Review Roundup: Griffiths, Law, Lipska, Sansom, Wanner, Watson

Here are six reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, all have appeared on the blog since last time*.

*I am trialling a new approach for the next few weeks in that all reviews will appear on the blog rather than being separate under the Euro Crime website. I feel this will give the reviews more exposure and make them more findable in a search engine. The reviews will appear daily ie Monday to Friday, with roundups on Sundays. This week has been British authors, next week will be Translated authors, the week after that Scottish authors and the week after that, is again Translated authors.

I'd be interested in any comments about this new approach. I think I'm the only one that worries about the distinction between blog and website! The blog is free and I currently pay to have the website. As it stands, if Euro Crime were to cease then the website would disappear after a couple of years but the blog might  remain indefinitely.

You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page and follow on Twitter, @eurocrime.

New Reviews

Michelle Peckham reviews Elly Griffiths's The Zig Zag Girl, the first in a new series set in post-war Brighton;


Ewa Sherman reviews J S Law's debut Tenacity set in a submarine;

Rich Westwood reviews Anya Lipska's A Devil Under the Skin, which is the third in the Kizska and Kershaw series;


Susan White reviews Lamentation by C J Sansom;

Amanda Gillies reviews Len Wanner's Tartan Noir: the Definitive Guide to Scottish Crime Fiction


and Michelle also reviews S J Watson's Second Life.

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

Review: A Devil Under the Skin by Anya Lipska

A Devil Under the Skin by Anya Lipska, June 2015, 320 pages, The Friday Project, ISBN: 0008100357

Reviewed by Rich Westwood.
(Read more of Rich's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

This is the third in the Kizska and Kershaw series, set in London's Polish community, that began in 2013 with WHERE THE DEVIL CAN'T GO.

As the book opens, we have moved on more than a year since the events at the end of book two, DEATH CAN'T TAKE A JOKE.

Kasia, the long-time girlfriend of East London Polish 'fixer' Janusz Kiszka is about to move in with him, having finally decided to leave her useless husband Steve. Kiszka hopes that she is a hundred percent committed to her decision, but has lingering doubts...

Then Kasia fails to turn up. Kiszka visits her home to find that both Kasia and Steve have vanished, leaving one-way tickets to Alicante behind in their flat. He begins tracking them down, starting with Steve's dodgy acquaintances in the local pub. Soon Steve's friends begin dying in mysterious circumstances. As the dead Cockneys begin to pile up, Kiszka realises he needs to call in the police (even though the thought of officialdom makes him feel queasy).

Meanwhile Natalie Kershaw, now a firearms officer in the Met, has been cleared of any wrong-doing after fatally shooting a samurai-sword-wielding maniac outside a McDonald's in Leytonstone. But she still has to endure psychological evaluations before being allowed back on active duty. Has the stab-wound she endured in the last book made her trigger-happy?

Kershaw jumps at the chance to use her rusty detective skills to help out her old ally Kiszka. The hunt leads them from small-time crooks to big-time gangsters, and the investigation turns official, with Kiszka alternately working with Kershaw and hiding his own discoveries from her. Kiszka has some tough choices to make as he gets closer to Steve and Kasia.

An interesting subplot concerns Stefan Kasparek, an elderly hacker with some much-needed IT skills. Who knew that it was Polish codebreakers who first cracked the Enigma code?

A gritty story heightened by its depiction of the Polish community and some good jokes (as usual, Janusz's clownish friend Oskar provides laughs and loyal support to his old army friend).

As with most series, it probably pays to begin with the first book before it's too late, but this works fine as a standalone story. The inclusion of a little glossary and pronunciation guide at the back is much appreciated.

Rich Westwood, July 2015

New Reviews: Enger, Fowler, Kavanagh, Learner, Lipska, Macbain, Sutton, Tuomainen, Walker

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, three have appeared on the blog over the last couple of weeks and six are completely new.

In another of my occasional feature posts, I recently put together a list of vegetarian detectives and sidekicks.

