer people know, I also nicked it for The Truth About Archie and Pye, which is why one of my characters has the name George Burgess.

OK, OK, I’ll try and keep the answers shorter from now on.

... FILMS/MOVIES

I’m a massive fan of Raymond Chandler, so it’s got to be The Big Sleep – nothing comes close. But for God’s sake, make sure it’s the original 1946 Howard Hawks version with Bogart and Bacall at the top of their game, not the execrable 1978 Michael Winner remake. I actually paid real money to see this in the cinema when it came out and I’m still angry, over forty years later.

... TV DRAMAS

Ooh, this is tricky. Giri/Haji and the first series of Killing Eve are strong contenders, but in the end, it’s got to be The Bridge, or Bron | Broen, as we call it in our household, where we now speak fluent Scandinavian. The first two seasons in particular are wonderful, mainly because of the weird chemistry between Saga Norén and Martin Rohde. Oh, and that theme tune by Choir of Young Believers is just perfect.

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

Well, I guess Hannibal Lecter is a bit of an obvious choice, so let’s go with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Mysterons, mainly because they were so endearingly useless. At the start of every single episode, they would announce that they were going to kill someone or cause some kind of disaster, and every single time they were thwarted by bloody Captain Scarlet. Hopeless.

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

I think it would have to be Louie Knight, from Malcolm Pryce’s Aberystwyth Noir series. On the face of it, he’s a pastiche of Philip Marlowe, but there’s so much more going on there. Pryce’s Aberystwyth is a masterpiece of world-building.

... MURDER WEAPONS

I’m guessing that someone must have mentioned it before in this series, because it’s just so neat, but there’s Roald Dahl’s frozen leg of lamb that a woman uses to bludgeon her husband before serving it to the investigating detective. I also quite like the serial killer in one of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books, The Visitor, who goes around drowning their victims in their own bathtubs in camouflage paint. Not only is it downright weird, but it’s also preposterously inefficient.

... DEATH SCENES

Might need to put a mild spoiler alert on this – and possibly a Lionel Shriver alert too – but the conclusion of We Need to Talk About Kevin shocked me much more than I was expecting it to.

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

I’m afraid that I’m not a particularly faithful web surfer, and if I’m about to do any research I tend to just start with Google and see where it leads me. My search history can make for interesting reading in itself.

... WRITING TIPS

Most of all, I’d recommend that you avoid taking advice from strangers on the internet. But if you insist, read widely and outside your genre, make sure all your characters have agency and for God’s sake, listen to how people talk.

... WRITING SNACKS

I share my life with someone who, if given a two-finger Kit-Kat, will break it in two, eat one finger and carefully re-wrap the remaining one to keep for some future occasion. Maybe next week, or some time the other side of Christmas. I, on the other hand, see a packet of chocolate digestives as an atomic entity, intended to be eaten all in one go if I think I can get away with it. So what I’m basically saying is that I don’t do snacks while writing. They’re far too dangerous.

About JONATHAN PINNOCK

Jonathan Pinnock first came to notoriety as the author of Mrs Darcy Versus the Aliens, of which he should probably be more ashamed than he actually is. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, a slim volume of poetry and an uncategorisable (and – frankly – largely unsaleable) musical memoir. More recently, he is the author of Farrago Books’ Mathematical Mystery series, the third of which, The Riddle of the Fractal Monks, was published on 16 April 2020.

Find Jonathan Pinnock on Twitter - @jonpinnock

About THE RIDDLE OF THE FRACTAL MONKS

Publisher's description

A mystery lands – literally – at Tom Winscombe’s feet, and another riotous mathematical adventure begins…

Tom Winscombe and Dorothy Chan haven’t managed to go on a date for some time, so it’s a shame that their outing to a Promenade Concert is cut short when a mysterious cowled figure plummets from the gallery to the floor of the arena close to where they are standing. But when they find out who he was, all thoughts of romance fly out of the window.

Just who are the Fractal Monks, and what does Isaac, last of the Vavasors and custodian of the papers of famed dead mathematical geniuses Archie and Pye, want with them? How will other figures from the past also demand a slice of the action? And what other mysteries are there lurking at the bottom of the sea and at the top of mountains? The answers lie in The Riddle of Fractal Monks.

The Riddle of the Fractal Monks is published by Farrago Books.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

BEST OF CRIME with Amy McLellan

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

AMY McLELLAN

to share her BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

My all-time favourite is Graham Greene, master of noir, shabby spies, tortured souls and ruthless criminals. 

... FILMS/MOVIES

A Few Good Men. First date with my husband, fellow author Adam Hamdy. We loved a good conspiracy thriller even back then. No, you can’t handle the truth.

