New Reviews: Downie, Fitzgerald, Fredrickson, Lake, Leather, Malone, Molay, Rhodes, Rickman

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

In recent days, I've put a call out for a couple more UK/Ireland based reviewers and if you like copycat cover posts, here's my non-crime 'handy' display.

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

New Reviews

Susan White reviews Ruth Downie's Tabula Rasa which is the sixth in the Roman Britain Ruso series but stands well on its own;

Lynn Harvey reviews Conor Fitzgerald's Bitter Remedy the fifth in the Italy-based Commissario Alec Blume series;

Geoff Jones reviews Jack Fredrickson's Silence the Dead, based on a true murder story in Illinois;

Terry Halligan reviews The Moonlit Door by Deryn Lake, the third in her Reverend Nick Lawrence series;

Terry also reviews Stephen Leather's White Lies which is the latest in the "Spider Shepherd" series, now out in paperback;

Amanda Gillies reviews Michael J Malone's Beyond the Rage;

Michelle Peckham reviews Frederique Molay's The City of Blood tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman the third in the 'Paris Homicide' series;

Michelle also reviews The Winter Foundlings by Kate Rhodes, the third in the Dr Alice Quentin series

 and Amanda also reviews Phil Rickman's stand alone, Night After Night.




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

New Reviews: Camilleri, Gray, Johnston, Marklund, Quinn, Rhodes

Here is the final set of reviews to be added to the Euro Crime website in 2012 however over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting the reviewers' favourite discoveries of 2012 on the blog, so please check back frequently.

I'm continually grateful to the dedicated reviewers who keep the review section of Euro Crime going with their submissions. Early in the New Year I'll be compiling their favourite reads of 2012.

The next set of reviews will appear around 6-7 January 2013.

Here are the final reviews of 2012:

Susan White reviews the paperback release of the International Dagger Award-winning The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri, tr. Stephen Sartarelli;

Terry Halligan reviews Alex Gray's ninth Lorimer-Brightman book A Pound of Flesh set in a wintry Glasgow, and now out in paperback;

Paul Johnston's Alex Mavros is caught up in the Olympics - the 2004 Olympics in Athens - in The Green Lady, reviewed here by Geoff Jones;

In wintry Stockholm, Liza Marklund's Annika Bengtzon gets the story of a lifetime in Last Will, tr. Neil Smith, which reviewer Lynn Harvey calls "nail-biting";

Terry also reviews Anthony Quinn's debut Disappeared which introduces Northern Ireland policeman Celcius Daly

and Lizzie Hayes reviews Kate Rhodes debut Crossbones Yard.

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 - New Blood

And on to the next panel. Val McDermid's very popular "New Blood". As you can see the room is huge and I was so far back I had to watch the tv screen and couldn't take any useful photos.

From the Programme:
Always a festival ‘must see’. Queen of Crime Val McDermid has hand-picked four of the hottest new talents on the scene and invited them to discuss their debut novels. Eager readers on the lookout for the next big thing will be spoiled for choice as Val introduces Elizabeth Haynes (Into The Darkest Corner), David Mark (The Dark Winter), Oliver Harris (The Hollow Man) and Kate Rhodes (Crossbones Yard).

My notes:

VM gets sent piles of debut books so she can pick authors for the panel. Keeps her up to date as well as getting a list for hitman. Crime fiction has expanded over the years, you can go anywhere do anything. Buy & Try!

All here because VM loved characters and voices.

OH - police procedural very unlike Dixon of Dock Green

LH - took pole-dancing clasees for research.

DM - a man of mystery! The Dark Winter is set in "joyous sea side town of Hull" as fun as you'd might expect...

KR is a poet

[then followed an intro to all the books - links to reviews are above.]

LH - the OCD plot was device for word count (as written for NaNoWriMo) and think of what to do next. VM used to send Kate Brannigan to the supermarket for similar reasons.

DM - born in Carlisle.

OH - write to explore other aspects of people's lives, experimental form to take apart what's going on.

LH - worked for police intelligence - wrote romance in playground, 50 shades of jelly baby (VM). Massive crime fiction fan but could never find any justification for crime, so was part of reason she applied for police job, to inspire her fiction.

Boundary between crime fact and fiction. Darkness in book. VM can read violence but terribly squeamish.

DM - write about what you know. As a journalist for 7 years has met many victims of crime (crime reporter). Natural affinity. Lucky to get job at 17, almost immediately attending murder trial.

KR fed up with poetry after 15 years, very lonely. Like to have a conversation with readers, loved crime fiction, very classy and very good at the moment especially in Britain.

VM - you have to care about a character whether you like or hate them.

VM - George Bennett in A Place of Execution was given self-doubt as a result of It's a Wonderful Life.

DM's main character is very earnest, good - which is tiresome and he has arguments with him in his head. VM says What drives McAvoy is his love for wife and child

KR's next book is about bankers dying (big cheer from the audience).

New Reviews: Brookmyre, Drake, Kent, Kernick, Larsson, Rhodes, Siger, Webster, Wilson

There won't be any new reviews next weekend but here are 9 excellent new reviews...

(NB. Don't forget to vote in the International Dagger Polls.)

Rich Westwood reviews Chris Brookmyre's, Where the Bones are Buried, set in Glasgow and now available in paperback;

Amanda Gillies goes back to Ancient Egypt for Nick Drake's third Rahotep mystery, Egypt: The Book of Chaos;

Lynn Harvey travels to the Solomon Islands for G W Kent's One Blood the sequel to Devil-Devil;

Terry Halligan reviews Siege by the UK's equivalent to Harlan Coben: Simon Kernick;

Laura Root reviews the long-awaited UK release of Asa Larsson's The Black Path, tr. Marlaine Delargy (NB. This title precedes Until Thy Wrath Be Past);

Susan White reviews Kate Rhodes's debut Crossbones Yard the first in the Alice Quentin, psychologist series;

Terry also reviews Jeffrey Siger's Target: Tinos the fourth in his Greek series;

Geoff Jones reviews Jason Webster's A Death in Valencia, the sequel to his acclaimed Or the Bull Kills You

and Maxine Clarke reviews the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger 2012 shortlisted A Willing Victim the fourth in Laura Wilson's Ted Stratton series.

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.