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The Killer – Susan Wilkins

She was a woman, so they thought she’d be easy to kill . . .

Kaz Phelps is on the run – from the past, from the legacy of her criminal family, from the haunting memories of her murdered lover. The police want her back in jail and her enemies want her dead. While standing by the grave of her gangster brother, Kaz realizes she only has one option. To fight back.

Nicci Armstrong was one of the Met’s best detectives until personal tragedy forced her to quit. Now she’s responsible for the security of the super-rich who use her city as a playground. She is one of the few people Kaz might trust. But Nicci’s biggest mistake yet is falling in love with a man she knows is only using her.

Meanwhile, as envious rivals back home plot against him, a Russian billionaire searches for a special gift to keep the Kremlin onside, a disgraced politician dreams of revenge and a Turkish drug baron plots to purge his dishonour with blood.

My thanks to Bethan at EDPR for my review copy

This is the latest review written by my super guest reviewer Lou. I cannot describe just how animated she became while trying to describe how much she loved this book – we had to give her extra space to gesticulate 🙂

Over to Lou….

This is great. Reminiscent of Martina Cole at her best (but without Cole’s occasionally awkward phoneticisms) this is an excellent romp through the high lives and lowlifes of contemporary London. With two, strong female protagonists – and an extensive cast of fully-formed supporting characters – it starts with a funeral and inexorably racks up the bodies as it steamrollers to its conclusion.

The last book in a trilogy that started with The Informant and continued with The Mourner, The Killer offers a satisfying finale to Kaz Phelps’ struggle to escape her criminal past, and Nicci Armstrong’s efforts to move past her own tragedy and build a future outside of the Metropolitan Police.

Building momentum with police procedures and private investigations, touching on political machinations and organised criminality, Wilkins knowledgeably shows the reader a world of extremes. Wealth, fear, power, avarice – all have a devastating impact on the lives of Phelps and Armstrong and play a pivotal part in the ultimate denouement.

Well-written and skilfully paced, you don’t need to read the first two to enjoy the last, but I shall certainly be hunting them down so that I can indulge my new-found addiction until Wilkins writes me another one…

The Killer is released in paperback on 29th June and is available now in digital format.

You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Killer-Kaz-Phelps-Book-ebook/dp/B01ITD668Y/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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December 18

Dark Matter – Blake Crouch

‘Are you happy in your life?’

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he wakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before the man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, ‘Welcome back, my friend.’

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined – one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

My thanks to Macmillan for my review copy

We will all be aware of the concept that each of our decisions can form our lives and that somewhere there is another version of “you” who lives the life you would have led had you followed the path/choice that you declined. (Doctor Who does it fantastically in the episode Turn Left – one of Catherine Tate’s best performances).

In Dark Matter we meet Jason Dessen. He is a science teacher who had been on the cusp of scientific greatness when he met a girl and put his heart before his career. Jason is happy but when he goes to meet an old college friend to celebrate his friend’s success at winning a top science prize Jason does wonder what may have been had life turned out differently.

In Dark Matter we meet Jason Dessen…so does Jason Dessen. It turns out that the Jason we meet is the Jason that chose the “best” life and other Jason’s from other alternative realities have found a way to enter our Jason’s world and they want to live his life too.

Jason (our Jason) will find himself plucked from his reality and totally alone in a world where the things he treasures most just are not his any longer. His struggle to get his own life back will take him on a journey quite unlike anything we have seen.

I enjoyed the concept behind this one and warmed to the characters, however, it just slipped a wee bit too far into pure science-fiction fantasy towards the end. I don’t read much of this type of novel so I either have to accept it is pure other world fantasy with dragons and elves etc or it needs to be a semi plausible earth-based yarn.

Dark Matter started brilliantly in the latter category but by the end the twists became too far removed from the grounded reality that I struggled to fully embrace it. By the time I reached the end there were just too many Jason’s in one place that I couldn’t go along with the story any longer.

