June 5

Kill The Next One – Federico Axat

Kill The Next OneTed has it all: a beautiful wife, two daughters, a high-paying job. But after he is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour he finds himself with a gun to his temple, ready to pull the trigger. That’s when the doorbell rings.

A stranger makes him a proposition: kill two deserving men before dying. The first is a criminal, and the second is, like Ted, terminally ill, and wants to die. If Ted kills these men he will then become a target himself in a kind of suicidal daisy chain—and won’t it be easier for his family if he’s a murder victim?

Kill The Next One is an audacious, immersive psychological thriller in which nothing is what it seems.

 

My thanks to Sophie Goodfellow for my review copy

Cards on the table here – I have no idea how to review Kill The Next One. Read the description above and I will pick up from here when you jump back down.

Okay – The book opens with Ted preparing to kill himself.  He has a brain tumour and while his wife and kids are away on a trip he plans to lock himself in his study, leave a note for his wife warning her to keep the kids away then shoot himself in the head. As you can see Ted has not had the best of times.

But just before he can squeeze the trigger someone comes knocking at his front door. The man is shouting through the house to Ted that he knows what Ted is planning and he has a better offer.  Unable to carry on until he finds out what this person may be offering (and how he knew what Ted was planning) Ted opens his door.

The stranger suggests that Ted can do one last good deed and kill a criminal who has escaped justice on a legal technicality. Ted will then kill a second man who (like Ted) is looking to die…at that point Ted will become the next potential victim of another person who also wants to die.  A chain of suicides – rather than take their own life they will be killed by a stranger. The theory being that a “terrible accident” is easier for surviving families to deal with and it could also mean insurance policies pay out (that is possibly not in the book but I work in insurance so I may have mentally added that).

At this point (and we are only a few chapters into the book by this stage) everything went in a totally different direction to what I was expecting.  I had anticipated Ted would hunt down the criminal, eventually bump him off, kill the second person and set himself up to be the next victim in the chain and then we wait to see how his death happens.  Nope. That’s not the story. Am I going to tell you what DOES happen? Nope, well not in much detail.

How about I say that Ted decides the offer has some merit and he looks into the possibility of killing the criminal?  But can he be sure that the criminal has actually done the crime that the stranger at Ted’s door has accused him of?  Also Ted seems like a good, decent and honourable man – can he really take on a killer and expect to have the nerve to end a life?

Federico Axat has made Ted into one of the most troubled and complex characters that I think I have ever read about.  His story is complicated and makes for difficult/troubling reading at times. But his story is important and it really got me thinking about the importance of life choices.

Go back to the book description and focus on the end of that last sentence: “nothing is what it seems” I have alluded to the fact the book did not take the direction I had anticipated, well for Ted it may just be that not everyone is being entirely honest with him – or is Federico Axat not being entirely honest with the reader and keeping secrets from us?   Only one way to find out – purchase link is below.

 

Kill The Next One is published by Text Publishing and is available in paperback and digital format. Order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kill-Next-One-Federico-Axat-ebook/dp/B01KEBZP40/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1496696318&sr=1-1&keywords=kill+the+next+one

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June 2

Bitter Moon – Alexandra Sokoloff

Bitter MoonThe Huntress/FBI Thrillers: Book 4

FBI agent Matthew Roarke has been on leave, and in seclusion, since the capture of mass killer Cara Lindstrom—the victim turned avenger who preys on predators. Torn between devotion to the law and a powerful attraction to Cara and her lethal brand of justice, Roarke has retreated from both to search his soul. But Cara’s escape from custody and a police detective’s cryptic challenge soon draw him out of exile—into the California desert and deep into Cara’s past—to probe an unsolved murder that could be the key to her long and deadly career.

Following young Cara’s trail, Roarke uncovers a horrifying attack on a schoolgirl, the shocking suicide of another, and a human monster stalking Cara’s old high school. Separated by sixteen years, crossing paths in the present and past, Roarke and fourteen-year-old Cara must race to find and stop the sadistic sexual predator before more young women are brutalized.

 

I received a review copy through Netgalley

Cara Lindstrom is a killer. Matthew Roarke is an FBI agent (though in Bitter Moon he is on leave). Their paths have crossed and it has had a profound impact upon Roarke’s life and his career.  Bitter Moon is the 4th book in Alexandra Sokoloff’s Huntress/FBI Thrillers series and reading the first three books in the series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon and Cold Moon) will ensure you get the best reading experience for Bitter Moon.

So the book…it’s a corker.

Roarke is on leave of absence from the FBI but a call from an angry law enforcement officer wanting to know why Roarke doesn’t want to catch Cara Lindstrom, sees him hitting the road and heading to Riverside County, California. On meeting the angry cop face-to-face, Roarke is puzzled why the officer is so irate over Cara being on the run. Roarke knows that Lindstrom spent time in Riverside County shortly after the “incident” (spoilers) which determined the path her life would take.  He elects to stick around and do a big of digging into the background of the town.

What I loved about the direction Bitter Moon takes is that we follow Roarke trying to piece together what Cara may have been doing in Riverside County, the places she visited and the people she crossed paths with.  But between the sections of the narrative which follow Roarke we get a Cara narrative.  A Cara narrative from when she was a schoolgirl, trying to fit into her new school, her new social care house and trying to contend with the monsters she has faced and must continue to battle. The shifting timeframe of the book is wonderfully worked and makes Bitter Moon stand out in the series as the tone feels so different.

