Crime Review Update

In our new edition of Crime Review (www.crimereview.co.uk) this week we
have 16 reviews, together with Matt Hilton in the Countdown interview hot
seat.
We’re on Twitter at:
Crime Review: @CrimeReviewUK
Linda Wilson: @CrimeReviewer
Sharon Wheeler: @lartonmedia

This week’s reviews are:
EXPOSURE by Helen Dunmore, reviewed by Sharon Wheeler
It’s 1960 London, and Cold War paranoia is at its height – so someone is
going to have to shoulder the blame for a top-secret file going missing.

PRESERVE THE DEAD by Brian McGilloway, reviewed by John Cleal
Detective Sergeant Lucy Black and her reformed alcoholic DI Tom Fleming
become involved in a series of apparently unconnected events which
eventually lead them to corruption and murder.

LOCKWOOD AND CO: THE HOLLOW BOY by Jonathan Stroud, reviewed by Linda Wilson
London is in the grip of a terrifying plague of ghosts, stretching all the
psychic investigation agencies – including Lockwood & Co – to breaking
point.

SMOKE AND WHISPERS by Mick Herron, reviewed by Arnold Taylor
Sarah Tucker finds out from the internet that the body of her friend, Zoe
Boehm, has been discovered floating in the Tyne. She is asked by the local
police to go to Newcastle and make a formal identification.

EUROPA BLUES by Arne Dahl, reviewed by Ewa Sherman
A gangster is eaten by wolverines in Stockholm Zoo. A celebrated professor
is executed in the Jewish cemetery. Eight East European women from a
refugee hostel disappear. The Intercrime Unit investigates how and why
these cases might be connected.

ONLY TO DIE AGAIN by Patrick Lee, reviewed by Linda Wilson
Sam Dryden doesn’t hesitate when he’s asked for help by an old friend, but
soon finds himself up to his neck in trouble.

ENOUGH ROPE by Barbara Nadel, reviewed by Chris Roberts
While his assistant investigates the parenthood of a baby once left in a
telephone box, ex-copper and PI Lee Arnold helps out a police
superintendent whose son has been kidnapped.

POST MORTEM by Kate London, reviewed by Linda Wilson
A young girl and a long-serving police officer fall to their deaths from a
London tower block. The only witnesses are a traumatised child and Lizzie
Griffiths, a rookie cop.

THE BODY SNATCHER by Patricia Melo, reviewed by Chris Roberts
A man out fishing is the sole witness to a plane crash, and relieves the
dead pilot of his watch, his phone, and a kilo of cocaine.

THE AFFINITY BRIDGE by George Mann, reviewed by Linda Wilson
The dashing Sir Maurice Newbury and his unflappable assistant Miss Veronica
Hobbes investigate the strange cases of a spectral policeman and an airship
crash in a steampunk re-imagining of Victorian London.

THE UNBURIED by Charles Palliser, reviewed by John Cleal
Academic Dr Edward Courtine visits a former college friend with whom he had
lost touch, but becomes involves in a 200-year-old murder mystery – and a
very modern killing.

THE SAVAGE HOUR by Elaine Proctor, reviewed by Chris Roberts
The death of an aged woman doctor breaks the long-established pattern of
relationships on the rural South African farm she owns.

BACKHAND SMASH by JM Gregson, reviewed by Sharon Wheeler
DCI Percy Peach and his sidekick DS Northcott investigate a murder at a
snooty tennis club

MANHATTAN MAYHEM edited by Mark Higgins Clark, reviewed by John Cleal
Seventeen short stories from members of the Mystery Writers of America to
celebrate the organisation’s 70th anniversary.

SARAH CANARY by Karen Joy Fowler, reviewed by John Cleal
A mysterious white woman appears in a Chinese railway camp in the winter of
1873. Ordered by his uncle to return her to the white world, a young
Chinese man begins a quest for right and good.

AND SHE WAS by Alison Gaylin, reviewed by Sylvia Maughan
Brenna Spector is a PI with a condition that gives her an enhanced memory.
She is hired to find the wife of a man called Nelson Wentz but runs into
trouble when she finds her body.

Best wishes

Sharon