New Reviews: Allen, Arlidge, Burke, Hilary, Horst, Lemaitre, Linskey, Quinn, Smith

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

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 Hania Allen's Double Tap, the second book in the Von Valenti series [the first book, Jack in the Box is currently free for UK Kindle];

Terry Halligan reviews M J Arlidge's debut, Eeny Meeny which introduces DI Helen Grace;

Craig Sisterson reviews Declan Burke's The Lost and the Blind;

Michelle Peckham reviews Sarah Hilary's No Other Darkness, the second book in the DI Marnie Rome series;

Guest reviewer Bob Cornwell reviews Jorn Lier Horst's The Caveman tr. Anne Bruce;

Ewa Sherman reviews Camille tr. Frank Wynne, the final part in Pierre Lemaitre's trilogy;

Geoff Jones reviews Howard Linskey's No Name Lane, set in County Durham in the '90s;

Lynn Harvey reviews Anthony Quinn's sequel to the well-regarded Disappeared, Border Angels

and Amanda Gillies reviews Anna Smith's A Cold Killing, the latest in the Rosie Gilmour series.





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

Review: Eeny Meeny by M J Arlidge

Eeny Meeny by M J Arlidge, May 2014, 448 pages, Century, ISBN: 1405914874

Reviewed by Terry Halligan.
(Read more of Terry's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

This debut novel from M J Arlidge was absolutely astounding, one of the best stories that I have read so far this year and very likely to be included in my top five books of the year. The plot was very absorbing and I was truly gripped until the breathtaking conclusion.

A young couple awake, very disorientated, trapped and days without food or water. There is no escape. Instead there's a gun loaded with a single bullet and a mobile phone with charge enough only to deliver a short message: when one of you kills the other, the survivor will walk free.

Southampton Detective Inspector Helen Grace is assigned the case and has to interview Amy, the girl who killed her boyfriend Sam, in order to escape the hellish captivity of nearly two weeks. Amy is very thin, filthy dirty and feeling very subdued and guilty because she has killed. She says that she and Sam had been abducted by a woman who had drugged them. Helen accepts her story and soon there are other couples being kidnapped, starved and then given unacceptable choices.

How can Helen and her team track the perpetrator of these dreadful crimes?

This compulsively written police procedural races on to the exciting conclusion. The author, who is male, has worked in television for the last fifteen years specialising in high-end drama productions. For the last five years, Arlidge has produced a number of crime serials for ITV and is currently working on a major adaptation for BBC.

This absolutely sensational story introducing the damaged detective, DI Helen Grace to readers has been followed by two other stories, with the fourth, LIAR LIAR, due for publication in September 2015. So I have three other exciting stories to look forward to from this very gifted author. Extremely well recommended.

Terry Halligan, April 2015.

Reviews: Arlidge, Daly, Duke, Furst, Kitson, Kreslehner, Mann, Phillips, Wilkinson

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

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

New Reviews

Michelle Peckham reviews M J Arlidge's second book featuring Southampton's DI Helen Grace, Pop Goes the Weasel;

Terry Halligan reviews Bill Daly's Black Mail the first in the DCI Charlie Anderson series set in Glasgow;

Susan White reviews Simon Duke's debut Out of Bounds which is set in the US;

Lynn Harvey reviews Alan Furst's Midnight in Europe set in the late 1930s;

Terry also reviews Bill Kitson's Buried in the Past, the eighth in the DI Mike Nash series;

Michelle also reviews Austrian author Gabi Kreslehner's Rain Girl tr. Lee Chadeayne;

Rich Westwood reviews George Mann's Sherlock Holmes - The Spirit Box;

Amanda Gillies reviews Last Kiss by Louise Phillips, the third in the Dr Kate Pearson set in and around Dublin

and Mark Bailey reviews Kerry Wilkinson's Crossing the Line, the eighth in the DI Jesica Daniel series set in Manchester.


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.