A Song from Dead Lips by William Shaw
Crime writers are occasionally given to complaining about how technology has made life harder when it comes to plotting. Many Golden Age authors would certainly have been scuppered by mobile phones or CCTV. So, in theory, the historical crime novel should make life simpler. However,…
The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah
Have you ever had to step into someone else’s shoes? It’s tough trying to equal, or better, what came before, isn’t it? And when that someone else is the undisputed queen of crime, the legendary Dame Agatha Christie, then you would surely have to be…
The Valley by Will Thwaite
The Valley is the debut novel of London headhunter Will Thwaite, and was longlisted for this year’s Bath Novel Award. It’s an international prize which carries some weight and is aimed at aspiring and self-published authors, so a longlisting is some achievement. Told in the…
Lock-Down Blues by Ray Wilcox
For the most part, the lives these criminals lead are unconnected. There is Raymond Butterworth, a successful printer, whose gruesome crimes are separated by decades. Then we have ‘Diamond’ Perry, the black street hoodlum who makes the mistake of taking on a Yardie drug gang….
Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box by George Mann
Previously here on Crime Fiction Lover we’ve reviewed The Will of the Dead featuring Sherlock Holmes in a steampunk mystery, and The Executioner’s Heart from George Mann’s Newbury & Hobbes series set in Victorian times. This latest Conan Doyle pastiche takes us back to the…
Hardcastle's Quartet by Graham Ison
It’s the summer of 1918 and people are tired of a war which was supposed to over by Christmas four years earlier. On the Western Front, the Germans are finally on the back foot, but in London the war against crime still goes on. Divisional…
Her
Written by Harriet Lane — For fans of the slow burning thriller, that quietly creeps up on you, Harriet Lane makes for perfect reading. She has the knack for taking familiar situations, and characters just like people we know – perhaps even mirroring ourselves –…