Tag Archives: Mystery

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

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

412MsxyY+IL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_Author: Susan Allott

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

Category: Literary Fiction, Historical, Mystery, Book Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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

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

Birthday Girl was published in 2018 by Thomas & Mercer. 

throwbackthursday

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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Backstories ~ A #QandA with author Simon Van der Velde #ShortStories @SimonVdVWriter #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in Book Related, Interview, Short Stories, Uncategorized by

I note that your publisher, Smoke & Mirrors Press describes Backstories as, ‘the stand-out most original book of the year’.  Isn’t this just marketing hyperbole?

Perhaps a little, but perhaps not.  What I do in Backstories, in defiance of creative writing 101, is withhold the protagonists’ identities, and this omission is what makes Backstories so utterly unique.

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#ThrowbackThursday ~ Sitting Murder: A Lancashire Detective Mystery by A.J. Wright #Historical #CrimeFiction

Posted in Book Review, Crime, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Throwback Thursday by

Sitting Murder was originally published in 2017 and choosing this book for my Throwback Thursday choice has reminded me I have the next book on my kindle.

Set in a North-Western English town during the late 19th century, this murder/mystery whodunnit brings the history of the era to life with the terraces of houses, local dialect and a community living in close proximity to one another. The main source of work were the cotton mills and the mines. Alice Goodway, only married a year, has lost her husband, Jack, in a mining accident, which also took the life of her friend’s husband. Since her husband’s death, Alice has become a medium, offering comfort to those who have lost loved ones, through her spiritual contact with Jack.

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

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

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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#ThrowbackThursday ~ A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay #PsychologicalThriller

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

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

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

51s2orBoX3L._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_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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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

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.

‘Crossed skis means danger ahead…’

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#Spotlight on forthcoming #debutnovel The Reincarnationist Papers by @EricMaikranz #TheReincarnationistPapers #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in Crime, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller by

The Reincarnationist Papers, with elements of thriller, mystery, fantasy, crime and historical fiction, is due for publication later this year. It’s also being turned into a movie, releasing this summer by Paramount Pictures under title of “Infinite,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejoifor.  

About the Book

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#GuestPost from #author @RobertBMcCaw ~ Where do characters come from and why? #Crime #Mystery set on Hawaii

Posted in Crime, Guest Post, Murder, Mystery, New Release by

I’m delighted to welcome Robert McCaw with a guest post. Robert is the author of the Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery series and his new book, Death of a Messenger, the prequel to the series, is published tomorrow. 

On Hawaii Island, an anonymous 911 caller reports a body at Pohakuloa, the Army’s live-fire training area. Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane, a cop with his own secret criminal past, finds a mutilated corpse–bearing all the hallmarks of ancient ritual sacrifice.

He encounters a host of obstacles as he pursues the murderer–an incompetent local medical examiner, hostility from both haoles (Westerners) and sovereignty advocates, and a myriad of lies. Koa races to discover whether the victim stumbled upon a gang of high-tech archaeological thieves, or learned a secret so shocking it cost him his life and put others in mortal danger.

Will Hilo’s most respected detective stop this sadistic fiend–or will the Pohakuloa killer strike again, with even deadlier consequences?

Book links ~ Amazon UK | Amazon US | 

Where Do Characters Come From and Why?

Often when I fall in love with a book or a movie, it’s because some unique character sparks my imagination, which leads me to wonder how and why the author conceived them. Consider Michael Connolly’s Harry Bosch or Renée Ballard, Barry Eisler’s John Rain, and Delia Owens’s Kya Clark. I’d love to interview these authors and delve into the origins of these fictional favorites to learn to what degree they are imaginary or not.  Another question I often ask myself is why the author incorporated a particular character at all.  The answer is usually evident for main actors in a story but can be more subtle and elusive for secondary players.

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