The heir to Martina Cole’s crown with a story of murder, the underworld, violence and treachery.

It’s 1983 and Stephanie Crouch’s life is dull. She is desperate to escape the run-down, pokey council house she shares with her overbearing family, but at fourteen years old she has nowhere to go.

When Stephanie meets East End wide-boy Barry, his cockney charm and quick tongue soon have her head over heels in love. Finally Stephanie feels like her dreary life is on the up. But too young to control their fate, Stephanie and Barry are torn apart when he is whisked away to Spain by his family.

Lonely and heartbroken Stephanie turns to Barry’s childhood friend Wayne for comfort, and their friendship soon blossoms into romance, leaving Barry fuming and promising revenge…

Ten years later Barry returns to England. Within one month Stephanie’s happy world with Wayne is turned upside down. People immediately start to point the finger of accusation at Barry, but is he the one to blame?

Its the weekend so I have the time to look for jems amongst the news. “First Book” always catches my eye at least within the main niches I support. Available here 

Nocturnal Origins is the first book in the Nocturnal Lives series. When I was shopping it around to agents and publishers, I had to try to figure out how to frame it. Was it urban fantasy (now called contemporary fantasy by some)? Was it mystery or suspense? Was it paranormal romance or just romance? In other words, what was it?

The problem was that it was most of those. Like so many books these days, it mixed genres, something that used to be a very big no-no. It didn’t start out that way, but that’s how it ended up.

The basic premise for Origins is that Mackenzie Santos, a detective with the Dallas Police Department, is trying to investigate a series of brutal murders. What makes it personal is that the murders bear a frightening similarity to an attack she survived. Toss in a new partner she really doesn’t want and the fact that she keeps waking up in places she shouldn’t and the fear that she might be losing her mind.

By itself, that could describe a police procedural where the main character is flawed and possibly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In a way, that’s exactly what is happening. However, there is one more bit of information that needs to be factored in. Mac is not only waking in places where she shouldn’t, but she is doing so nude and remembering running free, hunting prey as a very large cat – a jaguar to be exact….More at Mixing Genres or Genre Mix-up?

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Looking to find a professional criminal forensics investigation service, then visit www.criminalforensics.co.uk to find the best advice for your needs.

Divine Justice – David Baldacci

We pinched this from From Booklist

*Starred Review* Readers who have been holding their breath since the end of Stone Cold (2007), the previous Camel Club novel, can inhale: Oliver Stone did survive his plunge into the water. For the uninitiated, Baldacci’s Oliver Stone isn’t the noted film director; he’s a former government assassin who has made a risky living foiling government conspiracies. Now, having eluded capture after committing a pair of necessary assassinations, Stone (or John Carr, if you prefer to use his real name) is on the run, hiding out in rural America, where he discovers that small-town intrigue is at least as intricate and dangerous as anything he’s come up against previously. Combining the Camel Club series’ wit and fast pace with a Fugitive-like story (casting Stone as Richard Kimble, the man on the run who risks his life to protect the lives of strangers), Baldacci shows once again that he is a sort of thriller Renaissance man: a master of plot, dialogue, and character. It’s fascinating to observe how Stone operates when he’s entirely on his own, too. Not only is he evading his pursuers, especially Macklin Hayes, whose obsessive determination to capture Stone may be based more on personal reasons than professional ones, but he’s also cast himself adrift from his comrades, who are working feverishly behind the scenes to find him and keep him safe. A rousing success, although this should come as no surprise to faithful Baldacci readers. –David Pitt –

and this from from – Publishers Weekly

Near the start of bestseller Baldacci’s less than compelling fourth Camel Club thriller (after Stone Cold), former CIA assassin Oliver Stone (aka John Carr) boards a New Orleans–bound train at Washington’s Union Station after shooting to death a well-known U.S. senator and the nation’s intelligence chief, the two men responsible for his wife’s murder. Ever the Good Samaritan, Stone intervenes in a fight on the train, but when the Amtrak conductor asks to see his ID, he gets off at the next station, knowing his fake ID won’t withstand scrutiny. So much for Stone’s vaunted ability as a resourceful planner. This sudden detour takes Stone to Divine, Va., a mining town where he becomes enmeshed in corruption and intrigue—and falls, in just one of several clichéd situations, for an attractive if beleaguered widow. Series fans should be satisfied, but this effort lacks the imagination that distinguished Baldacci’s debut, Absolute Power (1996). (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Philip Jubb
http://www.109b.com et al (40 odd)

One of the best modern authors again we have to introduce Val McDermid as the author of 22 bestselling novels, translated into 30 languages, selling over 10 million copies, and won many awards internationally. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and has for many of those novels thrilled many of her fans.