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

New Reviews

Laura Root reviews Thomas Enger's Scarred tr. Charlotte Barslund, the third in the Henning Juul series set in Oslo;

Mark Bailey reviews the latest in the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler: Bryant & May and The Bleeding Heart;



Michelle Peckham reviews Emma Kavanagh's debut, Falling;

Terry Halligan reviews T S Learner's third thriller, The Stolen;

Geoff Jones reviews Anya Lipska's Death Can't Take a Joke the follow-up to the well-received, Where the Devil Can't Go;

Susan White reviews The Bull Slayer, the second in Bruce Macbain's Pliny series;

Terry also reviews Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square by William Sutton, set in Victorian London;

Lynn Harvey reviews Antti Tuomainen's The Healer tr. Lola Rogers which is now out in paperback

and Amanda Gillies reviews Martin Walker's The Resistance Man the latest in the Bruno, Chief of Police, series set in rural France.


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: Camilleri, Cleeves, Haynes, Kernick, Lipska, MacLean, Roberts, Sherriff, Templeton

Win Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska (UK only)






Nine new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:


I review Andrea Camilleri's The Dance of the Seagull tr. Stephen Sartarelli, the fifteenth in this charming series;



Lynn Harvey reviews Dead Water by Ann Cleeves, the fifth in the (recently televised) Shetland series;


Amanda Gillies reviews Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes, writing that her work "goes from strength to strength";
 

Terry Halligan reviews Simon Kernick's Ultimatum, the sequel to Siege;

Rich Westwood reviews this month's competition prize, Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska, and he's looking forward to the sequel;


Geoff Jones reviews S G MacLean's The Devil's Recruit, the fourth in her Alexander Seaton series set in seventeenth century Aberdeen;

Susan White reviews Mark Roberts's debut The Sixth Soul and found it "quite compelling";

Terry also reviews The Wells of St Mary's by R C Sherriff, now available as an ebook or POD, Terry says it was "much appreciated entertainment at the end of a hard day"

and Michelle Peckham reviews Evil for Evil by Aline Templeton, concluding that "Aline Templeton's books featuring Marjory Fleming keep improving with each new outing".




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.

Win: Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska

This month's competition prizes are two signed copies of Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska, courtesy of The Friday Project, an imprint of HarperCollins.

To enter the draw, to win one of these copies, just answer the question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open to UK residents only and will close on 31 March 2013.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winners have been notified.)

A naked girl has washed up on the banks of the River Thames. The only clue to her identity is a heart-shaped tattoo encircling two foreign names. Who is she – and why did she die?

Life’s already complicated enough for Janusz Kiszka, unofficial 'fixer' for East London’s Polish community: his priest has asked him to track down a young waitress who has gone missing; a builder on the Olympics site owes him a pile of money; and he’s falling for married Kasia, Soho’s most strait-laced stripper. But when Janusz finds himself accused of murder by an ambitious young detective, Natalie Kershaw, and pursued by drug dealing gang members, he is forced to take an unscheduled trip back to Poland to find the real killer.

In the mist-wreathed streets of his hometown of Gdansk, Janusz must confront painful memories from the Soviet past if he is to uncover the conspiracy – and with it, a decades-old betrayal.

New Reviews: Charlton, Connor, Lemaitre, Lipska, Muir, Neville, Runcie, Solana, Voss & Edwards

Nine new reviews have been added to Euro Crime this week:

Geoff Jones reviews Karen Charlton's The Missing Heiress, the first in the Detective Lavender series set in 1809;

Amanda Gillies reviews Alex Connor's Memory of Bones, which revolves around Goya's skull;

JF reviews Pierre Lemaitre's Alex, tr. Frank Wynne, concluding her review with: "An absolute gem of a crime novel that is wonderfully dark, scary, mad, bad and dangerous to know, but just far too good to miss...";

Michelle Peckham reviews Anya Lipska's debut, Where the Devil Can't Go which she very much enjoyed;

Laura Root reviews TF Muir's Tooth for a Tooth the third in the DI Gilchrist series set in St Andrews;

Lynn Harvey reviews Stuart Neville's Ratlines stating that it is "a convincing magnetic thriller";

Terry Halligan reviews the Father Brown-esque Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie;

I reviewed Teresa Solana's The Sound of One Hand Killing, tr. Peter Bush on the blog last week

and Rich Westwood reviews Louise Voss and Mark Edwards's All Fall Down, the second in the Kate Maddox series.

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.