... TV DRAMAS

Bosch on Amazon Prime, starring Titus Welliver.  Gripping story-telling that gets better and better with every season.

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

Ian Fleming’s Dr No. Such a sinister character with his secret island and his fascination with pain. And the scene with the spiders…let’s not go there… 

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

So many greats to pick from but I’d like to share the love for Elliot Rook QC, a criminal barrister with a secret past. He’s the wonderfully drawn main character in Gary Bell’s debut Beyond Reasonable Doubt, which feels so authentic you wonder to what degree Mr Rook is actually auto-biographical …

... MURDER WEAPONS

Mouldy peanuts, as used in Graham Greene’s The Human Factor. Apparently the mould kills liver cells, useful for spies trying to dispose of people without any public fuss.

... DEATH SCENES

There’s a scene in Alison Belsham’s dark and gripping The Tattoo Thief which stayed with me. The clue is in the title…

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

Mumsnet. All of human life is on there. Utterly addicted

... WRITING TIPS

Sit down every morning, stare at empty screen, fill it one word at a time. And repeat. Seriously, just keep going. 

... WRITING SNACKS

Coffee. Lots of coffee. And gum, to stop me eating ALL the chocolate. 

About AMY McLELLAN

Amy McLellan is a freelance journalist and copywriter. She lives in Shropshire with her husband and three children. Remember Me is her debut novel.  

Find Amy McLellan on Twitter - @AmyMcLellan2

About REMEMBER ME

Publisher's description

Sarah witnesses her sister’s murder but she can’t identify the perpetrator because she has prosopagnosia - she can't recognise faces. The police think she did it and if she doesn't find the man who did it, she’s going to be found guilty of murder…but who do you trust when people may not be who they say they are?

Remember Me is published by Orion.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

BEST OF CRIME with Emily Koch

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

EMILY KOCH

to share her BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

I don’t often read lots of books by the same author, I have to admit – so it’s difficult to pick a favourite. But when I read the literary thriller Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng I immediately went and bought her debut, Everything I Never Told You. I love both, and have re-read them since. They are such fantastic character studies, such subtle mysteries, and such brilliant explorations of family life.

... FILMS/MOVIES

I watched Thelma and Louise for the first time the other week and I loved it so much. What a fantastic pair! I loved the way this story develops, and how it’s not your usual crime story – the way you are following the criminals rather than the detectives and see them before their crime, too. And the ending. Oh my God, that ending! I thought it was perfect.

... TV DRAMAS

Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul on Netflix is a firm favourite in our house. The only thing that could knock it off the top of our list would be a series about another character, the delightfully paradoxical softie hitman Mike. Come on, Netflix! More Mike Ehrmantraut!

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

Tom Ripley. I only read The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith recently but boy, what a novel. What an amazing, amoral, anti-hero. How the hell does she make you like a murderer? I love books that make me think like this – as a writer I love to try and solve the puzzle of exactly how another author has achieved something bold like this. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

I love Captain Sam Wyndham in Abir Mukherjee’s crime series. He’s an ex-Scotland Yard detective and veteran of the First World War who has been scarred by his experiences and finds himself in Calcutta looking for a fresh start. He and his quick-witted Indian Sergeant, Surrender-not Banerjee, make a great team and I love the historical (1920s) setting of this series.

... MURDER WEAPONS

A compass point through the jugular and a set square through the heart are two of the murder weapons in Jonathan Pinnock’s very entertaining mathematical mystery The Truth about Archie and Pye. It’s a crime novel that will make you laugh out loud – which is refreshing in this genre! There are two more in the series (the third, The Riddle of the Fractal Monks, comes out in April).

... DEATH SCENES

There’s a heart-in-the-mouth, devastating scene in Jane Shemilt’s latest offering, Little Friends, where a lifeless child is discovered. I have a child of a similar age so it really got to me. She builds up to this scene so expertly. It’s a fantastic novel with a great premise – while the adults are misbehaving, what are the children getting up to?

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

I love using 16personalities.com to put my characters through rigorous personality tests and understand more about them beyond what I already know. The helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com blog (and podcast) is really helpful when I’m starting to write a book, I find it reading a few posts there helps get my brain into the right gear. And… Facebook! For research, I often ask friends for contacts or advice on there.

