Review: Crash Land by Doug Johnstone

Crash Land by Doug Johnstone, November 2016, 272 pages, Faber & Faber, ISBN: 057133086X

Reviewed by Amanda Gillies.
(Read more of Amanda's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

The briefest glimpse of the rather eye-catching cover on the front of Doug Johnstone’s latest novel lets you know that you are in for another corking treat. Following what seems to have become the trademark Johnstone style, the story opens with a stressful situation and rapidly goes downhill from there. The ensuing roller-coaster journey that you are taken on leaves you feeling somewhat dishevelled when you are finally spat out the other end. At times the flow of the writing in this book has an almost lacklustre feel to it that I initially found to be rather disappointing, as it wasn’t the high-octane stuff that I was expecting. However, upon reflection, the main character’s own frustration at the situation is cleverly mirrored in the way these parts of the book are written; such that the reader feels as impatient as the protagonist at the way things are turning out.

As its title suggests, this book is about a plane crash. In fact, it starts with the plane crash and the infuriating, machismo-driven, fight that causes it is maddening. You feel helpless to stop the plane from crashing and are forced to live the experience, in a dream-like slow motion, with Finn – who just wants to get home, from Orkney, for Christmas and could really do without the hassle. Unlike nearly everyone else on the plane, he survives the impact but when the beautiful woman he has been defending grabs her bag and leaves the crash site you get the sinking feeling that this isn’t going to end well.

And you will be right about that.

Pretty soon Finn is helping the police with their enquiries but they get the distinct impression that he isn’t telling them the whole truth. Forbidden from leaving the island and potentially about to be charged with causing the crash, Finn goes back to his gran’s house to cool his heels. Then he receives a text message and sets out on a course of action that soon gets him even further into trouble…

Johnstone’s books never fail to disappoint. He has this uncanny knack of making the reader feel helpless, along with the main character, and leaves you watching in dismay as the unfolding events just make matters worse and worse. If you like a cracking good story that you know will definitely not have a warm and fuzzy “Happy Ever After” ending, then CRASH LAND is just the book for you!

Extremely Highly Recommended.

Amanda Gillies, November 2016.

Review Roundup: Adler-Olsen, Anderson, Cahoon, Costantini, Cross, Daly, Hiekkapelto, Hjorth & Rosenfeldt, Johnstone, Mina, Sundstol

Here are eleven 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 at the moment in that all reviews will appear on the Euro Crime blog rather than being separate files as part of 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. The website will continue with bibliographies etc, the only change is that the reviews will be on the blog.

I'd be interested in any comments about this new approach.

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 Jussi Adler-Olsen's Buried tr. Martin Aitken, the fifth in the Carl Morck and Assad series set in Copenhagen;

Amanda Gillies reviews Lin Anderson's The Special Dead, the eleventh in the Rhona Macleod series (check back on Tuesday for a Q & A with Lin);

Not Euro Crime, but as part of an occasional special feature, I review Lynn Cahoon's Guidebook to Murder, the first in a series set in a coastal Californian town;


Lynn Harvey reviews Roberto Costantini's The Root of all Evil tr. N S Thompson, the middle part of a projected trilogy;




Also set in America is Scottish author Mason Cross's The Samaritan, reviewed by Terry Halligan;

Terry also reviews Bill Daly's Double Mortice the second in the DCI Charlie Anderson series set in Glasgow;

Ewa Sherman reviews Kati Hiekkapelto's The Hummingbird tr. David Hackston which introduces Finland's Detective Anna Fekete;


Geoff Jones reviews Hjorth & Rosenfeldt's The Man Who Watched Women tr. Marlaine Delargy, the second in the Sebastian Bergman series;

Amanda also reviews The Jump by Doug Johnstone, and concludes "I am lost for superlatives to describe this book";

Michelle also reviews Denise Mina's Blood Salt Water, the fifth in the DS Alex Morrow series

and Laura Root reviews Vidar Sundstol's The Ravens tr. Tiina Nunnally, the conclusion to his Minnesota Trilogy.

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

Blog Tour: Review of The Jump by Doug Johnstone

Today, the Blog Tour for Doug Johnstone's The Jump arrives at Euro Crime where we have a review of The Jump, written by Amanda Gillies.

