New Reviews: Broadfoot, Goddard, Lovesey, Neville, Perry, Redondo, Russell, Ward, Williams

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, five have appeared on the blog since last time, and four are completely new.

You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Amanda Gillies reviews Neil Broadfoot's The Storm, the sequel to the acclaimed Falling Fast;


Geoff Jones reviews the final part of the World Wide trilogy by Robert Goddard, The Ends of the Earth;

Terry Halligan reviews Peter Lovesey's Down Among the Dead Men, the fifteenth in the Peter Diamond series [and if anyone knows the title of the book he refers to in his review, do drop me a line/comment on the blog and I'll pass it on];

Lynn Harvey reviews Stuart Neville's Those We Left Behind in which DCI Serena Flanagan from The Final Silence, is promoted to main protagonist;

Michelle Peckham reviews Karen Perry's Only We Know, their (two authors co-writing) second psychological drama;


Laura Root reviews the CWA International Dagger short-listed The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo tr. Isabelle Kaufeler;

After a four year absence, Jan Fabel is back in Craig Russell's The Ghosts of Altona, reviewed here by Ewa Sherman;


I review Sarah Ward's debut In Bitter Chill set in a chilly Derbyshire town

and Terry also reviews The Suicide Club by Andrew Williams, set during the First World War.


Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, along with releases by year.

Review: The Suicide Club by Andrew Williams

The Suicide Club by Andrew Williams, July 2015, 368 pages, Hodder Paperbacks, ISBN: 1848545886

Reviewed by Terry Halligan.
(Read more of Terry's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

It is July/August 1917 and the First World War has been dragging on in France for three years and is at something of a stalemate. Sir Maurice Cummings or "C" as he is known as the head of the new Secret Intelligence Service summon Captain Alexander Innes fresh from undercover work in Belgium. Captain Innes is a Scot with a gift for languages (he speaks five) and "C" wants him to be attached to Field Marshal Haig's headquarters in France to join an espionage unit known as "The Suicide Club"; his real mission however is to spy on Haig's intelligence chiefs who are suspected of passing incomplete information. "C" particularly suspects a Brigadier Charteris and wants to discover if he is responsible for compromising the Army's network in the occupied territories where agents are being killed.

Innes has his work cut out at GHQ, as he finds he must do daily mind games with other officers of similar rank in order to prove that the work of the Secret Intelligence Service is better than the bad intelligence supplied by the Army to Haig. There is an undercover intelligence source known as "Faust" that Haig seems to put a lot of faith in but Innes believes that hundreds of thousands of British soldiers lives may be lost because of this mistaken belief. Because of the political infighting between Government and GHQ, Innes decides to go behind enemy lines and search out Faust and discover the truth.

THE SUICIDE CLUB is a novel based on real events and draws on the diary and correspondence of Douglas Haig and the diaries and memoirs of the War Cabinet secretary Sir Maurice Hankey. Andrew Williams worked as a senior producer for the BBC flagship Panorama and Newsnight programmes and as a writer and director of history documentaries. I have read previously for review his earlier books TO KILL A TSAR (shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Award and the Walter Scott Prize) and THE POISON TIDE. As with those I really enjoyed this latest, fast-paced, historical thriller and was very impressed with the huge amount of research the author undertook to give a true and fascinating picture of life at that remarkable time. I look forward to reading more books by this gifted author. Strongly recommended.

Terry Halligan, July 2015.

New Reviews: McDermid, McGilloway, Masters, Meyer, Moffat, Rimington, Sherez, Williams, Winspear

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Maxine Clarke reviews Val McDermid's The Vanishing Point, a standalone with a couple of brief cameos from an earlier book;

Lynn Harvey reviews the paperback release of Brian McGilloway's Little Girl Lost which she is pleased to see is the first in a new series;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Priscilla Masters's Smoke Alarm, the fourth in the Martha Gunn, Coroner, series;

Earlier this week Michelle Peckham reviewed Deon Meyer's Dead Before Dying tr Madeleine van Biljon and we also interviewed the author;

Amanda Gillies reviews G J Moffat's Protection, the fourth in this series which has takn a different (and more appealing to Amanda) direction;

Geoff Jones reviews the paperback release of Stella Rimington's Rip Tide;

Terry Halligan reviews Stav Sherez's A Dark Redemption which is the first in a new police series;

Terry also reviews Andrew Williams's The Poison Tide set in the First World War

and Susan White reviews Jacqueline Winspear's eighth Maisie Dobbs book, A Lesson in Secrets now out in paperback and a series Susan calls "a real treat".

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Ellis, Eriksson, Fowler, Higashino, Lambert, Williams

As promised, a final set of reviews for 2011. More reviews will appear early in the New Year. Do please read the Euro Crime reviewers Favourite Discoveries of 2011 which I'll continue to post next week.

Here are this week's reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews Joy Ellis's follow-up to Mask Wars, Shadowbreaker (which is set in my beloved Fens) and Michelle praises it highly;

Lynn Harvey reviews the recent UK release of Kjell Eriksson's The Princess of Burundi, tr. Ebba Segerberg the earliest of the "Ann Lindell" series available in English from an author Lynn likens to Henning Mankell (and for once the snowy cover is warranted);

Mark Bailey reviews the most recent of Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series: Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood;

I review the much talked-about The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, tr. Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander;

Maxine Clarke begins her review of Charles Lambert's Any Human Face (set in a Rome) by saying that it is "an excellent, well-written novel of suspense"

and Terry Halligan is impressed with Andrew Williams's To Kill a Tsar.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Geraint Anderson, Richard Blake, Julia Crouch, Steven Dunne, James Forrester, Ann Granger, Grebe & Traff, Quintin Jardine, Michael Jecks, Alan Judd, Tom Knox, Lynda La Plante, Matt Lynn, The Medieval Murderers, G J Moffat, Kate Rhodes, Craig Robertson, Imogen Robertson, Jacqui Rose, Bob Shepherd, Simon Spurrier, Jason Steel and Jon Stock have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Cleave, Cole, Frimansson, Knight, MacBride, Williams

Here are the new reviews that have just been added to the website:

Michelle Peckham reviews a New Zealand crime novel - Cemetery Lake by Paul Cleave;

Amanda Gillies reviews GodSword by Emerson Cole;

Maxine Clarke reviews Good Night, My Darling by Inger Frimansson;

Terry Halligan reviews the paperback release of Crowner Royal by Bernard Knight;

Craig Sisterson reviews Halfhead by Stuart B MacBride

and Norman Price reviews the Ellis Peters Award contender, The Interrogator by Andrew Williams.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.