What really makes these stories resonate with me is the fact Roarke is still torn over the crimes Cara commits. She kills sexual predators, killers, men who prey upon young vulnerable girls. Cara is looking to protect those innocent victims by killing the host of the EVIL within the predators. Roarke as a law enforcement officer knows she is a killer yet also knows that her victims are committing crimes which bring Cara’s judgement upon themselves. In Bitter Moon he almost seems bewildered that Cara could be killing at such a young age (and with such ruthless efficiency).  The reader gets to see Cara identifying the threat and we watch how she deals with it. Alexandra Sokoloff paints an unflinching picture of all the crimes and the series is all the more powerful for the anger and energy which drive the stories.

Bitter Moon can be read and enjoyed as a stand alone novel but this series is so damn good I really would recommend picking up Huntress Moon and working your way through the 4 books in order. Bitter Moon is a 5 star read for me. I loved it and I cannot wait to see where the Cara/Roarke story goes next.

 

Bitter Moon is published by Thomas & Mercer and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook formats.  You can order a copy through this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Moon-Huntress-Thrillers-Book-ebook/dp/B01F8PWUY0/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

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June 1

The Legion of Regrettable Super Villains – Jon Morris

Legion of Regrettable Super VillainsEvery hero needs a villain. But not all villains are dangerous some are incompetent, comical, or just weird. In his follow-up to The League of Regrettable Superheroes, author Jon Morris presents over a hundred of the strangest, most stupefying supervillains to ever see print in comics. Meet D-list rogues like Brickbat (choice of weapon: poisonous bricks), Robbing Hood (steals from the poor to give to the rich), Swarm (a crook made of bees; Nazi bees), and many more. Drawing on the entire history of the medium, The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains affectionately and hilariously profiles oddball criminals from the history of comics.

 

My thanks to Jamie at Quirk Books for my review copy.

Factual books talking about fictional stories are brilliant distractions.  I have shelves of books which break down all 36 seasons of Doctor Who. Star Trek is also well represented as are volumes on Spider-man characters, every hero ever to be an Avenger, Batman through the years and even a Thunderbirds anthology.  So when Quirk Books kindly let me review The Legion of Regrettable Super Villains I was like a kid in a sweet shop (or a reader locked in a bookshop).

Jon Morris has trawled the archives of comic book history to find us some of the more obscure villains to grace the pages of comic books.  Spanning tales from the Golden Age (where there were a plethora of characters I confess I had never heard of). To modern times where there were signs some creative teams were rushing toward deadline and the inspiration-fairy had left them in the lurch. There are some weird and wonderful characters to read about and you can decide for yourself if you feel that some may be due a revival.

As with any of these collections I was instinctively drawn to the characters and stories that I recognised (and there were several).  By comparing my own opinion on some of the Regrettable Villains against that of the author I could benchmark how fairly, or not, they are being treated.  Overall I was very pleased with the outcome of that experiment as I seemed to be quite aligned to the author’s way of thinking for the most part.

Each Villain gets introduced, some of their history explained or the reason for their appearance outlined and we hear who they were pitted against.  There are some dark and twisted creative minds at work in the comic book world, some of these crooks are seriously disturbed and I am not sure some of the stories would be agreed by editors these days.

Regrettable Super Villains isn’t the type of book I can sit and pour through in a single sitting or two.  It was enjoyed over a few weeks as I dipped in and out of it and jumped from section to section. For a comic book fan it was sheer browsing pleasure, we need more books like this…these oddball weirdos must never be forgotten.

 

The Legion of Regrettable Super Villains is published by Quirk Books and is available now in gorgeous hardback and a digital version too. Copies ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Legion-Regrettable-Supervillains-Oddball-Criminals/dp/1594749329/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495404300&sr=1-1&keywords=league+of+regrettable+supervillains

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June 1

The Suicide Plan – Emma Clapperton

The Suicide PlanStanding up and welcoming everyone to the spiritualist church is something Patrick McLaughlin does most evenings. Most of the faces in the audience are familiar to him, except one. David Hopkirk walks into the West End Spiritualist church in Glasgow and slits his own throat in the middle of a demonstration. Buy why?

Patrick is then catapulted into a case, which sees the death of a child, a failed court case and a family torn apart.

Soon Patrick will have all the pieces of the puzzle but will he be able to fit them together in time?

 

My thanks to Sarah at Bloodhound books for a review copy and the chance to join the tour.

The Suicide Plan was a wee gem of a read. I don’t normally (well don’t ever) read short stories or novellas but I quite liked the sound of this one so decided to give it a go and I am glad I did.

The story was quite harrowing in places and Emma Clapperton is not pulling any punches as she puts her characters through the emotional wringer.  The story opens with a man who felt he had no one left to turn to for support. He takes his own life in a crowded hall in the presence of a spiritualist in the hope that his suicide will lead to his plea for help being heard from beyond the grave.
As shocking and traumatic as that incident may have been for the spiritualist, Patrick McLaughlin,  he reaches out to the deceased man to try to understand why he would take his own life. Some communication is possible and Patrick starts to look deeper into past tragedies.
No spoilers are allowed but The Suicide Plan is a cleverly delivered tale which I rather enjoyed. If you enjoy a supernatural twist to your crime stories this is one to pick up.
The Suicide Plan is published by Bloodhound Books and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Suicide-Plan-Emma-Clapperton-ebook/dp/B072C5294G/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496299531&sr=1-1&keywords=the+suicide+plan
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