Fancy A Quickie (twice)? It’s My Bedtime Reading

This latest round of reviews is brought to you under the heading “Fancy A Quickie.” I am not reviewing erotica I am grabbing an opportune moment to get down and dirty and rip back the covers to expose two books and tell you about the time we spent together in bed.

Yup, these are books I read in bed during nights I struggled to find sleep. Part of the reason I struggled to sleep was down to the fact I was enjoying these stories. But when I finish a book in bed I don’t review it there and then and all too often the review remains unwritten. Until now. Two quick reviews follow.

First up the second book in M.W. Craven’s excellent Washington Poe series: Black Summer.

After The Puppet Show, a new storm is coming …

Jared Keaton, chef to the stars. Charming. Charismatic. Psychopath … He’s currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of his daughter, Elizabeth. Her body was never found and Keaton was convicted largely on the testimony of Detective Sergeant Washington Poe.

So when a young woman staggers into a remote police station with irrefutable evidence that she is Elizabeth Keaton, Poe finds himself on the wrong end of an investigation, one that could cost him much more than his career.

Helped by the only person he trusts, the brilliant but socially awkward Tilly Bradshaw, Poe races to answer the only question that matters: how can someone be both dead and alive at the same time? And then Elizabeth goes missing again – and all paths of investigation lead back to Poe.

 

Black Summer brings back the most readable duo in crime fiction: Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw. The pair met in The Puppet Show and I was very keen to see what may lie in store for them next – particularly as The Puppet Show was a dark, gritty page turner.

The good news is that Black Summer is another absolute gem. Poe finds himself not just facing a perplexing mystery which links to a former case he was involved in but also a mystery which drags him very much into the firing line in the present day. But when Poe is in trouble he has an advantage over his opponents which will always give him the edge to endure…Tilly Bradshaw.

Jared Keaton is the villain of the piece and he very much enjoys the limelight which he gets within the story and is a dominating figure that Craven uses to great effect. There is a palpable power-struggle in Black Summer which has Poe and Bradshaw on one side with Keaton using all the resources of the law to undermine the postition of the police officer he is trying to bring down.

Although this is the second book in the series it was the third I had read. After each book I have the same mantra – you need to be reading this series. Terrific fun.

 

Get your copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/black-summer/m-w-craven/9781472127495

 

Next up is Neil Spring’s The Haunted Shore

When Lizzy moves to a desolate shore to escape her past, she hopes to find sanctuary. But a mysterious stranger is waiting for her, her father’s carer, and when darkness falls, something roams this wild stretch of beach, urging Lizzy to investigate its past. The longer she stays, the more the shore’s secrets begin to stir. Secrets of a sea that burned, of bodies washed ashore — and a family’s buried past reaching into the present.

And when Lizzy begins to suspect that her father’s carer is a dangerous imposter with sinister motives, a new darkness rises. What happens next is everyone’s living nightmare . . .

 

Neil Spring always tells unsettling stories and The Haunted Shore was no exception. Though one element I found particularly unsettling was not from a supernatural thread (which is what I had anticipated) but from Lizzy’s self-destruction at the start of the story.

I won’t share what forces Lizzy to leave the city and move out to the wilds where she will be with her father but suffice to say it was a dilemma which the author depicted well and made me anxious and frustrated for Lizzy. I was annoyed with her character, then I was sympathetic and then I was rooting for her to overcome the situation. So before things really begin to kick-off I was already invested in this story.

Lizzy is alarmed to discover her father is in ailing health. He relies heavily upon a carer and the pair have a relationship which Lizzy is struggling to accept and to fit around. The more time Lizzy spends in the company of this stranger who is keeping her family functioning the greater her suspicion and distrust grows. The tension grows chapter by chapter.

As Lizzy adjusts to life in the remote countryside and to get away from the toxic atmosphere in the house she spends time walking the deserted shorelines. It is there she meets a neighbour who has warnings for her, caution is advised but clearly all is not as it may seem. The first inklings of troubles to come are seeded.

Neil Spring always delivers the chills and The Haunted Shore builds up nicely to the point things start to become disconcerting. It kept me guessing where the story was heading and with a chiller that’s always a totally open ended range of possibilites. I’ve read all of Neil Spring’s books and they never fail to deliver.

You can get a copy of The Haunted Shore here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-haunted-shore/neil-spring/9781787470101