New Reviews: Bonnot, Brody, Camilleri, Clements, Dunne, Ferris, Heller, Lackberg, Toyne

During April (closes 30th) you can enter a competition to win a copy of Julia Crouch's Every Vow You Break. There are no geographical restrictions. 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):

Laura Root reviews Xavier-Marie Bonnot's The Voice of the Spirits, tr. Justin Phipps, the third book to feature Marseilles inspector De Palma;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Frances Brody's third Kate Shackleton mystery Murder in the Afternoon now out in trade paperback;

Maxine Clarke reviews Andrea Camilleri's The Potter's Field, tr. Stephen Sartarelli - "an excellent book";

Susan White reviews Prince by Rory Clements, the third in the Tudor John Shakespeare series which is now out in paperback;

Geoff Jones reviews Steven Dunne's Deity, the third in his Derby based DI Brook series;

Terry Halligan reviews Gordon Ferris's second Douglas Brodie outing, Bitter Water set in Glasgow;

Lynn Harvey reviews Mandasue Heller's Manchester based Lost Angel which should appeal to Martina Cole fans;

Rich Westwood reviews the paperback release of Camilla Lackberg's The Gallows Bird, now titled The Stranger, tr. Steven T Murray

and Amanda Gillies reviews Simon Toyne's sequel to Sanctus, The Key.

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 Simon Brett, Frances Brody, Anders de la Motte, Anna Dean, Barry Fantoni, Casey Hill, Juris Jurjevics, Pia Juul, Lars Kepler, Adrian Magson, Pat McIntosh, Russel D McLean, Theresa Murphy, J A O'Brien, Jean-Francois Parot, Stella Rimington, Sara Sheridan, Martin Walker, Evonne Wareham and Carlos Zanon have been added to these pages this week.

CrimeFest - Cosies

I have shrunk these photos down somewhat so people can view them on phones etc but unfortunately they are a bit fuzzy.

The opening panel on "Cosies" featured from left to right:

Deryn Lake, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Lauren Henderson, Carola Dunn and Frances Brody.


Here are some random jottings and thoughts from the panel:

Frances Brody's third book in the series will be out in September and her books should be published in the US next year. Deryn Lake's historical novels (as Dinah Lampitt) will be reissued under the Lake name. (I first knew of this author as Dinah Lampitt and devoured her Pour the Dark Wine about the Tudor Seymours which I read in 89 or 90). The Mills of Gold is the first in a new series and there is a new John Rawlings, Death at the Wedding Feast, published in July. Carola Dunn's Anthem for Doomed Youth is the darkest in the Daisy series so far.

There was some discussion of what the term cozies/cosies mean eg between people who know each other well. Cozies more of a US term? Usually used as a pejorative term. The murder methods may not be cosy (at one point Deryn Lake rattled off her book titles and the murder methods in them) but the level of detail would be low and no forensics involved.


The panelists agreed about enjoying house hunting for their characters. Another thing that identified cosies was that the killer didn't take trophies!


Lauren Henderson (whose crime books I wouldn't describe as cosies!) is currently writing YA and bonk-busters (as Rebecca Chance). She commented that her YA (clean) was not selling in the UK as not gloomy enough.