... WRITING TIPS

You know the phrase: dance like nobody’s watching? Well, I think sometimes it’s worth writing like nobody is reading. What I mean by that is it sometimes helps to just write for yourself. What book do youwant to write? What fun things would you do with your writing if you weren’t worried about how it would be received or judged? Give yourself the freedom to experiment and see what happens – you can always rein yourself in later, but maybe you’ll come up with a brilliant idea when you’re playing around! And while you’re at it, write a few pages every now and then longhand with a colourful felt tip pen. It makes the whole task feel less serious, I find, and less like it matters. You need to feel that sometimes, as a writer – it’s liberating.

... WRITING SNACKS

A fresh-out-of-the-oven cinnamon bun when I’m working at my local café. Oh yes.

About EMILY KOCH

Emily Koch is an award-winning journalist and writer living in Bristol with her family. Her second novel Keep Him Close came out in March 2020. Her debut, If I Die Before I Wake, was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award, longlisted for Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, and selected as a Waterstones Thriller of the Month.

Find Emily Koch on Twitter - @EmilyKoch

About KEEP HIM CLOSE

Publisher's description

Her head was bowed, and the hands braced on the chair arms were not like hands at all, but the dry dark claws of a bird ... The MacNamara sisters hadn’t been seen for months before anyone noticed. It was Father Timoney who finally broke down the door, who saw what had become of them. Berenice was sitting in her armchair, surrounded by religious tracts. Rosaleen had crawled under her own bed, her face frozen in terror. Both had starved themselves to death. Francesca MacNamara returns to Dublin after decades in the US, to find her family in ruins. Meanwhile, Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine are convinced that there is more to the deaths than suicide. Because what little evidence there is, shows that someone was watching the sisters die ...

Keep Him Close was published by Harvill Secker on 19 March 2020.

FRIDAY NIGHT BOOK PARTY WITH EMILY KOCH

Friday Night Book Party with Emily Koch – starts on 27th March. 

Every Friday evening while we are all social distancing, Emily will be hosting a fun evening of book chat, games, giveaways, guest authors and even a book disco. 

Visit facebook.com/emilykochwriter for more details.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

Deep Dark Night by Steph Broadribb

Deep Dark Night 
By Steph Broadribb
Published by Orenda Books (5 March 2020)
I received an advance reader copy from the publisher 

Publisher's description

A city in darkness. A building in lockdown. A score that can only be settled in blood…

Working off the books for FBI Special Agent Alex Monroe, Florida bounty-hunter Lori Anderson and her partner, JT, head to Chicago. Their mission: to entrap the head of the Cabressa crime family. The bait: a priceless chess set that Cabressa is determined to add to his collection.

An exclusive high-stakes poker game is arranged in the penthouse suite of one of the city’s tallest buildings, with Lori holding the cards in an agreed arrangement to hand over the pieces, one by one. But, as night falls and the game plays out, stakes rise and tempers flare.

When a power failure plunges the city into darkness, the building goes into lockdown. But this isn’t an ordinary blackout, and the men around the poker table aren’t all who they say they are. Hostages are taken, old scores resurface and the players start to die.

And that’s just the beginning…

My verdict
It feels very apt to publish this book review on Off-the-Shelf Books on Mother's Day in the UK, because Lori Anderson, the protagonist of Deep Dark Night, is very much a devoted mother. She also happens to be a kickass bounty hunter who get herself into various precarious scenarios. And the scenario in Deep Dark Night certainly seems to be her most dangerous one yet.

Lori and her partner JT have taken on a high-stakes case that involves not just gambling for money but gambling for their lives. And while everything falls apart around her, all Lori can really think about is getting back safely to her daughter.

Deep Dark Night is 'Die Hard on speed', with constant action through skyscraper blackouts, riots in the city and a locked-room mystery. The book sizzles with electricity, taking the reader on a rollercoaster of emotions, yet also has an intense claustrophobic feel to it. It's a brilliant fun one-sitting read that will push your adrenaline levels sky high.

Another reason I love this book is that due to its structure JT finally has 'a voice' as we follow his endeavours to keep himself safe, after he and Lori are forced to go their separate ways. Thanks to plenty of cliffhangers followed by a switch in viewpoint, this book constantly left me feeling on edge.

This series keeps on getting better and better, with Steph Broadribb expertly creating three-dimensional characters and plots that continue to shock, thrill and entertain. Looking forward to the next one.


Follow the Blog Tour

BEST OF CRIME with Trevor Wood

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

TREVOR WOOD

to share his BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

Obviously there are loads I love but the well-known ones don’t need any help from me so I’d like to give a shout out to the next big thing, Dominic Nolan. His debut novel Past Life blew me away. Featuring battered cop Abigail Boone, who suffers from total retrograde amnesia after a savage beating and a fall, it’s dark and desperate but beautifully written and deeply moving. The sequel After Dark is even better. If there’s any justice it’ll be a huge hit. 