The Jump by Doug Johnstone, August 2015, 288 pages, Faber & Faber, ISBN: 0571321577

Reviewed by Amanda Gillies.
(Read more of Amanda's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

THE JUMP is the seventh book written by the very talented Doug Johnstone. Just when you start to wonder how on earth it could be possible for him to write anything better than his last masterpiece, he does it again and ups the stakes still further. Magnificent. This book is full of the usual Johnstone chaos but beautifully mixed in with a sad tale of life after bereavement – specifically, the tragic loss of a teenage son to suicide and how his parents struggle to cope in the aftermath.

Ellie’s life was torn apart when her son, Logan, jumped off the Forth Road Bridge. THE JUMP is set six months after this tragic event, with Ellie taking daily walks onto the bridge, and her husband flyering and obsessed with conspiracy theories, in an attempt to keep on going when they feel as if they have nothing left. One morning Ellie is following her usual pattern when she encounters Sam – another teenage boy – in a highly distressed state and clearly about to hurl himself from the bridge as well. Ellie talks him back from the edge and takes him home, determined to save this life even though she couldn’t save her son. Sam does not want to go back to his parents and Ellie goes to find out what the problem is. By doing so, she becomes embroiled in some very dark secrets and the reader wonders just how far she is prepared to go in order to save Sam. But, as it says on the front of the book, “you can do anything if you have nothing left to lose …”

If you have yet to read anything by this author then I suggest you do so, without delay. His words always have a particularly hard-hitting edge to them, that lingers when the book is done and safely on your bookshelf. THE JUMP is the saddest of all Johnstone’s books and has left me with a lump in my throat, along with, of course, the usual exhilaration from being carried along on the tidal wave of emotions that work by this author never fails to evoke.

I am lost for superlatives to describe this book. It’s excellent. Go and read it. Now.

Extremely Highly Recommended.

Amanda Gillies, August 2015.

New Reviews: Boyd, Hayder, Johnstone, Oswald, Perry, Shoham

Here are six reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, two have appeared on the blog over the last couple of weeks and four 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

007 is back in William Boyd's Solo which places James Bond in 1969, reviewed here by Geoff Jones;

Michelle Peckham reviews Mo Hayder's Wolf, the seventh in the Jack Caffery series

Amanda Gillies reviews The Dead Beat by Doug Johnstone;

Terry Halligan reviews James Oswald's The Hangman's Song, the third in the Inspector McLean series;

Susan White reviews The Boy That Never Was by Karen Perry

and Lynn Harvey reviews Lineup tr. Sara Kitai by Liad Shoham, Israel's top crime writer.



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: The Dead Beat by Doug Johnstone

The Dead Beat by Doug Johnstone, May 2014, 272 pages, Faber & Faber, ISBN: 0571308856

Reviewed by Amanda Gillies.
(Read more of Amanda's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Just when you think an author can't possibly get any better – he does. I love this book! It stands head and shoulders above Johnstone's earlier work and I am rapidly running out of superlatives to describe him with. Everything about novel, from the eye-catching front cover, to the intriguing first sentence, to the steady stream of awesome music that runs through it, has you drawn in and focused. You can’t escape from the world that Johnstone has crafted. Not that you would want to.

Martha has a new job. She is student journalist and has managed to get some work experience on her Dad's old paper. Except people don't know her Dad is her Dad and, as he killed himself two weeks ago, they won't be working together. Martha is set to work on the obituary column and even before she has a chance to settle in the phone rings. The caller is highly distressed and shoots himself while talking to her. Not a good way to start your new job. What else could go wrong? THE DEAD BEAT follows Martha's progress over the next few days as she struggles to deal with her experiences in the present as well as come to terms with her past.

One of the many reasons I love Johnstone's work is the way he messes with your head. True to form, this one does not disappoint and I imagine it will be quite a while before I am able to return to crossing North Bridge in my usual, casual manner. If you like a story that keeps coming back to you, long after you have found it a place on your bookshelf, then you are going to love this book.

Extremely Highly Recommended.

Amanda Gillies, May 2014.

New Reviews: Fossum, Henry, James, Johnstone, Lawton, Rendell, Roberts, Vichi, Wilson

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 :).

