Tag: crime

Standstill by J.A. Marley (Bloodhound Books)

It is always with some trepidation that I open a book by someone I know and like.  More usually with a début (but not always) I’m terrified that I won’t enjoy it, worried that it’s mediocre or I won’t be interested by the plot or feeling murderous that it is so good!

Standstill fits into the last category. The narrative grabs you from the opening paragraph and doesn’t let you go until its – literally – explosive dénouement.

I always try to avoid synopses in reviews and hate spoilers so suffice it to say that if you enjoy action-packed, hard-hitting crime fiction, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with Standstill.

Set in London the action revolves around Flying Squad officer Chance who is grappling with the heartbreaking situation of watching her young daughter dying of cancer; Harkness one of the nastiest characters you’d never want to cross; and Danny the engaging and accomplished thief who finds himself caught up in a scam that will take every ounce of his ingenuity to escape. Other characters are well drawn and complement the action.

Standstill is perfectly plotted throughout the narrative aided by dialogue, which is realistic and never superfluous. There is no spare fat in this novel.

J.A. Marley has produced an excellent opener for what I hope with be the first in a long series.

Highly recommended.

Quieter Than Killing by Sarah Hilary

I have been a fan of Sarah Hilary’s Marnie Rose crime series since the DI’s first outing in Someone Else’s Skin which won the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2015. With each new book Ms Hilary’s writing has become more confident and assured. Quieter Than Killing continues this impressive trend.

This is police procedural crime writing at its best with great, credible characters portrayed in a sensitive and intelligent manner. The private lives of Marnie and her sidekick the wonderful Noah are drip-fed into the narrative keeping readers on their toes as they progress through the series.

A continuing thread throughout all the novels is the brutal murder of Rose’s parents by Stephen, the then fourteen-year-old boy they had been fostering for several years. The teenager is now a young man who has been moved to an adult prison. He is a tangle of thorns in her flesh which she must unravel.

During her current investigation into a series of vicious assaults thought to be carried out by vigilantes, Marnie is drawn into another enquiry when the tenants of the house she inherited from her parents and now lets out, become victims of what seems a random and senseless attack. Except there is nothing random about it at all and Marnie is convinced Stephen is the key which links back to her own investigation.

Quieter than Killing reads well as a standalone novel but why would you deny yourself the pleasure of reading the first three books in the series?

Someone Else’s Skin, No Other Darkness and Tastes Like Fear  are all published by Headline and are available from Amazon.

I received a review copy of this book.

You can pre-order the hardback or kindle version of Quieter Than Killing which will be published on 9 March, 2017.

 

Watch Me by Angela Clarke

The second in the social media murders series, Watch Me grabs the reader’s complete attention from the first words and doesn’t let go until the end when it leaves you reeling and aghast at what can go wrong with social media.

Once again DS Nasreen Cudmoore, now working for the Gremlin e-crime unit run by DCI Jack Burgone, and her old school friend Freddie Venton need to work together to solve a crime but this one links them back to their schooldays when their bullying of a friend led to a suicide attempt.

Journalist Freddie, back at home with her parents while she recovers from the effects of the attempt on her life by the Hashtag Murderer in Follow Me, is out of work, rarely out of her pjs and barely able to function.

Nas appeals for her help. Two girls linked to her had posted a suicide note on Snap Chat. One the sister of their former friend, Gemma, was successful but three hours earlier that day the sister of Nas’s boss went missing. A Snap Chat message told then they had six seconds to read the message; 24 hours to save her life.

Freddie, thin and disheveled, is forced to confront her demons to help Nas who is suffering from a hangover and remorse at having had a one-night stand with her boss. And the clock is ticking. Activating her repaired phone, Freddie discovers she, too, is a recipient of the Lottie messages. It has become personal.

The narrative spans the 24 hours they have to save Lottie’s life and explores the way this police unit functions, the interaction between Nas and Freddie and the police team as well as the world of revenge porn and objectionable internet sites. Ms Clarke creates credible characters who reveal their weaknesses and strengths as the plot develops.

As the story unfolded, I picked up Angela Clarke’s clues – I have not been a fiction editor and crime writer for nothing – but this did not detract from my enjoyment of Watch Me, rather it enhanced my appreciation of the fast-paced plotting and character development the author excels at.

Watch Me is chillingly scary – an object lesson on what not to get involved with on the internet.  Highly recommended.

Follow Angela on Twitter and check out her website.

 

From Romance to Crime

cropped-dancersinthewind.jpgMy last staff job was as Assistant Fiction Editor on Woman’s Weekly and Woman & Home – many years ago now. For a year before that I’d worked on a confessions magazine where I had my very first short story accepted and published. Strangely enough, that story involved a crime: blackmail with the perpetrator – the “I” of the confessional – ending up losing her job. Moral retribution.

Some of the serials we published in WW and W&H were written specifically for those magazines. Others were novels about to be published and serialised beforehand. Most were romances – although W&H allowed a wider remit and we had thrillers as well but always with a romantic perspective.

Most novels had to be abridged and each episode had to end with a cliff-hanger  – some novels lent themselves to this easily. Others had to be worked on. I also had to learn the art of the synopsis as each week or month we began with “The story so far…” And even though I became adept at this I still find it difficult to write synopses for my own work!

Romantic stories tend to be predictable ­– the skill is to keep the reader hooked regardless. So many people (not authors) have told me that writing a romance is easy. I’d like to see them try. They are really difficult to get right. And if you’re not sincere, this will be exposed in your writing.

During this time, I tried my hand at short stories but without success. It took me some time to find my “voice” although I was given some encouragement along the way. By the time I left IPC magazines, I had some good contacts and translated two books from French for WH Allen (one under a pseudonym as it was an erotic novel for which I had to learn a lot of new words!).

While freelancing as a journalist, I started writing tales with a twist for Bella and also wrote longer stories. A lot of the twist stories had an element of crime – from bigamy to murder – involved. I also wrote an historical crime story linked to Sherlock Holmes, which was published in Candis.

Then came the commission to interview a police officer and a prostitute at King’s Cross and the knock on the door in the middle of the night which started a trail of “what ifs” that eventually became Dancers in the Wind.

 I’ve always had a passion for reading crime fiction from Dickens and Wilkie Collins to Edgar Allan Poe and, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle. Patricia Highsmith,  Minette Walters and Sara Paretsky all feature in my list of favourites. There are some great crime writers around now – each one with different skills and perspectives ­– and I love reading them especially the police procedurals that I’d never attempt myself.

In my novels the police investigation is in the background while Hannah investigates from a journalist’s point of view although there is always a personal connection which leads her into harrowing situations. And just with a nod to my past editorial roles, there’s also just an element of romance.

Dancers in the Wind is on sale in Foyles and other bookshops and can be ordered from Amazon UK or Hive Stores with free delivery.