BUT anyone can drop one. First the blurb from the book and then my say. —

1984. The National miners’ strike is dividing the country, and in a struggling coal-mining town, the miners and their families are living at the edge of their resources. They have no money, and there is no food or heating. On the 14th of December, five miners break ranks to travel to Nottingham and work. For those who stay behind, this is an unforgivable betrayal, and the men are branded as scabs. 23 years later, a young woman is asking the police to trace her missing father: miner Mick Prentice vanished, never to be seen again, although money has been sent to his family; he was widely considered to be one of the scabs. Soon, D I Karen Pirie and DS Phil Parharta find themselves investigating a forgotten disappearance.

This is the provocative premise of Val McDermid’s latest novel, A Darker Domain, and this utterly compelling book is further proof that McDermid is determined to stretch the parameters of what crime fiction is supposedly capable of. McDermid has always been prepared to freight serious issues into her work, and this novel — which, in many ways, is an examination of the conditions that produced the Britain we live in today — demonstrates the continuing high level of her ambition.

In fact, Karen Pirie, when taking on this new assignment, is already involved in a case of kidnapping that took place 22 years earlier (in which a woman was killed during a bungled handover of money). Journalist Bel Richmond makes a startling discovery concerning the MacLennan kidnapping while on holiday in Tuscany, and as the three protagonists dig deeper into ever-more labyrinthine mysteries, they are to make some remarkable discoveries — discoveries which throw light not just on the crimes involved, but on the whole of British society……

Yes OK Thats true as far as it goes, remember the BUT. in truth the plot is fairly simple and the reader can soon work out a likely ending. Whilst the plot is well laid out and the characters well drawn the ending falls far below the standards we have come to expect. In Val McDermid – A Darker Domain the ending, denouement or whatever is over in about two pages. First it seems the investigation is going nowhere and then BANG its all over goodbye ’till next time. I don’t know. Rarely does such an author make such a cockup.

Still it is well worth buying the paperback as its an interesting and provocative tail. Its only the ending that gets my goat!

Summer is on the way and it will make a good gentle read whilst sunbathing in a hammock or drinking a G and T by the pool.

Philip
P.S. Val McDermid – A Darker Domain is available here

Andy McNab – Remote Control

Hard Girls – Martina Cole

Val McDermid – A Darker Domain

Tim Severin – Corsair

and

Tim Severin – Buccaneer

Philip

The Fever of the Bone is the latest and to my mind one of her best. I read it in one sitting or should I say sitting and laying as I read late into the night completely enthralled.

The Reviews – ‘So gripping that it puts your life on hold’ The Times ‘She is the real mistress of psychological gripping thrillers; no-one can plot or tell a story like she can. The hairs on my neck literally stood up’ Jenni Murray, Daily Express ‘McDermid’ remains unrivalled at yoking chilling scenarios to a pulsing narrative; and Hill’s torment is palpable in this scary, dark thriller. Brilliant’ Observer ‘Everything a great detective novel should be: pacy, gripping, clever and stylish and, most of all, a fantastic read’ Sunday Express ‘Another cracker in the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series from the most imaginative creator of serial killers we have’ Daily Mail ‘Gripping, well-written, nail-biting stuff’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly ‘One of our finest crime writers’ The Times ‘A moving novel, not just a gripping one’ Financial Times ‘As good a psychological thriller as it is possible to get’ Sunday Express ‘McDermid’s’ mastery of this genre is evident, particularly in her dialogue, in which there is rarely a false note’ TLS ‘McDermid’s’ books are getting better and better…an absorbing novel of character’ Literary Review ‘…reminds us just how finely plotted and intelligently written McDermid’s novels are. More please – and soon’ Irish Times – - Do not begin to tell half of the story.

The Cases being investigated by DCI Carol Jordan and her elite investigation unit in The Fever of the Bone
- despite the obstacles put in her way by a replacement Chief Constable who wants to remove Tony Hill from the Bradfield police force. Soon however their talents are called upon in the case of a serial killer case who after much preparation and grooming of young teenagers on an Internet site, has just started to gather his victims and murder them, his motives as always with McDermid a complete mystery. With Tony Hill having to concentrate on his tortured personal life Carol Jordan and her team of fanatical specialists are even more more creative than ever.

McDermid’s writing makes this compelling reading. Added to all that, you have the lives of the officers, specialists and profilers. This wide cast of characters and what turns out to be a different serial killer angle are all brought together by McDermid with apparent effortless ease. The investigators may be frustratingly slower than the reader to make the connections and work out the identity of the killer, but that only adds to the tension in a terrific crime novel.

Val McDermid – The Fever of the Bone

Philip
P.S. Don’t think about it. Its BRILLIANT. BUY The Fever of the Bone NOW
P.P.S
For Tony and Carol Fans…… Wait for the very last page …… It may be what you have been waiting for… Or it may not??