News you may have missed in the last few days:

1. Margot Kinberg's has edited, contributed to and published an e-anthology of short stories, the proceeds from which are going to Maxine Clarke's (Petrona) preferred charity, the Princess Alice Hospice.
2. Borgen is back on BBC4 next weekend.
3. A "new" Hercule Poirot novella is available as an ebook.

Keep up to date with stories like these (and more) by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

I review Karin Fossum's I Can See in the Dark, tr. James Anderson, a non-Sejer standalone;

Terry Halligan reviews James Henry's Morning Frost, the third in this well-received prequel series based on R D Wingfield's characters;

Michelle Peckham reviews Peter James's Dead Man's Time, the ninth in the Roy Grace series, which is now out in paperback;

Rich Westwood reviews Doug Johnstone's Gone Again, also just out in paperback;

Susan White reviews the re-released Second Violin by John Lawton, set during WWII;

Terry also reviews the new "Wexford" novel from Ruth Rendell - No Man's Nightingale - no rest for the retired chief inspector;

Another recent paperback release is Mark Roberts's The Sixth Soul reviewed here by Amanda Gillies;

Lynn Harvey reviews Marco Vichi's Death in Florence, tr. Stephen Sartarelli the fourth in the Inspector Bordelli series set in 1960s Italy

and Lynn also reviews Laura Wilson's The Riot the fifth in the DI Stratton series set in post WWII London.




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: Gone Again by Doug Johnstone

Gone Again by Doug Johnstone, November 2013, 256 pages, Faber & Faber, ISBN: 0571296610

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

GONE AGAIN is a stand-alone suspense novel by the author of last year's HIT & RUN.

It opens with Mark Douglas, a photographer for the Edinburgh Evening Standard, standing on Portobello Beach in a gale, trying to capture the perfect picture of a pod of whales swimming dangerously close to the shore.

Rough grey swells were chopping up the firth, where a coastguard speedboat was zipping and turning, trying to guide the whales towards open water. Black fins darted and dipped, too many to count properly, but at least forty.

Mark is interrupted by a call from his son's primary school. His wife Lauren hasn't arrived to collect Nathan - could he come to get him?

This isn't the first time Lauren has gone AWOL - the last time was during a bout of postnatal depression - and Mark is instantly concerned that her disappearance is related to the fact that she is expecting another baby. As the minutes turn into hours, it becomes obvious to Mark that she is in real danger. The police, as always, cannot act until a longer period of time has passed.

Johnstone is good on the vacuum left by a missing person. What should Mark tell his son? Who will do the school run? Who will look after Nathan when Mark is speaking with the police? It is these minutiae which make GONE AGAIN a realistic and satisfying read.

Mark is under incredible stress from the moment Lauren disappears. His anxiety expresses itself in very 2013 ways - checking Lauren's Facebook and Twitter accounts once an hour rather than going to friends and family. Mark and Lauren have few connections outside of work and are remote from their friends. Mark's only adult ally is his mother-in-law Ruth, but their relationship is far from uncomplicated.

As with all good suspense novels, we are never quite sure where we stand. Mark seems like a nice guy, but he has some ugly sides to his character which are drawn out by the stress of Lauren's disappearance. As he pursues his own suspicions it's not clear how much he is driven by paranoia and jealousy. The plot is cleverly set up, and appeared to me to be building inevitably towards one of two conclusions before taking a surprising left turn.

Dads in particular will find that Mark's relationship with his son Nathan is touchingly drawn, their closeness mainly expressed through Star Wars cartoons and the Nintendo DS. Mark is constantly questioning how much to tell Nathan or whether it is kinder to leave him in ignorance.

Mark said she was away working for a few days [...] Nathan wanted to know why she hadn't called though. Maybe her phone needed charging up, another familiar scenario, she was always forgetting. With each little lie, he felt the universe closing in on him, the wind outside trying to make him pay for what he said by pushing the windows in.

Read another review of GONE AGAIN.

