On the Radar: Deception, illusion and misdirection
Welcome to our weekly On the Radar column, where you’re always guaranteed to find new crime fiction, and more. Nothing is ever straightforward in this genre, otherwise there’d be no fun in it, so we’ll start off gently with Deception by Alan Parks, look for…
Paul Burke: Top five books of 2025
It’s always a pleasure too look back on the year and think about the reads that left a lasting impressions. I have five very different books here but they do share two things: great characters and engrossing storytelling. In 2025, Vera took a final bow…
Gunner by Alan Parks
Gunner is the opener for a new detective series set during World War II. As such, it delves a little deeper into the past than the author’s award-winning Harry McCoy series, which so vividly recreates 1970s Glasgow. It’s 1941 and former detective Joe Gunner is…
On the Radar: Like a bat out of... suite 11?
Every week our news column has a hidden sub plot – some secret thread that connects all the diverse mystery books on the horizon. So today we begin our story with The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware, and we end with a Bat…
To Die in June by Alan Parks
Alan Parks is rapidly setting the benchmark for dark Scottish crime fiction. Last year he won an Edgar with Bobby March Will Live Forever and the McIlvanney Prize for May God Forgive. Now that we’ve arrived in June 2023 and the sixth Harry McCoy has appeared…
Paul Burke: Top five books of 2022
Crime novels trump all else for me and we have had another great year of reading about the darker side of human nature. Looking back over the books I have reviewed in 2022 these are the ones that stick with me. They provided the purest…
May God Forgive by Alan Parks
May is a good month for the Scottish crime fiction author Alan Parks. In 2022, it has seen him win the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original for Bobby March Will Live Forever, alongside the launch of the latest book in his ‘months’ series, May…