New Reviews: Campbell, Crawford, Easter, Mackenzie, Nesbo, Spurrier, Taylor

Win Carnage by Maxim Chattam (UK only).

Here are this week's reviews:

Amanda Gillies reviews the paperback release of Karen Campbell's Proof of Life, the fourth in this esteemed series;

Terry Halligan goes globe-trotting in Dean Crawford's Covenant;

Rich Westwood reviews Patrick Easter's second in his historical-naval-crime series, The River of Fire;

Maxine Clarke reviews South African author Jassy Mackenzie's first Jade de Jong thriller, Random Violence;

Earlier this week, I reviewed Jo Nesbo's Phantom, tr. Don Bartlett;

Lynn Harvey reviews Simon Spurrier's A Serpent Uncoiled

and Susan White reviews D J Taylor's 1930s set Secondhand Daylight.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Alex Churton, Dick (Felix) Francis, Anton Gill, Susan Hill, Caro Ramsay, Felix Riley, Barbara Vine and Tim Weaver have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Black, Campbell, Krajewski, Neville, Sjowall & Wahloo, Thomas

Here are this week's new reviews:

Mark Bailey reviews Truth Lies Bleeding the first in a new series by Scottish author, Tony Black;

Staying in Scotland, Amanda Gillies reviews Karen Campbell's Shadowplay and summarises her many words of praises in the phrase: "it rocks!";

Marek Krajewski's Mock series is a bit like Marmite, several of the Euro Crime review team have enjoyed it a lot, but Michelle Peckham had the opposite response when she read the latest, Phantoms of Breslau, tr. Danusia Stok, now out in paperback with a new look (though the older cover style may give the potential reader a better idea of the content! eg The End of the World in Breslau);

Lynn Harvey reviews Stuart Neville's Collusion now out in paperback and is the sequel to 'The Twelve';

Maxine Clarke reviews the tenth and final entry in the Martin Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo The Terrorists, tr. Joan Tate which is as fresh as it was 36 years ago

and Terry Halligan reviews David Thomas's (aka Tom Cain) Blood Relative.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Benjamin Black, Susanna Jones, M J McGrath, Hakan Nesser and Felix Palma have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Bruce, Campbell, Fowler, Francis, Hill, Leather, Miller

NB. No reviews next week as I'm on holiday!

Here are this week's reviews:

Susan White reviews Alison Bruce's second book in the Cambridge-set DC Goodhew series, The Siren, which is now available in paperback;

Maxine Clarke reviews Karen Campbell's fourth book in this loose Glasgow-based series, Proof of Life;

Rich Westwood reviews Christopher Fowler's, Bryant & May on the Loose, the seventh in this series featuring the two elderly policemen who work for London's Peculiar Crimes Unit;

Sarah Hilary reviews the new Dick Francis book Gamble written by Felix Francis and considers what does make a "Dick Francis novel"?;

Lynn Harvey reviews Casey Hill's Taboo the first in the series which brings Californian Reilly Steel to Ireland;

Terry Halligan reviews the new "Spider" book from Stephen Leather: Fair Game

and Michelle Peckham favourably reviews book of the moment, Snowdrops by A D Miller.

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

New Reviews: Billingham, Black, Campbell, Ellory, Harper, MacBride

One competition for October and it is open internationally closes 31st:
Win one of five copies of Someone Else's Son by Sam Hayes

Here are this week's reviews (in all but once case the author or the reviewer is Scottish, and in one case both! Plus two of the non Scottish authors are Brummies (where I live)):

The tv series Thorne, starts tonight with the adaptation of the first Thorne book, Sleepyhead. Geoff Jones reviews the ninth in this series, written by Mark Billingham: From the Dead;

Paul Blackburn reviews the fourth Gus Dury from Tony Black - Long Time Dead set in Edinburgh;

Maxine Clarke is in Glasgow with Karen Campbell's Anna Cameron in her third outing: Shadowplay;

Pat Austin is impressed with R J Ellory's latest standalone: Saints of New York;

Amanda Gillies enjoys Tom Harper's latest thriller, which involves the Holy Grail: The Lazarus Vault

and Craig Sisterson reviews Stuart MacBride's most recent DS Logan McRae book: Dark Blood set in Aberdeen.

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

New Reviews: Campbell, Doherty, Hughes, James, Jungstedt, Rayne

Here are this week's reviews:

Terry Halligan reviews the paperback edition of Karen Campbell's After the Fire which is a strong contender for his top 5 of 2010;

Craig Sisterson goes to Ancient Egypt with Paul Doherty's The Anubis Slayings;

Michelle Peckham enjoyed the new Ed Loy, PI from Declan Hughes: City of Lost Girls;

Maxine Clarke is disappointed with the "mind of a killer" scenes in Peter James's Dead Like You but enjoys The Killer's Art by Mari Jungstedt, tr. Tiina Nunnally much more

and Amanda Gillies has high praise for Sarah Rayne's new chiller (set in the Fens), House of the Lost.

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

New Reviews: Baker, Burdess, Campbell, Fallada, Seeber, Smith

Keep an eye out for details of May's competition, coming very soon...

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

New Reviews:

Firstly, in case you missed it, Crimeficreader's review of John Baker's Winged With Dead was uploaded earlier this week;

Terry Halligan reviews the third of Wendy Burdess's historical mysteries, A Criminal Affair, which has a highwayman known as the "Courteous Criminal"(!);

Maxine Clarke reviews Karen Campbell's After the Fire and concludes with "I'm very much looking forward to reading more by this talented, thoughtful author";

Book of the week is Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, written in 1947 but only published in translation this year and is reviewed here by Norman Price who writes that it "was a privilege to read this brilliant novel";

Maxine also reviews Lullaby by Claire Seeber - a psychological thriller with Martina Cole-ish overtones

and Laura Root reviews Tom Rob Smith's follow-up to Child 44, The Secret Speech calling it "a remarkable meld of history, politics and thriller".

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.

New Reviews: Campbell, Ellory, Eriksson, Fossum, Liang and Morley

Every week six new reviews are added to the website. I've set up a poll to get a bit of feed-back to see if that's too few, too many or about right. Please spare a few seconds to vote and/or leave a comment. Thank you :-).

And here are this week's new reviews and details of the current competitions:

Latest Reviews:

This week we're visiting all over the globe: Scotland, America, Sweden, Norway, China and Italy.

Pat Austin reviews the début novel from Karen Campbell, The Twilight Time, set in Glasgow and concludes that despite its problems, she'd probably read another;

Kerrie Smith is very impressed with Richard & Judy selection: R J Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels - another Brit setting his books in America;

I was very disappointed in Kjell Eriksson's The Cruel Stars of the Night which spends a lot of time away from the detectives

A second review of Broken by Karin Fossum comes courtesy of Maxine Clarke who writes that "BROKEN is a wonderful, haunting book, full of powerful, overwhelming emotions";

Sunnie Gill pops over to China to look at how the past has impacted on present-day China in Diane Wei Liang's Paper Butterfly;

and Geoff Jones reviews Spider by Michael Morley which is set in both Italy and New York and is the first in the Jack King ex-FBI Profiler series.


Current Competitions:

Win a copy of Death on a Branch Line by Andrew Martin*

* no restrictions on entrants (ends 30 June)


Win a copy of Blood Lines by Grace Monroe**

** UK/Europe only (ends 5 July)