New Reviews: Crouch, Dunne, Ferris, Hannah, Harper, Kallentoft, Kitchin, O'Connor, Shaw

This week's set of reviews, added to Euro Crime today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Jut a reminder: I've now set up a Euro Crime page on Facebook which you can like.

Michelle Peckham calls Julia Crouch's Tarnished, an "excellent book";

Geoff Jones reviews Steven Dunne's The Unquiet Grave, the fourth in the Derby-set DI Damen Brook series;

Susan White reviews the paperback release of Gordon Ferris's Pilgrim Soul;

Susan also reviews the paperback release of Sophie Hannah's The Carrier;

Amanda Gillies reviews Tom Harper's The Orpheus Descent;

Lynn Harvey reviews Mons Kallentoft's Savage Spring, tr. Neil Smith, the fourth in the Detective Malin Fors series;

Rich Westwood reviews Rob Kitchin's screwball-noir Stiffed;

Terry Halligan reviews Niamh O'Connor's Too Close For Comfort, the third in the Dublin-based Det. Sup. Jo Birmingham series

and Terry also reviews William Shaw's debut, A Song From Dead Lips, the first in a series set in the 1960s.

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: Too Close for Comfort by Niamh O'Connor

Too Close For Comfort by Niamh O'Connor, March 2013, 432 pages, Transworld Ireland, ISBN: 1848271395

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

A woman's body is found in Ireland's most notorious body dump area, a locality in the Dublin mountains where a number of women have disappeared in the past. The victim is from an exclusive gated development in the suburbs - where the main suspect in the vanishing triangle cases, Derek Carpenter, now lives. It seems like the past is coming back to be repeated in the present. The victim is a solicitor by profession and the police wonder whether one of her clients could be involved.

DI Jo Birmingham is leading the investigation and doesn't believe the case is as predictable as her superiors believe. Her husband Dan was part of the original investigation team; is she trying to protect her fragile domestic peace? The one person who could help her crack the case, Derek's wife Liz, is so desperate to protect her family that she is going out of her way to thwart all efforts to establish the truth. Can both women emerge unscathed?

This multi-faceted story weaves the on-going search for the perpetrator of the crime alternating with the desperate goings on that occurred at the News Of The World newspaper before it ceased to be published. Niamh O'Connor has written two previous books with the protagonist DI Jo Birmingham that I have enjoyed reviewing and when not researching and writing her books she is the true crime editor for the Sunday World, Ireland's biggest selling Sunday newspaper. A job in which she interviews both high profile criminals and their victims which means she really knows the world that she writes about.

This third book of hers I found a real pleasure to read as it had many sub-plots to keep me guessing and I found the story immensely gripping and fast moving and the pages just shot by. It was long but it was very well plotted with many twists and turns and I look forward to reading her future books as much as I enjoyed this one. Recommended.

Read another review of TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT.

Terry Halligan, August 2013.

New Reviews: Blake, Creed, Garnier, McNeill, O'Connor, Rowson, Russell, Shepherd, Varenne

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Rich Westwood reviews Nicholas Blake's third Nigel Strangeways mystery There's Trouble Brewing which was reissued earlier this year with three other titles;

Geoff Jones reviews Adam Creed's fourth DI Wagstaffe book Death in the Sun set in Spain;

Earlier this week I reviewed Pascal Garnier's How's the Pain? tr. Emily Boyce a most unusual short crime story;

Susan White reviews the debut from Fergus McNeill, Eye Contact set in Severn Beach;

Maxine Clarke reviews Niamh O'Connor's Too Close for Comfort, the third in her DI Jo Birmingham series set in Dublin;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Pauline Rowson's Death Lies Beneath the eight in her Portsmouth based series featuring DI Andy Horton;

Amanda Gillies reviews Leigh Russell's fourth DI Geraldine Steele outing Death Bed set in London;

Terry Halligan reviews Lynn Shepherd's Tom-All-Alone's (apa The Solitary House), set in the milieu of Bleak House

and Lynn Harvey reviews Antonin Varenne's Bed of Nails tr. Sian Reynolds set in Paris and Lynn writes that it is "a powerful and original debut crime story, definitely one for Vargas fans".

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: Bruce, Clark, Haas, Jones, Kallentoft, Niven, O'Connor, Staincliffe

Here are 8 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website:

Following on from last week's review of The Calling we have Susan White's review of Alison Bruce's latest, The Silence: "This is the fourth outing for DC Goodhew and his colleagues and it doesn't fail to delight" ;

Terry Halligan reviews Cassandra Clark's A Parliament of Spies the fourth in the Abbess of Meaux series;

I review Wolf Haas's Brenner and God tr. Annie Janusch the first (but not the last thankfully) book by this Austrian author to be translated into English;

Lynn Harvey reviews Chris Morgan Jones' debut An Agent of Deceit now out in paperback. Published in the US as The Silent Oligarch;

Maxine Clarke reviews Mons Kallentoft's Summertime Death tr. Neil Smith;

Michelle Peckham reviews John J Niven's thriller, Cold Hands;

Terry reviews Niamh O'Connor's second Jo Birmingham investigation: Taken set in Dublin, and now out in paperback

and Susan also reviews Cath Staincliffe's Split Second also now out in paperback.

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: Ceder, Hannah, Masters, Nadel, O'Connor, Rowson

Here are this week's new reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews Frozen Moment by Camilla Ceder, tr Marlaine Delargy, the first in a new Swedish series;

Michelle Peckham was gripped by Lasting Damage by Sophie Hannah;

Lizzie Hayes has lots of nice things to say about the latest in Priscilla Masters's Martha Gunn, Coroner series: Frozen Charlotte;

Laura Root reviews Barbara Nadel's A Noble Killing the thirteenth in this consistently good Inspector Ikmen series;

Susan White was disappointed with Niamh O'Connor's debut fiction book If I Never See You Again now out in paperback

and Terry Halligan reviews Footsteps on the Shore by Pauline Rowson an "excellent police procedural" set in Portsmouth.

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

New Reviews: Janes, Kristian, McGilloway, Nadel, O'Connor, Sigurdardottir

Closing tomorrow:
Win a copy of Deadly Trade by Michael Stanley (Worldwide)
Win a copy of Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth (UK only).

Here are this week's reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews Diane Janes's fiction debut, The Pull of the Moon (partly set in Birmingham);

Amanda Gillies goes back to the Vikings in the second in the Raven series by Giles Kristian - Sons of Thunder;

Michelle Peckham reviews the recently released paperback edition of Brian McGilloway's Bleed a River Deep, the third in this Irish Borderlands series;

Laura Root reviews the latest Cetin Ikman from Barbara Nadel Death by Design, in which Inspector Ikman goes undercover in London;

Terry Halligan reviews journalist Niamh O'Connor's debut If I Never See You Again the first in a series starring Dublin Superintendent Jo Birmingham

and Maxine also reviews the second in the Thora (and Matthew) series from Yrsa Sigurdardottir, tr. Bernard Scudder and Anna Yates - My Soul to Take which has an Agatha Christie style set-up.

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