New Reviews: Aykol, Johnstone, King, McKinty, Nickson, Shepherd, Vargas

Win Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska (UK only)





Seven new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:


I review Esmahan Aykol's second Kati Hirschel investigation Baksheesh tr. Ruth Whitehouse, set in Istanbul;


Amanda Gillies reviews Doug Johnstone's latest Gone Again which she found even better than Hit & Run;



Lynn Harvey reviews the most recent in the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R King, Garment of Shadows, set in Morocco;




Mark Bailey reviews Adrian McKinty's, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, the second in the 1980s-Northern Ireland Sean Duffy trilogy;


Geoff Jones reviews the fifth in the historical Richard Nottingham series by Chris Nickson: At the Dying of the Year;




Terry Halligan reviews Lloyd Shepherd's sequel to The English Monster, The Poisoned Island


and Sarah Hilary reviews Fred Vargas's The Ghost Riders of Ordebec tr. Sian Reynolds.




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.

New Reviews: James, Link, Persson, Russell, Ryan, Shepherd, Spedding, Steinhauer, Varesi

During April you can enter a competition to win a copy of Julia Crouch's Every Vow You Break. There are no geographical restrictions.

Answer the question and fill in the form here.

Here are this week's reviews of which there are 9 again this week as I'm taking next weekend off. There are also plenty of updates to the new releases pages (see below):

Susan White reviews Dan James's (aka Dan Waddell's) Unsinkable set on the Titanic;

Maxine Clarke reviews Charlotte Link's The Other Child, tr. Stefan Tobler set in Scarborough;

Laura Root reviews Leif GW Persson's Another Time, Another Life tr. Paul Norlen, the second in the "Story of a Crime" trilogy;

Amanda Gillies reviews the paperback release of Craig Russell's A Fear of Dark Water which is the latest in the Jan Fabel series;

Rich Westwood reviews William Ryan's The Holy Thief, the first in his Captain Alexei Dmitriyevich Korolev series, set in 1936;

Terry Halligan reviews Lloyd Shepherd's debut, a historical crime novel - The English Monster, calling it "superb";

Geoff Jones reviews Sally Spedding's creepy thriller Cold Remains;

Lynn Harvey reviews Olen Steinhauer's "gripping" globe-trotting spy thriller An American Spy

and Michelle Peckham reviews Valerio Varesi follow-up to his International Dagger short-listed River of Shadows, The Dark Valley tr. Joseph Farrell.

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 Elizabeth Bailey, M C Beaton, C C Benison, Rhys Bowen, Audrey Braun, Alison Bruce, Tania Carver, Kimberley Chambers, Lee Child, Sam Christer, Elizabeth J Duncan, Carola Dunn, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Charles Finch, Friis & Kaaberbol, Frances Fyfield, Eliza Graham, Susanna Gregory, Helene Gremillon, Penny Hancock, Anne Holt, Will Jordan, Ali Knight, Stephen Leather, M L Longworth, G M Malliet, Edward Marston, Peter May, Andy McNab, Fergus McNeill, Regina O’Melveny, Andrea Penrose, Anne Perry, Ann Purser, Rob Ryan, Lloyd Shepherd, A K Shevchenko, Eva Maria Staal, Nick Stone, Peter Tickler, Simon Tolkien, Lee Weeks, Jeri Westerson and Timothy Williams have been added to these pages this week.

Whitechapel III - Start Date

The third series of ITV's excellent Whitechapel begins next Monday at 9pm. There are six episodes comprising three two-part investigations which are inspired by three real-life crimes/criminals: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, The Whitehall Mystery and The Zodiac Killer.

As far as I know, the Ratcliffe Highway Murders, unlike Jack the Ripper, haven't featured in much crime fiction. There is of course the non-fiction account, The Maul and The Pear Tree by P D James and T A Critchley which was reissued in 2010 and there will be Lloyd Shepherd's debut novel, The English Murder which is to be published 1 March.

Blurb: London, 1811. The twisting streets of riverside Wapping hold many an untold sin. Bounded by the Ratcliffe Highway to the north and the modern wonders of the Dock to the south, shameful secrets are largely hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and a terrified populace calls for justice. John Harriott, magistrate of the new Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge up to them and his only hope of doing so is Charles Horton, Harriot's senior officer. Harriott only recently came up with a word to describe what it is that Horton does. It is detection.

Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives from Oxford armed only with a Letter of Introduction to Captain John Hawkyns, and the burning desire of all young men; the getting and keeping of money. For Hawkyns is about to set sail in a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself, and Billy sees the promise of a better life with a crew intent on gain and glory. The kidnap and sale of hundreds of human beings is not the only cursed event to occur on England's first officially-sanctioned slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted islet in the Florida Cays, Billy too is to be enslaved for the rest of his accursed days.

Based on the real-life story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster takes us on a voyage across centuries, through the Age of Discovery, and throws us up, part of the human jetsam, onto the streets of Regency Wapping, policed only by Officer Horton.