The Body on the shore:
DCI Craig Gillard #2
Nick Louth
Crime Fiction, police procedurals, mystery
Canelo
September 3, 2018
330
A killer is at work in the commuter belt. DCI Gillard needs answers, fast... Promising architect Peter Young is shot dead at his desk. DCI Craig Gillard is quickly on the scene, looking at what appears to be a brutal and highly professional hit. Two weeks later, on the Lincolnshire coast, another body is found on a windswept beach. The man cannot be identified, but sports a curious brand, burned into his neck. Gillard is plunged into a case without answers, finding himself up against dark and mysterious forces. This time lives are on the line, children's lives - and his own. Written at breakneck pace with a jaw-dropping twist you won’t see coming, The Body on the Shore is perfect for fans of Robert Bryndza and Mark Billingham.
Louth is always a 4 star read with plenty of twists and turns in his stories. Well plotted.
DCI Craig Gillard continues to impress as a well drawn character.
The Body in the Snow
DCI Craig Gillard Crime Thrillers Book 4
Nick Louth
Fiction, crime, suspense,
Canelo
January 31, 2020
Money, success, family? All deadly... The new unputdownable DCI Gillard thriller. A young detective is out for a jog on a snowy winter morning. Then she sees something terrible: a murder in the park, sudden and inexplicable. A woman has been killed by a passing hooded cyclist. It’s just DCI Craig Gillard’s luck that he’s on duty. The body is that of Tanvi Roy, one of the richest women in Britain and matriarch of a food empire. With a tangled web of family and business contacts and jealousies, Gillard’s job just got even more complex. As he delves deeper into the Roy family, it’s clear that everything is not as it seems. As the investigation threatens to unravel, Gillard realises it's only the beginning of his problems. Trouble of a different sort is brewing close to home... Perfect for readers of D.K. Hood, Patricia Gibney and Mark Billingham, The Body in the Snow is a remarkable and gripping crime thriller.
This is good
solid British crime writing from a reliable author who thinks up devious plots
and believable characters.
Always a good
read.
This book also
brought up 2 very interesting snippets – the first in location 2619, which is
54% of the way through, is a conversation between a mother and her very
precocious 11 year old daughter. The second is better and most women will love
this one. Location 2911. A discussion on ‘wrinkled bits’ left over from
universe building and what happened to them!
M-9: A Chelmin and Spaulding CID Mystery
Chelmin & Spaulding CID Mysteries Book 1
by Marvin J Wolf
Mystery & Thrillers , Police Procedural
BooksGoSocial
Pub Date 20 Aug 2019
Who killed Kendra Farrell and left her bound, dehydrated body on a boxcar loaded with Army boots? Army CID agents Rudy Chelmin and his rookie partner, Will Spaulding, trace the train’s route back to Barstow, CA, and the Marine Corps Supply Depot. Before they can begin a joint-service investigation, they come under attack by a determined and heavily armed international gang. As they try to unwrap the mystery of Kendra’s death they must take out a sniper, escape from an RPG attack that levels a city block, and dodge a car bomb—and that’s just the first few days. To find Kendra’s killer they must learn why she was killed. As they unravel a mind-twisting snarl of nefarious, intertwined networks, they must also battle the bureaucracy—The FBI, Homeland Security, and the Barstow police want their share of the case. Then Chelmin vanishes and Spaulding has only three days to learn if his partner will suffer Kendra’s agonizing fate.
This is a complex story that might confuse so you need to
keep your wits about you when reading it! I thought it was interesting in the way
that the Army, Navy, FBI and local PD were interlinked in solving the murders
and the rationale for them.
Keep the story straight and the various characters involved, and you will enjoy the book…
Forgotten Bones
Dead Remaining Book 1
Vivian Barz
Fiction. Mystery, Suspense, Murder, Female Sleuths, Ghosts
Thomas & Mercer
July 23, 2019
302
An unlikely pair teams up to investigate a brutal murder in a haunting thriller that walks the line between reality and impossibility. When small-town police officers discover the grave of a young boy, they're quick to pin the crime on a convicted criminal who lives nearby. But when it comes to murder, Officer Susan Marlan never trusts a simple explanation, so she's just getting started. Meanwhile, college professor Eric Evans hallucinates a young boy in overalls: a symptom of his schizophrenia--or so he thinks. But when more bodies turn up, Eric has more visions, and they mirror details of the murder case. As the investigation continues, the police stick with their original conclusion, but Susan's instincts tell her something is off. The higher-ups keep stonewalling her, and the FBI's closing in. Desperate for answers, Susan goes rogue and turns to Eric for help. Together they take an unorthodox approach to the case as the evidence keeps getting stranger. With Eric's hallucinations intensifying and the body count rising, can the pair separate truth from illusion long enough to catch a monster?
Is this a ghost story or a murder mystery? It is up to the reader to decide
but it encompasses both. We have a ghost – a very persistent and quite forceful ghost; but we also have a murder and mystery. Who is the ghost? And what happened to him? He was murdered, but how and by who, and where?
Set in small town USA with a very small policeforce and not much money, we have female police officer with stickability and persistence and curiosity. All of which gets her into serious trouble as she tries to find out about the ghost boy.
As she delves into his case, the FBI find a graveyard and that is where
things begin to get strange for our heroine – and a professor (college
lecturer) with his own mental issues that having a ghost visit doesn’t help
I thought the suspense was well carried and it isn’t until the final stages
of the last chapter that it all comes to be resolved and the final pieces of
the puzzle fit together.
The issues with schizophrenia were well narrated and explored and it was
refreshing to find a character with these flaws who wasn’t a psychology expert as so many books seem to write them up as.
The story is a little short and we should really have found out more about the other children – the live ones as well as the dead ones. It would have helped fill out the story – perhaps someone could have list of lost children, ages, sexes; surely the FBI would be involved before the graves came to light? What about the FBI officers? Could we know about them?
This novel seems rather like a preliminary / prequel tale for a series that is longer and more involved. It is good – as far as it goes.
This is the first in a new series with our female detective and I look
forward to reading further books.
Breaking the Lore
Inspector Paris #1
by Andy Redsmith
Mystery & Thrillers , Sci Fi & Fantasy
Canelo
15 Apr 2019
A magical, mischievous mystery perfect for fans of Douglas Adams and Ben Aaronovitch How do you stop a demon invasion... when you don’t believe in magic? Inspector Nick Paris is a man of logic and whisky. So staring down at the crucified form of a murder victim who is fifteen centimetres tall leaves the seasoned detective at a loss… and the dead fairy is only the beginning. Suddenly the inspector is offering political asylum to dwarves, consulting with witches, getting tactical advice from elves and taking orders from a chain-smoking talking crow who, technically, outranks him. With the fate of both the human and magic worlds in his hands Nick will have to leave logic behind and embrace his inner mystic to solve the crime and stop an army of demons from invading Manchester!
Love the introductory sentence as it
really sets the scene for a very different novel.
Inspector Paris and Manchester seem to go
together well. This is book 1 in a new series that I really want to read more
of. The Sergeant is wonderfully dumb and
there is plenty of grisly and sarcastic humour to keep me interested. Fairies
being crucified is new to me, but then it was new to everyone as Paris says ‘How
do you kill somebody who doesn’t exist?’ ie a fairy!
We are then introduced to a talking crow,
a female baby rock troll princess, an elf, and the Vanethria and yet more such
creatures who shouldn’t exist. All of which with a sly humour and great writing
style.
