The Silence by Susan Allott ~ set in Australia #LiteraryFiction #Historical #Mystery @SusanAllott

Posted in Book Review, Historical, Literary Fiction, Mystery by Cathy

Author: Susan Allott

Published: April 2021 by The Borough Press (paperback edition)

Category: Literary Fiction, Historical, Mystery, Book Review

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A missing woman

30 years ago, in the suffocating heat of a Sydney summer, the Greens’ next-door neighbour Mandy disappeared without a trace.

A cold case reopened

In 1997, in a basement flat in Hackney, Isla Green is awakened by a call in the middle of the night: her father is under suspicion of Mandy’s murder.

A devastating secret

How well does Isla know her father? Is he capable of doing something terrible? And is there another secret in their community – a conspiracy of silence which stretches deep into Australia’s past?

After reading FictionFan’s review I knew this would be a book I’d enjoy, and I certainly did! In 1997 Isla Green was living in London and, awakened at 2am one night by a phone call from her father in Australia, she knew immediately something was wrong. Her father never called. He hated the telephone and always wrote letters.

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10Jun2021

#ThrowbackThursday ~ Birthday Girl by Matthew Iden ~ Every Parent’s Nightmare #Psychological #Thriller

Posted in Crime, Mystery, Psychological, Thriller, Throwback Thursday by Cathy

Birthday Girl was published in 2018 by Thomas & Mercer.

My Thoughts

Since his daughter’s abduction and murder eight years ago, Elliott Nash has lived under a crushing cloud of guilt. His marriage failed, his brilliant career as a criminal psychologist is nothing but a memory, he’s homeless and lives on the streets. The only constants in his life are nightmares and pain. His natural drive to help people has diminished. That is, until he meets former addict Amy Scowcroft. Amy’s daughter, Lacey, has been missing for almost a year but Amy refuses to believe her daughter is dead. Getting nowhere with the investigation into Amy’s disappearance, the police have closed the case. Detective Dave Cargill, who works for the D.C. Metropolitan Child and Family Services, refers Amy to his old friend and former colleague, Elliott Nash.

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3Jun2021

#ThrowbackThursday ~ The Lewis Man by Peter May ~ #Mystery and #Drama in the Outer Hebrides

Posted in Audiobook, Book Review, Crime, Drama, Murder, Mystery, Uncategorized by Cathy

The Lewis Man is the second book in the fabulous Lewis Trilogy by Peter May. I listened to the audiobooks (this one relaesed in 2012), performed brilliantly by Peter Forbes.

My Thoughts

On the Isle of Lewis peat cutting is considered a social activity, with families, friends and neighbours all joining in and working together. Trenches are dug and the peat cut and stacked as it has been for centuries. Only this time the peat cutters uncover more than they bargained for when an almost perfectly preserved body is discovered. Initially the police surgeon thinks the body could have been there for hundreds of years, it was only when a tattoo becomes visible they realise the young man had been murdered much more recently.

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29Apr2021

#ThrowbackThursday ~ Parallel Lies by @GeorgiaRoseBook #RomanticSuspense #Mystery

Posted in Book Review, Contemporary Fiction, Mystery, Romantic Suspense, Throwback Thursday by Cathy

Throwback Thursday this week features the first of the Ross Duology by Georgia Rose, a book I enjoyed very much.

My Thoughts

Twenty-four years old and single, Madeleine Ross has lived on the edge of Crowbridge village for the last four years. Although she’s part of the village community, supports local events and has friendly relationships with people, she doesn’t talk about her life before moving to the village. Her closest friend, Diane (a great character who relishes the local suspicions that she’s a witch) lives next door, and after initially renting the cottage she owned to Madeleine, eventually gave her the option to buy.

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15Apr2021

#ThrowbackThursday ~ A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay #PsychologicalThriller

Posted in Book Review, Mystery, Psychological, Thriller, Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized by Cathy

Paul Davis is on his way home late one night when he sees the car in front has a cracked tail light and is being driven erratically.

Realising it’s his colleague, Kenneth Hoffman, Paul decides to try to get Kenneth to stop, not sure if he’s drunk or looking for somewhere particular. Then Kenneth’s car pulls off onto the pavement. Paul pulls up behind him, ready to offer assistance, but instead makes a shocking discovery which earns him a blow to the head that nearly kills him.

