New Reviews: Bannister, Dahl, Davies, Hill, James, Kent, Macbain, Ryan, Savage

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 :).

Terry Halligan reviews Jo Bannister's new book, Deadly Virtues which is available as an ebook in the UK and a hardback in the US;

I review Arne Dahl's follow-up to The Blinded Man/Misterioso, Bad Blood, tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles;

Terry also reviews David Stuart Davies A Taste for Blood, the sixth in the 1940s-set Johnny One Eye series;

Laura Root reviews Antonio Hill's The Good Suicides tr. Laura McGoughlin (the sequel to one of my favourite books of last year: The Summer of Dead Toys);

Mark Bailey reviews the latest in the Roy Grace series from Peter James, Dead Man's Time;

Lynn Harvey reviews A Darkness Descending by Christobel Kent, the fourth in this Florence based series featuring ex-cop turned PI Sandro Cellini;

Susan White reviews Bruce Macbain's Roman Games, the first in the Pliny series, now out in paperback;

Amanda Gillies reviews William Ryan's The Twelfth Department which has been short-listed for the 2013 CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger;

I also review Angela Savage's Behind the Night Bazaar the first in her Jayne Keeney PI series set in Thailand

and I've also reviewed the DVD of Swedish thriller (with English sub-titles), False Trail, starring Rolf Lassgard.


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: Child, Churton, French, Juul, Nickson, Rimington, Ryan, Slan, Thorpe

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

JF reviews Lee Child's seventeenth Jack Reacher adventure: A Wanted Man;

Terry Halligan reviews Alex Churton's debut, The Babylon Gene;

Michelle Peckham reviews Tana French's Broken Harbour, the fourth in the Dublin Murder Squad series;

Maxine Clarke reviews Pia Juul's The Murder of Halland tr. Martin Aitken;

Geoff Jones reviews the fourth in the historical Richard Nottingham series by Chris Nickson: Come the Fear;

Susan White reviews Stella Rimington's The Geneva Trap, the seventh in the Liz Carlyle series;

Amanda Gillies reviews William Ryan's The Bloody Meadow the second in the Korolev series set in 1930s Russia;

I review the first in the Jane Eyre Chronicles by Joanna Campbell Slan, Death of a Schoolgirl

and Lynn Harvey reviews Adam Thorpe's Flight.

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.

Mini Review: The Holy Thief by William Ryan (audio book)

I've just had the pleasure of listening to an ISIS audio book of William Ryan's The Holy Thief read by Sean Barrett.

Sean Barrett is excellent as I knew he would be as I've listened to him read Henning Mankell's booksl. (He's also got the Jo Nesbo gig.)

I really enjoyed The Holy Thief and felt I learned a lot about Russia in the 1930s. Be aware that there are a couple of torture scenes and unpleasant descriptions of the aftermath, in this fine police procedural which introduces Captain Korolev of the CID of the Moscow Militia. he is a good man, struggling with loyalty to the state and his own religious beliefs.

For a full assessment please read Rich's excellent review, with which I agree completely, here.

The Holy Thief was shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2011 and the CWA New Blood (John Creasey) Dagger 2010


The second in the series, The Bloody Meadow, is available now and a third book should be out in 2013.

William Ryan's website
William Ryan on Twitter

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.

Publishing Deal - William Ryan's Russian Historical Crime Series

From The Bookseller:

Maria Rejt at Pan Macmillan has bought three novels in a new historical crime series set in Moscow during Stalin’s Great Terror. Rejt paid a six-figure advance at auction for British and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) in the series, written by William Ryan, doing the deal with Andrew Gordon at David Higham.

The series features Captain Alexei Korolev who in the first novel, The Holy Thief, is given the case of investigating a serial killer who is on the loose in Moscow, just as Stalin unleashes his own killing spree. The Holy Thief will be published as a lead title on the Macmillan list in early 2010.