The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie #AudiobookReview #MurderMystery #TuesdayBookBlog

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

Author: Agatha Christie

Performed by Hugh Frazer

Published by HarperCollins and released on Audible in 2006

Category: Murder, Mystery, Audiobook, Review

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A mysterious woman, a legendary cursed jewel, and a night train to the French riviera — ingredients for the perfect romance or the perfect crime? When the train stops, the jewel is missing, and the woman is found dead in her compartment. It’s the perfect mystery, filled with passion, greed, deceit. And Hercule Poirot is the perfect detective to solve it…

An intriguing start to The Mystery of the Blue Train with an mysterious parcel being picked up in the dead of night, a large sum of money exchanged and people being shadowed and attacked.

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19Aug2021

#ThrowbackThursday ~ Red Bones (Shetland Book 3) by Ann Cleeves #Crime #Mystery in the Shetland Isles

Posted in Book Review, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Throwback Thursday by Cathy

Since there’s nothing much of interest on the TV lately, I’ve been re-watching the Shetland series. Series 6, put on hold due to Corona virus should be being filmed at the moment. The books stopped at number 6, hopefully the TV series will carry on.

I broke my own rules reading, or listening to, this series completely out of order. It’s not something I normally do but having watched each season on TV, which helps enormously with visualising the people and the locale, and at the same time becoming familiar with the characters, it’s not so much of an issue.

My Thoughts

The story centres round an archaeological dig on Mima Wilson’s croft where a human skull has been found. Red Bones finds Sandy Wilson, Mima’s grandson, visiting family on Whalsay, a short ferry ride from Lerwick where he lives and works as a detective constable in the Shetland police force.

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17Aug2021

The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain #CrimeFiction #Mystery @SpainJoanne @QuercusBooks #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in Book Review, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller by Cathy

Author: Jo Spain

Published: May 2021 by Quercus

Category: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Book Review

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He jumped to his death in front of witnesses. Now his wife is charged with murder.

Five years ago, Erin Kennedy moved to New York following a family tragedy. She now lives happily with her detective husband in the scenic seaside town of Newport, Long Island. When Erin answers the door to Danny’s police colleagues one morning, it’s the start of an ordinary day. But behind her, Danny walks to the window of their fourth-floor apartment and jumps to his death.

Eighteen months later, Erin is in court, charged with her husband’s murder. Over that year and a half, Erin has learned things about Danny she could never have imagined. She thought he was perfect. She thought their life was perfect.

But it was all built on the perfect lie.

Opening with an intense and dramatic scene, The Perfect Lie tells the story of Erin Kennedy who moved to New York from her home in Ireland after a devastating family tragedy. She met and married homicide detective Danny Ryan two years previously.

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11Jun2021

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.