Rich Westwood, November 2013

New Reviews: Aykol, Johnstone, King, McKinty, Nickson, Shepherd, Vargas

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





Seven new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:


I review Esmahan Aykol's second Kati Hirschel investigation Baksheesh tr. Ruth Whitehouse, set in Istanbul;


Amanda Gillies reviews Doug Johnstone's latest Gone Again which she found even better than Hit & Run;



Lynn Harvey reviews the most recent in the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R King, Garment of Shadows, set in Morocco;




Mark Bailey reviews Adrian McKinty's, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, the second in the 1980s-Northern Ireland Sean Duffy trilogy;


Geoff Jones reviews the fifth in the historical Richard Nottingham series by Chris Nickson: At the Dying of the Year;




Terry Halligan reviews Lloyd Shepherd's sequel to The English Monster, The Poisoned Island


and Sarah Hilary reviews Fred Vargas's The Ghost Riders of Ordebec tr. Sian Reynolds.




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: Cotterill, Crouch, Griffiths, Johnstone, MacBride, Marston, Nykanen, O'Brien, Staincliffe & new Competition

New month, new competition. During May (closes 31st) you can enter a competition to win a copy of Tessa Harris's The Anatomist's Apprentice. The competition is open to UK residents. Answer the question and fill in the form here.

Here are this week's reviews of which there are 9 again. There are also more updates to the new releases pages (see below):

Michelle Peckham reviews the delightfully named Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach by Colin Cotterill, the second in the Jimm Juree series set in present-day Thailand;

Susan White reviews last month's competition prize, Every Vow You Break by Julia Crouch set in New York state;

Lizzie Hayes reviews the paperback release of Elly Griffith's A Room Full of Bones the fourth in this North-Norfolk set series;

Amanda Gillies may have found her top read of 2012 in Doug Johnstone's Hit & Run, set in Edinburgh;

Staying in Scotland, Lynn Harvey reviews Stuart MacBride's standalone, Birthdays for the Dead;

Down in Devon, Terry Halligan reviews Edward Marston's The Stationmaster's Farewell where railway detective Robert Colbeck is sent to Exeter;

Moving to Finland, Maxine Clarke reviews Harri Nykanen's Nights of Awe, tr. Kristian London the first in the Ariel Kafka series, set in Helsinki;

Terry also reviews Martin O'Brien's The Dying Minutes the seventh in the Jacquot series set in the South of France

and Maxine also reviews Cath Staincliffe's Split Second.

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. Titles by Tony Black, Bernadette Calonego, Alexander Campion, Rebecca Cantrell, Donato Carrisi, Karen Charlton, Alys Clare, Lesley Cookman, A J Cross, Victor del Arbol, Thomas Glavinic, J M Gregson, Wolf Haas, Max Kinnings, Priscilla Masters, Carol McCleary, Catriona McPherson, Barbara Nadel, Ann Purser, Pauline Rowson, Gerald Seymour, Linda Stratmann, Stefan Tegenfalk, Will Thomas, Kerry Tombs, Morley Torgov, Peter Tremayne, Neil White and Edward Wilson have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Hampson, Johnstone, Jungstedt, Vargas, Verhoef, Zimler

April's competition:
Win a copy of Apostle Rising by Richard Godwin UK & Europe only.

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews June Hampson's sixth book in her "Daisy Lane" series, Fighting Dirty;

Amanda Gillies provides a whisky-themed review of Doug Johnstone's Smokeheads;

Laura Root reviews the paperback edition of Mari Jungstedt's The Killer's Art, tr. Tiina Nunnally;

A few days ago on this blog I reviewed the latest in the Adamsberg series from Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place, tr. Sian Reynolds;

Maxine Clarke reviews the paperback release of Esther Verhoef's Rendezvous, tr. Alexander Smith

and Terry Halligan was deeply impressed with Richard Zimler's The Warsaw Anagrams.

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

Publishing Deal - Doug Johnstone

The Bookseller brings news of a publishing deal for Doug Johnstone:

Faber has signed Scottish author Doug Johnstone’s Smokeheads as part of a two-book deal that sees him leave former publisher Penguin. Smokeheads will be published in late spring 2011, with a second book to publish the following year.

Faber described Smokeheads as “’Sideways’ meets ‘Shallow Grave’ with a hint of ‘The Wicker Man’... a classic ‘what if?’ thriller”, in which four old Edinburgh friends go on a distillery tour trip that goes “seriously awry”.

Read the article in full, here.