New Reviews: Duns, Gowers, Marrinan, Peace, Schenkel, Waites

These are the last reviews I'll upload this year but I am aiming to post a new set on 2 January 2011. I'll soon be collating the Euro Crime reviewers' favourite reads of 2010 and will post the result as soon as it's complete.

Terry Halligan reviews the paperback release of Free Agent by Jeremy Duns the first in a spy-thriller trilogy;

Michelle Peckham reviews The Twisted Heart by Rebecca Gowers which contains both a literary mystery and a love story;

Terry also reviews, and praises highly, Patrick Marrinan's legal thriller Degrees of Guilt;

Amanda Gillies reviews the Quercus hardback release of David Peace's 1977 the second part of the Red Riding Quartet;

Maxine Clarke reviews Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel, tr. Anthea Bell

and Laura Root reviews the US hardback release of Martyn Waites' Speak No Evil which she calls "quality British noir".

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

New Reviews: Braddon, Brownley, Cooper, Peace, Robinson, Staalesen

Two competitions are currently running:

i)Win Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire (UK only)
ii)Win Sheer Folly by Carola Dunn (UK/Europe only)

Details on how to enter can be found on the Competition page

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

Terry Halligan reviews another in Atlantic Books Classic Crime series: Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon;

Michelle Peckham reviews A Picture of Guilt by James Brownley which is the first in the Alison Glasby, journalist, series;

Maxine Clarke reviews the first of N J (Natasha) Cooper's Karen Taylor series, No Escape which is set on the Isle of Wight;

Amanda Gillies reviews David Peace's 1974, the first part of the Red Riding Quartet, which is now available in hardback from Quercus;

Geoff Jones reviews Peter Robinson's latest short story collection, The Price of Love

and Maxine also reviews the new Varg Veum from Arcadia: The Consorts of Death by Gunnar Staalesen, tr. Don Bartlett.

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

New Reviews: Ammaniti, Clark, Hannah, Peace

Two competitions are running in March. The prizes are Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor and The Herring Seller's Apprentice by L C Tyler.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

Norman Price has good things to say about The Crossroads by Niccolo Ammaniti;

Terry Halligan reviews The Red Velvet Turnshoe by Cassandra Clark which goes onto his "best of 2009" list;

Maxine Clarke has mixed views on The Other Half Lives by Sophie Hannah (nb. not a book about physics)

and Pat Austin concludes her reviews of the Red Riding Quartet by David Peace with 1983 recommending the series "without a doubt".

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

New Reviews: Campbell, Gilbert, Martin, Monroe, Peace, Vargas

Two competitions are up and running. The prizes are Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor and The Herring Seller's Apprentice by L C Tyler.

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

Maxine Clarke is very impressed with Karen Campbell's debut novel, The Twilight Time, set in Glasgow and now out in paperback;

Amanda Brown finds that the stories in Paul D Gilbert's The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes "add to the Holmes legacy";

Geoff Jones reviews Lee Martin's Gangsters Wives (the case of the missing apostrophe perhaps?) calling it "an easy read";

Terry Halligan gives an explanation for the (perceived) slow pace of Aly Monroe's The Maze of Cadiz which he enjoyed nonetheless;

Pat Austin continues her reviews of the Red Riding Quartet by David Peace, with part three, 1980 - "the writing is superb and I really couldn't put it down."

and Fiona Walker reviews the latest and in fact the first in the Adamsberg series by Fred Vargas to be translated into English - The Chalk Circle Man calling it a "condensed Vargas primer"

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

UPDATE: Possible spoiler in the comments below if you haven't read White Nights by Ann Cleeves.

Red Riding - tonight

The first part of the Red Riding trilogy of films is on tonight at 9pm on Channel 4. The official website is here. The trilogy is based on 1974, 1980 and 1983 by David Peace. The quartet of books also includes 1977.

Euro Crime reviews of (the books) 1974 and 1977 have been posted with 1980 and 1983 to follow over the next two weekends.

New Reviews: Macken, Moore, Peace, Sigurdardottir & a New Competition

A new competition is up and running. The prize is a copy of Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor. A second competition for March may be added at a later date. Watch this space...

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

Amanda Brown reviews the third in the GeneCrime series by John Macken, Breaking Point, and she writes that, "tense and violent, this is not a light book, but it makes gripping reading";

Maxine Clarke reviews Donna Moore's laugh out loud debut novel Go to Helena Handbasket calling it "one hundred and fifty pages of pure fun";

Pat Austin continues her reviews of the Red Riding Quartet by David Peace, with part two, 1977 - "an extraordinary and masterly piece of work"

and Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback edition of Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir a book that is a recent favourite of the euro crime review team.

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

New Reviews: Carter, Peace, Rendell, Walters

The following reviews have been added to the review archive over on the main Euro Crime website:

New Reviews:

I review Maureen Carter's latest Bev Morriss book - a series set in 'unfashionable' Birmingham - Bad Press;

Pat Austin reviews the first book in the Red Riding Quartet by David Peace - 1974 (three of the four books are being televised next year);

Fiona Walker reviews Portobello by Ruth Rendell

and Maxine Clarke reviews the newest in Michael Walters' Mongolian series, The Outcast.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here plus for those thinking about their favourite books of 2008, there's a list (generated from my database) of British/European crime novels (written by British/Europeans) published in the UK in 2008, here. (I haven't yet updated it to include non-Europeans writing about Europe).

David Peace's Red Riding Quartet - tv news

David Peace's Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983) is to be made into a three-part series. From Digital Spy:

Sean Bean is part of the ensemble cast in a new series of TV crime thrillers to be shown on Channel 4.

The Lord Of The Rings actor will join Andrew Garfield, David Morrissey and Paddy Considine in Red Riding.

The three-part series is an adaptation of David Peace's trilogy of novels set in Yorkshire in the 1970s and '80s.

Executive producer Andrew Eaton remarked that Red Riding explores issues of morality and human nature.

He said: "This is a gripping drama that takes a look at human nature in a time of uncertainty and a culture that has lost its moral compass."