Review Roundup: Bolton, Carol, Carter, Den Tex, Edwards, Gordon-Smith, Hodgson, Jones, Kelly, Mankell, Marklund, Mogford, Patterson & Ellis, Staalesen

Here are sixteen reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, all have appeared on the blog since last time.

If you like translated crime fiction then you may be interested in the International Dagger 2016 Speculation list of titles.

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 Sharon Bolton's Little Black Lies, set in the Falklands;

Susan White reviews James Carol's Prey, the third in the Jefferson Winter series set in the US;

Amanda Gillies reviews Chris Carter's I Am Death, the seventh in his Robert Hunter series set in LA;


Guest reviewer Bob Cornwell reviews the Dutch thriller Mr. Miller by Charles Den Tex tr. Nancy Forest-Flier;

Rich Westwood reviews Martin Edwards's The Golden Age of Murder - a history of the Detection Club;


Terry Halligan reviews Dolores Gordon-Smith's The Chessman, the ninth in the 1920s Jack Haldean series;

Terry also reviews The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson, the sequel to the award winning The Devil in the Marshalsea;


Geoff Jones reviews J Sydney Jones's The Third Place, the sixth in the Viennese mystery series;

Geoff also reviews Jim Kelly's Death on Demand, the sixth in the Shaw & Valentine series set in North Norfolk;


Lynn Harvey reviews Henning Mankell's An Event in Autumn tr. Laurie Thompson;

Michelle also reviews Liza Marklund's Without a Trace tr. Neil Smith - the tenth and penultimate entry in the Annika Bengtzon series;

Lynn also reviews Thomas Mogford's Sleeping Dogs which takes Gibraltar-based lawyer Spike Sanguinetti to Corfu;

I review parts Three, Four and Five of Murder House by James Patterson and David Ellis


and Ewa Sherman reviews Gunnar Staalesen's We Shall Inherit the Wind tr. Don Bartlett which is the sixteenth in the PI Varg Veum series though only six are currently available in English and is the first of three from Orenda Books.

Review: The Third Place by J Sydney Jones

The Third Place by J Sydney Jones, June 2015, 224 pages, Severn House Publishers Ltd, ISBN: 072788526X

Reviewed by Geoff Jones.
(Read more of Geoff's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Austria - early in the twentieth century. Herr Karl Andric is the well respected Head Waiter at the Cafe Burg. He lives a quiet life in his landlady’s house, collecting toy soldiers depicting the Napoleonic wars. One night leaving work he is brutally murdered. Although not able to identify his murderer, his death is witnessed by a waiter at Herr Karl’s Austrian Tea Room.

The waiter and his uncle approach Advokat Karl Werthen asking him to investigate. However no sooner has he commenced his investigation, Werthen is summoned to see Prince Montenuovo. The Prince is Second Master of the Court and answerable to the Emperor Franz Josef himself. Franz Josef has been widowed since his wife Empress Elizabeth was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist. He has formed a relationship with Katharina Schratt, a leading actress. One of his letters to her has gone missing and would be very embarrassing in the wrong hands.

Werthen is tasked to recover the letter and his old friend the eminent criminologist Dr Hans Gross joins him in the investigation. When this mission is successfully concluded, but before Werthen can resume his Herr Karl case, the Prince again summonses both him and Gross. There has been an assassination attempt on the Emperor, and the belief is there will be further attempts.

Leaving Werthen’s wife Berthe to continue investigating Herr Karl’s death, Werthen and Gross soon realise they are trying to identify a resourceful killer who will stop at nothing to achieve his aim. The man is an old adversary of theirs, who has nothing to lose having fled Russia when sentenced to imprisonment in Siberia.

This is the sixth Viennese mysteries by the author. It is very well researched, and is an interesting part of history. Archduke Franz Ferdinand appears in the book. He was the heir apparent to Franz Josef’s throne since the suicide of his son Prince Rudolph. Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife Countess Sophie Chotek were assassinated in 1914 on a visit to Sarajevo. Austria and Hungary declared war against Serbia. However they had Russia as an ally and this led to World War One.

The book provides a very interesting backdrop to these events, well written and entertaining. Although I haven’t read any of the other Viennese series, I have read other books by the author and this is well up to his high standard. As usual his book title has a meaning. In Austria, the first place is home, the second place is work and the third is the coffee house. Highly recommended.

