New Reviews: Crouch, Dunne, Ferris, Hannah, Harper, Kallentoft, Kitchin, O'Connor, Shaw

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 :).

Jut a reminder: I've now set up a Euro Crime page on Facebook which you can like.

Michelle Peckham calls Julia Crouch's Tarnished, an "excellent book";

Geoff Jones reviews Steven Dunne's The Unquiet Grave, the fourth in the Derby-set DI Damen Brook series;

Susan White reviews the paperback release of Gordon Ferris's Pilgrim Soul;

Susan also reviews the paperback release of Sophie Hannah's The Carrier;

Amanda Gillies reviews Tom Harper's The Orpheus Descent;

Lynn Harvey reviews Mons Kallentoft's Savage Spring, tr. Neil Smith, the fourth in the Detective Malin Fors series;

Rich Westwood reviews Rob Kitchin's screwball-noir Stiffed;

Terry Halligan reviews Niamh O'Connor's Too Close For Comfort, the third in the Dublin-based Det. Sup. Jo Birmingham series

and Terry also reviews William Shaw's debut, A Song From Dead Lips, the first in a series set in the 1960s.

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.

Harrogate - Deadlier than the Male

One of the things I did notice at the festival is that despite the reported figure that 80% of crime readers are women which was also borne out by the audience demographic, less than 33% of the authors appearing were women...

From the programme:
Is it women who write the most graphically violent crime fiction? Or has this simply become a myth that should be nailed once and for all? And whether written by men or women, why is it that the majority of this fiction is bought by female readers? Journalist Danuta Kean puts some uncomfortable questions to Jilliane Hoffman, Julia Crouch, Amanda Kyle Williams and Tania Carver aka Martin Waites who (as a man writing as a woman) has a stiletto in both camps.

My notes:

80% readers of crime fiction are women

Are women deadlier than than male?.

MW: There is a perception - he thinks he writes the same level of violence as Martin or Tania. If involved violence should hurt, not keen on graphic violence. Perceived as a blokey writer as Martin - that's because he's a bloke!

AKW: don't think we're more violent, there's a bias as people don't look for females when there is a serial killer on the loose. More shocking for women to write violence but they also have ability to write from victim's perspective.

JC: more in touch with fear; men are more likely to be attacked but they don't feel scared.

JH: rape - women can imagine it. Scene in Retribution doesn't say what attack involved. Women have more imagination than men and  they can imagine what happened. Mustn't cross line and go grotesque.

Why do women read so much crime fiction?

We're drawn to what makes people tick.

MW: men want to find out what people tick too.

JH: has the female come in and save the day. The Cutting Room sees return of CJ Townsend. JH's heroine kills the dragon.

AKW - her heroine kicks ass. Makes no apologies for the fact that it's violent. Readers read crime fiction as drawn to the dark.

JH - impart to readers what it feels to be a victim. We're desensitised to word rape so have to take reader through that night - readers wouldn't understand victim until they understood the crime; what motivates her to prosecute someone who may or may not be guilty and put them on death row.

MW - The Surrogate based on real life case in USA. who would do that? He got his wife Linda involved as of the two she's been more pregnant... Not gratuitous, did it like (film) Se7en and doesn't show much. Would have been different perspective if it was a Joe Donovan book. The last book his wife said read like a MW book so had to scrap it and rewrite as TC.

JH - The Cutting Room features a snuff group - fairly sure that one exists.

AKW - Scaring you is my job and I enjoy it.

MW - The White Room, one of two novels wanted to write as grew up few streets from Mary Bell (child killer) - it was a real miseryfest to write (though Guardian book of the year). He was writer in residence at a prison and one when he was in lockdown wrote male rape scene - later reread it and wondered where it had come from.

AKW - respects readers - entertainment and that's kind of it. Story reads fast and reader is satisfied in the end. Doesn't take self too seriously.

JH - check all is accurate, legally, medically.

JH - "know enough to fake it good"

AKW - would never harm an animal

JC - A French review of Cuckoo said don't harm the children; wouldn't do it in much detail

JH - no harm to children or animals, had to bump up age in Pretty Little Things (child pornography).

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.

Win: Every Vow You Break by Julia Crouch

Thanks to the generosity of Headline, Euro Crime has five copies of Every Vow You Break by Julia Couch to giveaway.

To enter the draw, just answer the question and include your details in the form below.

This competition is open to residents of the world and will close on 30 April 2012.
Only 1 entry per person/per household please.
(All entries will be deleted once the winners have been notified.)

The Wayland family - Lara and Marcus and their three children - leave England to spend a long, hot summer in Trout Island, Upstate New York. Lara, still reeling from an abortion that Marcus insisted on, hopes the summer away from home will give her time to learn to love her husband again.

A chance meeting at a party reacquaints the family with Marcus's old actor friend, Stephen, with whom Lara once had an affair. Lara feels herself drawn towards Stephen and they pick up their secret relationship where they left off. Lara knows she's playing a dangerous game; what she doesn't know is that it's also a deadly one.

New Reviews: Bird, Crouch, Kuzneski, Leon, Myers, Parris, Thompson & New Competitions

Two new competitions for March, both close 31st March:
1.Win a signed copy of Complicit by Nicci French UK only
2.Win From the Dead by Mark Billingham UK & Europe only

Here are this week's reviews:

Paul Blackburn reviews Nigel Bird's Dirty Old Town a short story collection available for the Kindle;

Michelle Peckham reviews Julia Crouch's debut, Cuckoo, calling it "a highly accomplished first novel";

Amanda Gillies feels she's not the target audience for Chris Kuzneski's disappointing The Secret Crown;

Maxine Clarke reviews Donna Leon's "well up to scratch" A Question of Belief which is now out in paperback;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Amy Myers' Murder on the Old Road which she highly recommends;

Susan White reviews S J Parris's follow-up to the acclaimed Heresy: Prophecy

and Terry Halligan reviews James Thompson's police-procedural Snow Angels the first in a series set in Finland.

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