Crime Review Update: New Issue of Crime Review

We feature new 20 reviews in each issue of Crime Review (www.crimereview.co.uk), together with a top industry interview. This time it’s author John Lawton in the Countdown hot seat:
http://crimereview.co.uk/page.php/interview/6698

We’re on Twitter at:
Crime Review: @CrimeReviewUK
Linda Wilson: @CrimeReviewer
Sharon Wheeler: @lartonmedia

This week’s reviews are:

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith, reviewed by Linda Wilson

Private investigator Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott have another mystery to solve, digging into a blackmail attempt on a Tory MP, as well as looking into the disturbing possibility that a distressed client really did witness the murder of a child many years ago.

Mr Godley’s Phantom by Mal Peet, reviewed by John Cleal Martin

Heath is struggling to settle after the horrors of World War Two. When an old comrade tells of a position with elderly Harold Godley in a lonely part of Devon, he is plunged into a dark mystery.

A Summer of Murder by Oliver Bottini, reviewed by Chris Roberts

Chief Inspector Louise Boni of the Freiburg Kripo is back on duty and immediately pitched into a major case involving the movement of weapons across Europe.

Maigret’s Failure by George Simenon, reviewed by Arnold Taylor

 Maigret is visited by a village school acquaintance he had never liked. He tells the detective that he has been receiving letters threatening to kill him and, reluctant as Maigret is to get involved with the man, he decides to make enquiries.

Kill the Angel by Sandrone Dazieri, reviewed by Sylvia Maughan

A train from Milan pulls into Rome’s Termini station. No one emerges from the Top-Class coach – they are all dead. Deputy Chief Colomba Caselli is the person who discovers them and then sets out to find the culprit

Keeper by Johana Gustawsson, reviewed by John Barnbrook

Famous actress Julianne Bell is abducted in London in circumstances that are just like murders committed ten years earlier – a case that was believed to have been solved. Then a similar murder is reported in Sweden.

Breathe by Dominick Donald, reviewed by John Cleal

Dick Bourton is not like other probationer policemen. He makes connections his superiors don’t want to see, linking a series of deaths as the fogs of the 1952 winter stop the city in its tracks.

Cry To Dream Again by Jane Hawking, reviewed by Arnold Taylor

The Marlow family are on their annual holiday in the French village of Trémaincourt. Seventeen-year-old Shirley has an insatiable desire to become a ballet dancer. One obsession turns into two when, on the ferry journey home, she encounters a handsome young man named Alan.

The Sinners by Ace Atkins, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Sheriff Quinn Colson finds his wedding plans disrupted when two rival drug suppliers come into conflict and disturb the calm of Jericho and Tibbehah County.

Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire by MRC Kasasian, reviewed by John Cleal
Partly disabled Met sergeant Betty Church avoids being invalided out when her godmother March Middleton arranges a transfer to the Suffolk force. She returns to the town where she grew up to find a police station in chaos and a murderer dubbed the Suffolk Vampire on the loose.

The Friend by Teresa Driscoll, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor
Two boys are in hospital 200 miles away and one of them is Sophie’s son. But no one knows which child Ben is.

The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories by Teresa Solana, reviewed by Chris Roberts 
A collection of short stories set in or around Barcelona featuring a variety of characters, apparently respectable, who become involved in serious crime.

The Bad Neighbour by David Tallerman, reviewed by Linda Wilson
It doesn’t take Ollie Clay long to realise he’s made a mistake buying a rundown house in a squalid district of Leeds. But he’s made his bed, and now he has to lie on it.

The Helicopter Heist by Jonas Bonnier, reviewed by John Cleal
A gang sets out to commit Sweden’s biggest ever cash robbery.

The Ways of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Axel Wolfe’s first attempt at robbery does not go well and he ends up doing a long stretch at a Texas state prison, feeling sore about the partner who left him behind

Crook’s Hollow by Robert Parker, reviewed by Linda Wilson
Someone wants Thor Loxley dead. But he doesn’t know who, or why.

Murder at the Bayswater Bicycle Club by Linda Stratmann, reviewed by John
Cleal
Frances Doughty is asked by a mysterious government agency to keep an eye on goings-on at a posh West London cycle club and enters a world of corruption, murder, espionage and personal danger.

A Darkness of Dragons by SA Patrick, reviewed by Linda Wilson
The children of Hamelyn have never been found, but at least the man responsible for their disappearance is safely under lock and key. Until the dragons decide to take their revenge

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, reviewed by Ewa Sherman
A mysterious Professor of Black Magic arrives with his bizarre entourage in Moscow to wreak havoc among the city’s intellectual elite and ordinary citizens. He soon becomes interested in the fate of the Master and his manuscript about Pontius Pilate.

Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp, reviewed by Linda Wilson
Corey’s best friend is dead, and Corey wants to know how and why that happened. Her questions don’t make her popular in an isolated Alaskan community.

Best wishes

Sharon
www.crimereview.co.uk