A Taste of Ashes
The west coast town of Ayr is the backdrop to A Taste of Ashes, the second of Tony Black’s novels featuring DI Bob Valentine. He is a cop who places himself – literally – at the sharp end, as he is just returning to duty…
Blood and Bone by VM Giambanco
Written by VM Giambanco — The London-based author introduced us to Detective Alice Madison in The Gift of Darkness in 2013 and followed it with The Dark the following year. Madison is a complex and conflicted woman, who fled an abusive home in her teens…
A Taste of Ashes by Tony Blank
Detective Inspector Bob Valentine has recently returned to work in the West Scotland town of Ayr after being stabbed in the heart on a previous case. A rare night out with his long suffering and concerned family is interrupted by a murder. A man has been discovered…
Tennison by Lynda La Plante
Jane Tennison, a young policewoman fresh out of Hendon Training College, makes the daily journey from her parents’ comfortable flat in Maida Vale to Hackney. It’s a grim place and resolutely working class. Being a woman police constable in 1972 – the gender distinction was…
Unforgiving
Written by Nick Oldham — Detective Superintendent Henry Christie returns in another episode of his career fighting outlaws on England’s wild North-West frontier in Lancashire, including Blackpool, Preston and the surrounding areas. Unforgiving is a police procedural, but if that bestows any sense of dryness,…
First look: Tennison by Lynda La Plante
Jane Tennison is back! Well, she’s back in a reverse back-to-the-future sort of way… Lynda La Plante has written a prequel to her Prime Suspect TV series, and in it DCI Tennison is merely WPC Tennison, fresh out of college, and learning about being a copper the…
The Drowning Ground by James Marrison
When the body of a local farmer is found on the peak of a hill with a pitchfork rammed through his neck Detective Chief Inspector Guillermo Downes is called in. The deceased is Frank Hurst and well known to Downes. Ten years previously Downes investigated…
Preserve the Dead by Brian McGilloway
Detective Sergeant Lucy Black of the Derry police force leads a full and complex life. Her father is suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and has been badly beaten by another inmate at the secure unit he’s currently in. But before she can complain…