iBookKindlePrintReviews

The Dead Don't Boogie

By
Written by Douglas Skelton — There must be something in the air up there in Bonny Scotland – it has more cracking crime writers than the calories in a deep-fried Mars Bar. This author even made the shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize for best Crime Book of the Year with Open…
Read more
Book Club

Cookie's Case

By
Cookie is an artistic dancer… Well, ok, she’s actually a stripper. She is, in fact, something of a cliché – a stripper with a heart of gold. Her act these days is not what it was, ever since she literally slipped on a banana skin, injured…
Read more
iBookKindlePrintReviews

Research by Philip Kerr

By
We all like an occasional break from our usual reading fare, and perhaps writers of long-standing series also feel the need to break out from their shackles, no matter how successful. Philip Kerr is much loved for his subtle, meticulously researched Bernie Gunther series set…
Read more
Book Club

The Amazing Test Match Crime

By
We reviewed Adrian Alington’s 1939 hilarious crime novel during Classics in September 2014 where it landed a five-star rating. A shadowy organisation has hired a gang of thugs to disrupt The British Empire, and they’re going to start with cricket. The Professor, Sawn-off Carlo and…
Read more
KindlePrintReviews

CIS: The Amazing Test Match Crime

By
Written by Adrian Alington — Adrian Alington’s break in publishing came during World War I when a fellow officer, who happened to be a partner at Chatto & Windus, asked him to write a novel having seen a satirical play Alington wrote for the troops….
Read more
PrintReviews

Crime Always Pays

By
Written by Declan Burke — This is a hard novel to describe. It combines crime, comedy and caper into a road trip across Europe. Essentially, in Crime Always Pays we follow £200,000 as it starts off in Ireland and makes its way to Greece, carried…
Read more
Features

CIS: An introduction to Michael Innes

By
He’s one of the longest-serving literary detectives, but do lovers of classic crime still read the extravagant, erudite novels featuring Inspector John Appleby? Have crime readers even heard of Michael Innes, the pen name adopted by Scottish academic and author John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (1906-1994)…
Read more