That said I DID like the idea of taking the alternative realities and twisting them.

Fun to be had and some nice twists but a little out my normal comfort zone.

Dark Matter is published by Macmillan and is available in hardback now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Matter-Blake-Crouch/dp/1447297563/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482102835&sr=1-1&keywords=dark+matter+blake+crouch

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December 11

The Silent Room – Mari Hannah

A security van sets off for Durham prison, a disgraced Special Branch officer in the back. It never arrives. En route it is hijacked by armed men, the prisoner sprung. Suspended from duty on suspicion of aiding and abetting the audacious escape of his former boss, Detective Sergeant Matthew Ryan is locked out of the manhunt.

Desperate to preserve his career and prove his innocence, he backs off. But when the official investigation falls apart, under surveillance and with his life in danger, Ryan goes dark, enlisting others in his quest to discover the truth.

When the trail leads to the suspicious death of a Norwegian national, Ryan uncovers an international conspiracy that has claimed the lives of many.

My thanks to Macmillan for my review copy

For a change, I am starting with the important and essential point about my review. The Silent Room is a great read and I am going to include it in my 5 star review category.

It was not until I finished reading The Silent Room that I realised just how much I had enjoyed it. Obviously I knew while I was reading that it was a good story and that I was loving the twists and shocks that arose along the way. But I finished it yesterday and I still find myself wanting to read more about DS Matthew Ryan – he was a strong lead character and are elements of the story which I now find I want to see developed further (an unsubtle hint for Mari Hannah there that I would be delighted to see these characters return).

At the start of the book Ryan is reeling from the discovery that his friend and former boss has been sentenced to prison – as a disgraced officer he is cast out from the police force he served for a long and seemingly glorious career. Ryan refuses to believe the worst of his mentor and when the prison transit van is hijacked en route to Durham Prison Ryan knows that his friend needs his help. However, his colleagues on the force are less keen to forgive and their suspicions soon turn to Ryan too.

Acting without the support of his colleagues the onus falls on Ryan to investigate an abduction and disprove corruption charges. Thus begins a frantic race against time for Ryan, he enlists help of friends and associates who risk their own safety (and in some cases their careers) to provide whatever help they can to Ryan. Mari Hannah does a fantastic job of conveying the tension that surrounds Ryan’s desperate investigations and also of the frustration he encounters when the Professional Standards team try to implicate him in corrupt activities too.

I really cannot share too much of the finer detail of The Silent Room. It is often the way of a brilliant thriller that talking about what makes it so good will then involve discussing spoilers! The characters are fun, likeable (except when they are MEANT to be disliked), they are believable and they jumped off the pages for me. The Silent Room is everything a good crime story should be and I have no doubt that it will delight readers.

Did I mention I loved it?

The Silent Room is available now in Hardback and Digital formats: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1447291042?keywords=mari%20hannah&qid=1449792188&ref_=sr_1_1_twi_har_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Category: 5* Reviews, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

October 21

The House On Cold Hill – Peter James

They said the dead can’t hurt you . . . They were wrong.

The House on Cold Hill is a chilling and suspenseful ghost story from the multi-million copy bestselling author of Dead Simple, Peter James.

Moving from the heart of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for Ollie and Caro Harcourt and their twelve-year-old daughter Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House – a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion – Ollie is filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, he has dreamed of living in the country since he was a child, and he sees Cold Hill House as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, the perfect base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment. Caro is less certain, and Jade is grumpy about being separated from her friends.

Within days of moving in, it becomes apparent that the Harcourt family aren’t the only residents of the house. A friend of Jade’s is the first to see the spectral woman, standing behind her as the girls talk on FaceTime. Then there are more sightings, as well as increasingly disturbing occurrences in the house. As the haunting becomes more malevolent and the house itself begins to turn on the Harcourts, the terrified family discover Cold Hill House’s dark history, and the horrible truth of what it could mean for them . . .

My thanks to Julia at Midas PR for my beautiful review copy.