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6Apr2021

Cover Your Tracks by Claire Askew #CrimeFiction #Mystery @OneNightStanzas #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in Book Review, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Police Procedural by Cathy

Author: Claire Askew

Published: August 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton

Category: Crime Fiction, Police Procedural, Book Review

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Robertson Bennet returns to Edinburgh after a 25-year absence in search of his parents and his inheritance. But both have disappeared. A quick, routine police check should be enough – and Detective Inspector Helen Birch has enough on her plate trying to help her brother, Charlie, after an assault in prison. But all her instincts tell her not to let this case go. And so she digs.

A seemingly very well-to-do Robertson Bennet has returned to Edinburgh after decades in America, with hopes of reconnecting with his parents. Unfortunately for him, they were nowhere to be found. He’d left home over thirty years ago after emptying his father’s bank account and never looked back until now. Ostensibly, he was back to reimburse his father.

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26Mar2021

The Night Hawks: Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 13 by Elly Griffiths @ellygriffiths #MurderMystery #BookReview

Posted in Book Review, Crime, Murder, Mystery by Cathy

Author: Elly Griffiths

Published: February 2021 by Quercus

Category: Muder, Mystery, Archaeology, Book Review

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The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk. At first Nelson thinks that the dead man might be an asylum seeker but he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison. Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons. Nelson at first thinks that Taylor’s death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder.

Dr Ruth Galloway has returned to Norfolk and her much loved cottage after a stint as a Cambridge lecturer, taking over her old boss’s position as Head of Archaeology at North Norfolk University. She’s hardly had time to settle in when she gets a call from DCI Nelson to say a body has been washed up at Blakeney Point, found by some metal detectorists.

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9Mar2021

Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot Book 16) by Agatha Christie #MurderMystery #AudiobookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in Audiobook, Book Review, Crime, Murder, Mystery by Cathy

Author: Agatha Christie

Performed by Hugh Fraser

Category: Murder, Mystery, Book Review

Everyone blamed Emily’s accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her. On April 17th she wrote her suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot. Mysteriously he didn’t receive the letter until June 28th…

When Miss Emily Arundel died, not unexpectedly as her health had been delicate, the contents of her will caused a variety of emotions, including surprise, anger, criticism, excitement and gossip. The residents of Market Basing talked and speculated for weeks, and theories were numerous. Although Miss Lawson, Miss Arundel’s companion, professed to be as astonished as everyone else when the will was read, not everyone believed her, especially the Arundel family.

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25Feb2021

#ThrowbackThursday ~ State vs Lassiter (Jake Lassiter Series) by Paul Levine #LegalThriller

Posted in Audiobook, Book Review, Legal, Murder, Mystery, Thriller, Throwback Thursday by Cathy

The Jake Lassiter series was one I really enjoyed. State vs Lassiter is one of the later ones, released in May 2017 by Brilliance Audio and performed by Luke Daniels.

My Thoughts

Life is good for Jake Lassiter, ex Miami Dolphins linebacker turned lawyer…..until he wakes up on the beach with the hangover from hell and no memory of how he got there. He and his lover, Pamela Baylins were spending a romantic weekend at the Fontainebleau Hotel, courtesy of a grateful client.

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5Feb2021

Crossed Skis: An Alpine Mystery by Carol Carnac ~ A British Library Crime Classic #PoliceProcedural #Mystery #FridayReads

Posted in Book Review, British Library Crime Classics, Crime, Mystery, Police Procedural by Cathy

Author: Carol Carnac

British Library Publishing; 1st edition (10 April 2020)

Category: Crime, Mystery, Police Procedural, Book Review

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In Bloomsbury, London, Inspector Brook of Scotland Yard looks down at a dismal scene. The victim of a ruthless murder lies burnt beyond recognition, his possessions and papers destroyed by fire. But there is one strange, yet promising, lead – a lead which suggests the involvement of a skier. Meanwhile, piercing sunshine beams down on the sparkling snow of the Austrian Alps, where a merry group of holidaymakers are heading towards Lech am Arlberg. Eight men and eight women take to the slopes, but, as the C.I.D. scrambles to crack the perplexing case in Britain, the ski party are soon to become sixteen suspects.
This exciting, and now extremely rare, mystery novel was first published in 1952, one year after the author’s own excursion to the Austrian Alps.