New Reviews: Chisholm, Cleeves, Collett, Indridason, Jacobsen, Kitchin, Marklund, Nickson, Webster

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

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

New Reviews

Terry Halligan reviews the sixth in P F Chisholm's Elizabethan Robert Carey series, An Air of Treason, in which is tasked to discover who killed Amy Dudley;

Susan White reviews the latest in Ann Cleeves's Shetland series, Thin Air;

Terry also reviews Chris Collett's Dead of Night, the seventh book to feature one of the few fictional Birmingham coppers, Tom Mariner;


Lynn Harvey reviews the latest (and possibly last) in the 'Older' Erlendur series, Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indridason tr. Victoria Cribb. (NB. The recent Reykjavik Nights features a younger Erlendur.)

Susan also reviews Trophy by Steffen Jacobsen tr. Charlotte Barslund, which she "thoroughly recommends";


Rich Westwood reviews Rob Kitchin's Stumped, a "slightly blacker comedy set in Dublin, Manchester and the West of Ireland";

Michelle Peckham reviews Liza Marklund's Borderline tr. Neil Smith, which see reporter Annika Bengtzon on the other side of the media fence when her husband gets kidnapped;


Michelle also reviews Gods of Gold by Chris Nickson, set in 1890's Leeds

and if you weren't already convinced by Lynn's review earlier in the year then Laura Root's review should ensure that you give Jason Webster's Blood Med a go.


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. NB. Forthcoming releases by category for 2015 are now available.

Favourite Discoveries 2013 (9)

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2013 comes from Terry Halligan who reviews at Euro Crime.

Terry Halligan's Favourite Discoveries of 2013

My favourite TV discovery of 2013 was The Doctor Blake Mysteries featuring Craig McLachlan as Dr Lucien Blake and set in 1959 Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The first 10 episodes were shown daily Monday to Friday on BBC One from the 25th November. The stories are really different and very interesting and Dr Blake in an unusual protagonist in being a single Doctor who has inherited his practice from his late father and also works as a Police Surgeon. There are hints that he has been separated from his wife and child since the start of the Second World War, when he was interned as a POW, in a Japanese Camp and when released discovered that his wife and child were missing. I recorded all of the episodes and I'm currently enjoying them and I hope that more episodes will be shown.

Back in early October, I was staying overnight in a hotel in Buffalo, New York State and I saw an episode of Blue Bloods for the first time and now back here I'm able to watch that also on Sky. It is about a family in New York who are either serving police officers, one is commissioner of police (Tom Sellick) and his two sons are a detective and a patrol man and a daughter is an assistant district attorney. It has some very good plot lines.

Looking over the list of books that I've read during 2012, two American authors that I read as alternates to Euro Crime books stand out. The first is the US author Steve Berry who specialises in mystery adventure stories and the first I read was THE TEMPLAR LEGACY which is a much better written and interesting book than THE DA VINCI CODE. The second US author I discovered is Stephen Cannell and and the book is titled THE TIN COLLECTORS. Cannell is a similar author to Michael Connelly and has written many books but has sadly now passed away.

For Euro Crime, an author that I was introduced to this year was Chris Collett who writes really thrilling mysteries with her Birmingham based detective DI Tom Mariner. I've only read one by her for review called BLOOD AND STONE and I would like to read more.


The second author I was introduced to in doing a review for Euro Crime was the Sussex-born author Terry Hayes who wrote one of the best books of the year with his debut one I AM PILGRIM, which has been described as incredibly strong, absorbing and a thrilling story and compared to the sensation that was caused in publishing when Frederick Forsyth's THE DAY OF THE JACKAL was first released. Hayes although born in England, has lived in Australia most of his life and trained as a journalist and worked as a screenwriter on the Mad Max series of movies before turning to writing.

New Reviews: Brooks, Bruce, Collett, Cutts, Holt, Mackenzie, Persson, Sampson, Webster

This week's set of reviews, added to Euro Crime today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Terry Halligan reviews Kevin Brooks' Wrapped in White, the third in the PI John Craine series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Alison Bruce's The Silence, the fourth in the Cambridge-set DC Gary Goodhew series, now out in paperback;

Terry also reviews Chris Collett's Blood and Stone which sees the return of Birmingham DI Tom Mariner, after a four year gap, this time he's on holiday in Wales;

Geoff Jones reviews Lisa Cutts' debut, Never Forget which introduces DC Nina Foster;

Susan White reviews Jonathan Holt's The Abomination set in Venice and the first in a trilogy;

Laura Root reviews Jassy Mackenzie's Pale Horses, the fourth in the PI Jade de Jong series set in South Africa;

Amanda Gillies reviews Leif GW Persson's Another Time, Another Life, tr. Paul Norlen calling it "a perfect read for the summer";

Mark Bailey reviews Kevin Sampson's The Killing Pool, set in Liverpool;

Lynn Harvey reviews Jason Webster's The Anarchist Detective the third in the Max Camara series set in Valencia;

and I've just completed a crime month on my blog for teenage/ya fiction, including a review of Caroline Lawrence's The Case of the Good-Looking Corpse. A summary post can be found here.


