New Reviews: Bateman, Becker, Child, Dunne, Kolczynski, McCleary

One competition for October and it is open internationally closes 31st:
Win one of five copies of Someone Else's Son by Sam Hayes

Here are this week's reviews:

Geoff Jones reviews the second in the "mystery man" series from (Colin) Bateman: The Day of the Jack Russell now available in paperback;

Amanda Gillies reviews the third in the globe-trotting Chris Bronson series by James Becker: The Messiah Secret;

Maxine Clarke reviews the eagerly awaited sequel to Lee Child's 61 Hours - Worth Dying For;

Paul Blackburn reviews the first in 'the Reaper' series by Steven Dunne: The Reaper set in Derby;

Laura Root reviews The Oxford Virus by debut author Adam Kolczynski

and Terry Halligan reviews Carol McCleary's The Illusion of Murder in which Nellie Bly aims to go round the world in 75 days.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

New Reviews: Charles, Cross, Holt, McCleary, Tallis, Woodrow

Two of this week's review books are published this week, two are from December and two from September; they range geographically from Norway to Paris, Ireland to Austria and the UK to South America:

Geoff Jones reviews Family Life by Paul Charles the second in this Garda Inspector series;

Maxine Clarke reviews Captured by Spooks' writer Neil Cross and she recommends you have a cat or blanket nearby to cuddle;

I review the latest Vik/Stubo outing from Anne Holt, tr. Kara Dickson, Death in Oslo in which the pair get involved in finding the kidnapped female President of the United States;

Terry Halligan follows Nellie Bly to 1889 Paris in Carol McCleary's lengthy The Alchemy of Murder;

Michelle Peckham joins psychologist Dr Liebermann for his fifth investigation in Frank Tallis's Deadly Communion

and Amanda Gillies loved Patrick Woodrow's thriller First Contact.

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

All the fun of the fair...

Several books recently have used the 'International Exhibition of Paris of 1889' as a backdrop to or integral part of their stories: Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner, The Paris Enigma by Pablo de Santis and now the debut novel from Carol McCleary, The Alchemy of Murder which is to be published by Hodder on 2 April. (It's a large book but thankfully for those of us with ageing eyes, the print is huge).

PARIS 1889. THE WORLD’S FAIR

The Alchemist is how I’ve come to think of him; he has a passion for the dark side of knowledge, mixing murder and madness with science

Nellie Bly – reporter, feminist and amateur detective – is in Paris on the trail of an enigmatic killer.

The city is a dangerous place: an epidemic of Black Fever rages, anarchists plot to overthrow the government and a murderer preys on the prostitutes who haunt the streets of Montmartre. But it is also a city of culture, a magnet for artists and men of science and letters. Can the combined genius of Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne and Louis Pasteur help Nellie prove a match for Jack the Ripper?

I'm sure there must be more novels set during this exhibition...

Of course if it's Oscar Wilde as sleuth you're after then head on over to Gyles Brandreth's series.