... FILMS/MOVIES

I love Dennis Lehane’s books and the movie made from one of them, Gone Baby Gone is nigh on perfect. It provides all the thrills and twists the genre demands but at the heart of it is a moral dilemma that is utterly heartbreaking. The final scene, I’d suggest, is one of the best in crime movie history. It would be much better known if it hadn’t been shelved for a couple of years due to the kidnapped young girl bearing a startling resemblance to Madeleine McCann.

... TV DRAMAS

Line of Duty has been consistently brilliant from the start so that has to get a mention but surely everyone’s seen it now so I’ll throw Spotless out there. It’s a little-known Netflix series about a man who runs a crime scene clean-up crew. Funny, dark with a very scary bad guy. I love it.

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

Maurice Swift in John Boyne’s A Ladder to the Sky. He’s a bit like Ripley but with the extra twist that he’s a writer who will do anything to get to the top. Great book as well.

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

Back to Dennis Lehane for this one. Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are a fantastic pairing of old-school private detectives and their on-off romance is beautifully judged. I read most of the series back to back and it flew by. Start with A Drink Before The War and go from there.

... MURDER WEAPONS

Carl Hiaasen is the master of bizarre murder weapons. On the grounds of taste I’m going to skip swiftly past the sexually-deviant dolphin in Native Tongue and opt for the stuffed blue marlin head that is used to impale an intruder in Skin Tight.

... DEATH SCENES

I love the scene in Final Destination 5 where a man is on an acupuncture table with umpteen needles sticking out of his face, torso and legs when an aromatic candle breaks apart and sets fire to some paper. In struggling to escape he flips over the table and falls face first on the floor, driving the needles in and knocking over a bottle of flammable liquid. Somehow he struggles up but the liquid catches fire and the whole room is now ablaze. Again he avoids death by throwing himself to the floor in the one bit of the room not on fire. Then a shelf above him collapses and a large statue of Buddha falls off, crushing his skull. 

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

I was going to say Agent Hunter, which I found invaluable when looking for an agent. It was a comprehensive list of Agencies and Agents with a search facility that enabled you to find the right agent, i.e. one who liked the kind of thing you were writing. It also included links to interviews they’d given which was very useful in deciding who to submit to and what to put in your submission letter. You could also pay a small amount for a trial period which is all you really needed. However, in writing this, I looked it up and found it’s been taken over and is now called Agent Match and you have to pay £30 for a month. It’s still worth it, I think, so my only reservation is that I haven’t tried the new site so can’t recommend it from personal experience. I’m sure it’s still great but it’s probably best to ask around before trying. You can find it here https://jerichowriters.com/agentmatch/

... WRITING TIPS

The most on-point advice I ever heard was that you should ‘put your character up a tree and throw rocks at him.’ It’s been attributed to Nabokov but that seems highly unlikely to me. 

My top tip would be to find people whose judgement you trust to read your work. As many as you like. I’m in a local group of five writers who meet every three weeks. We all submit 2000 words and offer constructive criticism of each other’s work and it improves my writing immeasurably.  Obviously the key word is ‘constructive.’ If you can’t find a local group, form your own. The crime-writing MA I attended at UEA had a similar peer feedback model and that was where The Man on the Street came from so I can’t recommend it highly enough.

... WRITING SNACKS

Does wine count? If not, then fruit. Working from home, with very easy access to the fridge can be problematic so I try very hard not to snack on anything less healthy as I put on weight way too easily. Also coffee. Lots of coffee.

About TREVOR WOOD

Trevor Wood has lived in Newcastle for twenty-five years and considers himself an adopted Geordie. He's a successful playwright who has also worked as a journalist and spin-doctor for the City Council. Prior to that he served in the Royal Navy for sixteen years. Trevor holds an MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) from UEA. The Man on the Street is his first novel.

Find Trevor Wood on Twitter - @TrevorWoodWrite

About THE MAN ON THE STREET

Publisher's description

Her head was bowed, and the hands braced on the chair arms were not like hands at all, but the dry dark claws of a bird ... The MacNamara sisters hadn’t been seen for months before anyone noticed. It was Father Timoney who finally broke down the door, who saw what had become of them. Berenice was sitting in her armchair, surrounded by religious tracts. Rosaleen had crawled under her own bed, her face frozen in terror. Both had starved themselves to death. Francesca MacNamara returns to Dublin after decades in the US, to find her family in ruins. Meanwhile, Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine are convinced that there is more to the deaths than suicide. Because what little evidence there is, shows that someone was watching the sisters die ...

The Man on the Street was published by Quercus on 19 March 2020.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.