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.

Review: Blood and Stone by Chris Collett

Blood and Stone by Chris Collett, July 2013, 256 pages, Creme de la Crime, ISBN: 1780290527

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

DI Tom Mariner is grieving the sudden loss of his former partner Anna and takes a couple of weeks leave from his job in Birmingham to go on a solo walking holiday in Wales. Unfortunately, his need for peace and solitude to help him grieve is lost when he is caught up in a murder investigation following his finding of a dead body. He never expected that he would find himself, with all of his previous experience, as a prime suspect in a murder investigation.

Tom discovers that there are a number of disturbing secrets being kept behind the closed doors of the ancient stone farmhouses that populate the region.

At the same time as Tom goes away a violent criminal is released early from prison as he is dying from kidney cancer. As he has a terminal illness he considers he has nothing to lose by settling a few scores and consequently he kills several of his old acquaintances before he makes a getaway into Wales.

BLOOD AND STONE is a very well plotted police procedural with some beautiful descriptions of walks in Wales and the youth hostelling and camping experience.

The author is very clever in her manipulation of the plot and the red herrings that she suggests, that can send your mind racing in one direction until perhaps Tom Mariner sees something accidentally, which triggers a different line of enquiry and you momentarily forget your earlier conclusions. There are a number of characters in the police and potential killers which I found a little confusing at first but it all turned out right in the end. I must admit though, I had no idea who the killer was until the very end and it was a big surprise.

This fast-paced story was very gripping and I just could not put it down and I am pleased to discover that she has written several other books in the series which I must get. Extremely well recommended.

Terry Halligan, July 2013.

Crime series set in Birmingham (UK)

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog may have seen that I've listed Maureen Carter's Bad Press as my current read and recently her previous book Hard Time. This is not just because I had a review copy of Bad Press but also because Maureen is giving a talk at Mere Green Library at 11am on Wednesday (a few spaces left if anyone wants to come btw). I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Maureen at my crime reading group when her debut book, Working Girls was first published in 2001. A slight hiatus ensued but since joining Creme de la Crime publishers in 2005, she has produced a book a year, Bad Press being the fifth. Her series stars the feisty, gobby DS Bev Morriss. Her bibliography and links to reviews of her books (written by esteemed reviewer Sharon Wheeler) can be found here. (I'm enjoying these books enormously as well!) 

Maureen joins a select band of authors who set their books in the 'perceived to be' unfashionable/unsaleable-market setting of Birmingham. 

As far as I know the only other crime authors to set a series in Birmingham are:

Valerie Kershaw who wrote a five book series featuring a radio presenter (published between 1993 and 2000)

Judith Cutler who wrote two series set in Birmingham, published between 1998 and 2003, one with an amateur sleuth and another with a policewoman. (She is probably the best well known of the local crime writers, based on my library experience). 

Plimmer and Long - an ex-cop and ex-con who co-wrote a two book series between 2000 and 2001. 

Chris Collett who began a series in 2004 featuring policeman Tom Mariner which stands at eight books so far. (Tom Mariner has many female fans in my reading group!) 

If anyone knows of any more series set in Birmingham (looking at you Martin E :-)) then do please pop them in the comments. 

Update 26/4/21 

Also set in Birmingham:

Recent:

Lucie Whitehouse has written two books (so far) in the DCI Robin Lyons series set in Birmingham: Critical Incidents and the forthcoming Risk of Harm (July 21).

G S Locke's Neon (2020)

Rachel MacLean's West Midlands DI Zoe Finch series.

Tess Makovesky's  Raise the Blade and The Gravy Train.

Steve Robinson's The Penmaker's Wife. 

Slightly older:

Marc Blake's Bigtime features Birmingham and Corley Service.

Maureen Carter's DI Sarah Quinn series.

 

Terry Coy's The Evil Ones.

Gary Coyne's The Short Caution.

John Dalton's The City Trap.

Mick Scully's Little Moscow.

If you are after the Black Country, then Thomas JR Dean has a series set there in the 1950s: Once Upon a Time in The Black Country. Alex Grecian's second book in his Scotland Yard Murder Squad series is called The Black Country and is set in a fictional Midlands mining town. Patrick Thompson's Execution Plan and Seeing the Wires are set in Dudley.

There are also some further suggestions in the comments.

Potential Copy Cat Covers

Continuing the occasional series of copycat cover posts, I stumbled across these identical covers today on amazon.co.uk. Both of these books are due out in 2009 so there may be chance to change the later one...

Chris Collett's Stalked by Shadows is out in January whereas Alison Joseph's A Violent Act is slated for August.

UPDATE: A Violent Act is actually out this month, amazon's date is wrong, so it's vice-versa on who got there first! (Thanks to Allison & Busby for pointing that out).