The House on Cold Hill – a terrific ghost story and a perfectly timed release with Halloween just around the corner.

When I first read Peter James it was around the time he released Prophecy and Twilight. I was discovering books about ghosts and monsters and taking a break from my normal choice of reading (which was always crime fiction). Mr James was a writer of horror stories and he was bloody good at it too. Time passed and he introduced us to a character called Roy Grace and in doing so firmly established himself as a bit of a wizard at writing great crime stories too.

The House on Cold Hill sees Peter James take a break from the Grace novels and return to a stand-alone horror tale. As I had recently been lamenting the lack of horror tales in my TBR pile I could not wait to get my teeth into this one – and I was not to be disappointed!

As you may have guessed, The House on Cold Hill is a haunted house – the efficiency of the haunting is firmly cemented in the opening chapters with a shocking scene which caught me unawares. This was the perfect reminder for me that in a good horror story ANYTHING can happen.

The story follows Oliver and Caro Harcourt and their daughter Jade. They have bought Cold Hill House and are looking forward to a fresh start away from the city in their grand country home. But even as they are moving there are some unexplained occurrences, mysterious shadows crossing a room and one of the family may have seen a figure who should not have been in the house at the time.

As the story progresses Peter James does a brilliant job of building up the tension for the reader who can never quite be sure how much characters can be trusted, how accurate conversations are or who may escape the story unscathed. A special mention to one scene which made me glad I do not ever need to FaceTime!

I was totally drawn into The House on Cold Hill, I was compelled to keep reading long into the night and it made me realise how much I have missed reading a good horror story. This book is an absolute treat for readers who enjoy a chilling tale in the dark winter evenings. A must read – a five star score.

The House on Cold Hill is published by Macmillan and is available in Hardback and digital format

Peter James is on Twitter: @peterjamesuk

Category: 5* Reviews, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 17

Under Ground – S.L. Grey

THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE SAFE . . .

The Sanctum is a luxurious, self-sustaining survival condominium situated underground. It’s a plush bolt-hole for the rich and paranoid – a place where they can wait out the apocalypse in style. When a devastating super-flu virus hits, several families race to reach The Sanctum. All have their own motivations for entering. All are hiding secrets.

But when the door locks and someone dies, they realize the greatest threat to their survival may not be above ground – it may already be inside . . .

Under Ground is a page-turning locked-room mystery from the combined talents of Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg, writing as S. L. Grey.

One of my favourite books is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None – which I first read in one of its ‘Ten Little’ variants. If you are unfamiliar with this classic (for shame) then a group of strangers find themselves isolated on an island and (in best Christie tradition) start to be bumped off one by one.

Under Ground reminded me of And Then There Were None. In the same way Dame Agatha captivated me all those years ago, so too has S. L. Grey with Under Ground. The ‘island’ is replaced with an underground bunker. The characters in the book have each spent a small fortune to purchase residential space in an underground bunker that will keep them safe from the outside world in the event of chemical or viral outbreak. They believe their luxury homes will be able to shelter them from harm while they still enjoy state of the art electronic communications, a fully equipped gym and swimming pool and all the food and water they require.

What could possibly go wrong? Well quite a lot as it happens.

The assembled cast are fleeing a killer virus which originated in Asia and is now threatening to wipe out the population of America. The families all make their way to their underground haven only to find it is not actually finished yet and that corners have been cut on the construction. The other problem they soon discover is that you cannot choose your neighbours and we have a very unusual mix of families.

What happens to the assembled ‘preppers’ when the hatch is shut is a claustrophobic read where bullies rule, paranoia takes a firm hold over everyone and violence is never far away.

Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg have brilliantly captured the tension and the fear which you would expect when the the whole cast fear for their lives. Foul deeds lie ahead and the finger of suspicion will point at all of the characters before the reader can establish which of our players is up to no good.

Absorbing reading. Under Ground is a book I would strongly recommend you seek out.

Under Ground is published by Macmillan and is available now in Hardback and digital format.

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