New Reviews: Eastland, Griffiths, Higashino, Jameson, Persson, Taylor

Six new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:

Terry Halligan reviews Sam Eastland's The Red Moth, the fourth in the Inspector Pekkala series, and set in 1941;

Michellle Peckham reviews Elly Griffiths's Dying Fall, the fifth in the Ruth Galloway series, usually set in Norfolk but this time the setting is in the North-West

I review Keigo Higashino's Salvation of a Saint, tr. Alexander O Smith with Elye J Alexander, the second novel to feature Tokyo Detective Kusanagi and his friend Yukawa;

Lynn Harvey reviews Hanna Jameson's debut, Something You Are;

Norman Price reviews Leif GW Persson's Linda, as in the Linda Murder, tr. Neil Smith the first in a new series featuring (the non-pc) Evert Backstrom

and Sarah Hilary reviews Andrew Taylor's The Scent of Death set in New York just after the War of Independence.

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: Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino translated by Alexander O Smith with Elye J Alexander, February 2013, 376 pages, Little, Brown, ISBN: 1408704196

SALVATION OF A SAINT is the follow-up to THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X and again involves Tokyo Detective Kusanagi and his friend Yukawa, the physicist, aka "Detective Galileo".

Yoshitaka Mashiba is found dead in his home, poisoned. His wife, Ayane, is away visiting family. It doesn't appear to be suicide but who and more critically how could he have been poisoned as there's no trace of a visitor.

Kusanagi and his team are called in. His team includes a woman detective, Kaoru Utsumi, who soon sees that Kusanagi is somewhat taken with the widow Ayane and is worried he's not thinking straight. So she goes behind his back and consults Yukawa. This secrecy doesn't last long however and soon Yukawa is “on the case”, offering suggestions and carrying out experiments in his lab. Yoshitaka's personality and particular life goals are unravelled and a motive of sorts is revealed but can Yukawa crack what could be the perfect murder?

I really like this sort of crime novel – a mystery, not bloody with a puzzle to be unravelled. And what a puzzle! I liked the new no-nonsense character Utsumi and the fact that this is more of a police procedural than the previous book so you get to know Kusanagi a little better, though the focus is still more on plotting than characterisation. I felt this was paced slightly better than SUSPECT X - I didn't feel it begin to drag even though on the face of it it isn't a wide-ranging investigation and the suspect pool is very limited. It's a fast read due to the large amount of dialogue (and the large print and wide margins don't hurt) as well as the intricacy of the plot pulling you through.

SALVATION OF A SAINT is a very absorbing who/how-dunnit and I hope there's more in this series to come from Keigo Higashino.

Salvation of a Saint - Cover Opinions

I haven't been doing the "cover opinions" posts for a while so I'm reinstating them, starting with a book that's not out until October (US) and February (UK).

It's one of the eligibles for the 2013 International Dagger: Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino translated by Alexander O Smith.

The UK cover is similar to the UK trade paperback release of The Devotion of Suspect X, whereas (to me at least) the US cover looks like an American thriller. The US cover has gone with "Edgar Award Finalist" whereas the UK's has gone with "The Japanese Stieg Larsson"(!).

But what are your thoughts on the US (LHS) and UK (RHS) covers? Which would entice you to pick the book up?

Official blurb: When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away?


While Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. As his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced...


SALVATION OF A SAINT is a magnificently complex and page-turning thriller starring international crime fiction's most enigmatic sleuth.This is essential reading for all fans of exceptional crime fiction.

New Reviews: Adams, Beckett, Cleeves, Eastland, Higashino, Kaaberbol & Friis, Leather, Rickman, Russell

As is vaguely customary, a 6 review week is followed by a 9 review week...making roughly a review a day.

Win 3 Richard Nottingham mysteries by Chris Nickson (UK only).

Here are this week's 9 new reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Jane A Adams's sixth Naomi Blake outing, Blood Ties;

Geoff Jones reviews Simon Beckett's fourth David Hunter novel, The Calling of the Grave, now out in paperback;

Maxine Clarke reviews the fifth in Ann Cleeves's "Vera" series, The Glass Room;

Lynn Harvey reviews the third in Sam Eastland's Inspector Pekkala series, Siberian Red;

Michelle Peckham reviews the paperback release of The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, translated by Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander;

I review The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis, tr. Lene Kaaberbol set in Copenhagen and which is the first in the Nina Borg series;

Terry Halligan reviews the third in the supernatural PI Jack Nightingale series from Stephen Leather Nightmare;

Rich Westwood reviews Phil Rickman's The Lamp of the Wicked which touches on some true-life crimes, and is the fifth in the Merrily Watkins series which is being issued in paperback by Atlantic Books;

and Amanda Gillies reviews Craig Russell's third book in the Lennox series, The Deep Dark Sleep, set in 1950s Glasgow.

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 Jane Adams, John Connolly, Sebastian Fitzek, Tony/Anthony Hays, Anne Holt, Fabrice Humbert, Susan Elia MacNeal, Danielle Ramsay and Simon Urban have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Ellis, Eriksson, Fowler, Higashino, Lambert, Williams

As promised, a final set of reviews for 2011. More reviews will appear early in the New Year. Do please read the Euro Crime reviewers Favourite Discoveries of 2011 which I'll continue to post next week.

Here are this week's reviews:

Michelle Peckham reviews Joy Ellis's follow-up to Mask Wars, Shadowbreaker (which is set in my beloved Fens) and Michelle praises it highly;

Lynn Harvey reviews the recent UK release of Kjell Eriksson's The Princess of Burundi, tr. Ebba Segerberg the earliest of the "Ann Lindell" series available in English from an author Lynn likens to Henning Mankell (and for once the snowy cover is warranted);

Mark Bailey reviews the most recent of Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series: Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood;

I review the much talked-about The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, tr. Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander;

Maxine Clarke begins her review of Charles Lambert's Any Human Face (set in a Rome) by saying that it is "an excellent, well-written novel of suspense"

and Terry Halligan is impressed with Andrew Williams's To Kill a Tsar.

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 Geraint Anderson, Richard Blake, Julia Crouch, Steven Dunne, James Forrester, Ann Granger, Grebe & Traff, Quintin Jardine, Michael Jecks, Alan Judd, Tom Knox, Lynda La Plante, Matt Lynn, The Medieval Murderers, G J Moffat, Kate Rhodes, Craig Robertson, Imogen Robertson, Jacqui Rose, Bob Shepherd, Simon Spurrier, Jason Steel and Jon Stock have been added to these pages this week.