Geoff Jones, October 2015

New Reviews: Atherton, Bates, Howard, Johnston, Jones, Knight, Magson, Moliner, Richmond

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

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

New Reviews

I review Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well, the nineteenth in the Aunt Dimity series set in the Cotswolds;

Ewa Sherman reviews Quentin Bates' Summerchill, in which we catch up with Icelandic police officer Gunna;

Susan White reviews Cold Revenge by Alex Howard, which is the second outing for DCI Hanlon;


Mark Bailey reviews Paul Johnston's Heads or Hearts: the return of Quint Dalrymple;

Geoff Jones reviews J Sydney Jones' Cold War thriller, Basic Law;

Laura Root reviews Disclaimer by Renee Knight, her debut;

Terry Halligan reviews Adrian Magson's Close Quarters, the second Marc Portman thriller;

Lynn Harvey reviews The Whispering City by Sara Moliner tr. Mara Faye Letham

and Michelle Peckham reviews What She Left by T R Richmond, also a debut. 



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

New Reviews: Bonner, Chase, Colfer, Forsyth, Jones, McIntosh, Masterton, Sundstol, Zouroudi

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 :).

Useful Information:
I've now set up the 2014 International Dagger Eligibles post so you can see which 76 (so far) titles are  published in the qualifying period.
There is a similar post for the 2014 Petrona Award Eligibles.
There is also a Euro Crime page on Facebook which you can like and will keep you up to date with the blog (plus occasional extras).

New Reviews

It's been a 9 year gap between books but Hilary Bonner is back with The Cruellest Game reviewed here by Susan White;

Michelle Peckham reviews  Wicked Game, the first in a new series by E V Seymour writing as Adam Chase, starring assassin for hire, Hex;

Lynn Harvey reviews Eoin Colfer's Screwed, the sequel to Plugged, which is now out in paperback;

Terry Halligan reviews Frederick Forsyth's The Kill List;

Geoff Jones reviews J Sydney Jones's Ruin Value set in Nuremberg at the time of the trials;

Terry also reviews The Fourth Crow by Pat McIntosh, the ninth in the Gil Cunningham series set in medieval Glasgow;

Rich Westwood reviews Graham Masterton's Broken Angels, the second in the Superintendent Katie Maguire series set in Cork, and warns it has some strong content;

Laura Root reviews Vidar Sundstol's The Land of Dreams, tr. Tiina Nunnally, the first part in his "Minnesota Trilogy"


and Amanda Gillies reviews the seventh in the Greek Hermes Diaktoros series from Anne Zouroudi: The Feast of Artemis.




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: Ruin Value by J Sydney Jones

Ruin Value by J Sydney Jones, October 2013, 293 pages, MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, ISBN: 1480426911

Reviewed by Geoff Jones.
(Read more of Geoff's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Nuremberg, Germany, November 1945 and the trials are about to begin. The allies are here in force, the judges, lawyers, stenographers, journalists and the various armies. The German people are the vanquished, many living rough and suffering food shortages.

An American soldier is murdered and because he is in possession of stolen food, it is believed that it is a "black market" murder. The local Kripo chief inspector, Reinhard Manhof, believes this is so. When a second murder happens, this time a Russian soldier, the American Colonel Adams in charge of security fears the worst. Then when a French soldier is murdered he knows they need help.

Captain Nathan Morgan is recommended, he's ex-OSS and has also been a cop in the USA. He does not believe the Kripo are taking the murders seriously, and arranges for a disgraced ex-German policeman named Beck to get out of prison. Before the war Beck's reputation for tracking murderers was exemplary.

Morgan gets romantically involved with an American journalist called Kate Wallace whose father is a Senator, but can he trust her? When further murders are committed and not involving the armed forces, Morgan and Beck are desperate for leads, who is the murderer and why? Colonel Adams is desperate that nothing will deflect attention away from the trials.

J Sydney Jones is an author new to me; an American based in California but has lived in Vienna for some years and he based a mystery series in this city. RUIN VALUE kept my interest throughout and is well researched. The book title is apparently an architectural concept much admired by the Nazis. I enjoyed the detail about one of Hitler's favourite author’s - Karl May.

Recommended.

Geoff Jones, September 2013