‘The Eskdale Episode’ by Rebecca Tope

Published by Allison & Busby,
22 January 2026.
ISBN: ‎ 978-074903317-1(HB)

Simmy is still in the throes of moving her floristry business from Windermere to Keswick and time is fast running out with only a couple more weeks before her second baby is due. Because her assistant Bonnie can’t drive, and Simmy has yet to find a new assistant to help out in the shop, Simmy has no choice but to deliver all the out-of-town orders herself. 

One morning an envelope is left in the shop requesting a bouquet of a dozen yellow roses with sprays of gypsophila to be delivered as soon as possible to a Miss Jenna Jones who lives on a farm in Eskdale which will involve almost a three-hour journey. It seems an odd request as the sender insists that no message is included with the flowers, but as the money has been left to cover the costs, Simmy sets out for Eskdale. She discovers that Jenna lives with her mother and elderly grandmother on a remote rundown farm. The following day, Jemma’s mother is discovered murdered at the farm. Intrigued by the mystery of what appears to be a divided family that communicate by flowers, Simmy, urged on by Bonnie and her boyfriend Ben, sets out to find answers.   

A Rebecca Tope novel always delivers a complex plot full of twists and turns that leaves the reader turning the page to find answers only to find more questions. In addition to a cast of familiar characters, we are introduced to an array of strangers, but credible though they seem, can they all be trusted? The Eskdale Episode is no exception to the rule. It will keep the reader on tenterhooks until the final satisfying ending.
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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick

Rebecca Tope is the author of four popular murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective, Drew Slocombe, Undertaker, Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds, and more recently Persimmon (Simmy) Brown, a florist. Rebecca grew up on farms, first in Cheshire then in Devon, and now lives in rural Herefordshire on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains.Besides "ghost writer" of the novels based on the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme. Rebecca is also the proprietor of a small press - Praxis Books. This was established in 1992.  

www.rebeccatope.com  

Judith Cranswick was born and brought up in Norwich. Apart from writing, Judith’s great passions are travel and history. Both have influenced her two series of mystery novels. Tour Manager, Fiona Mason takes coach parties throughout Europe, and historian Aunt Jessica is the guest lecturer accompanying tour groups visiting more exotic destinations aided by her nephew Harry. Her published novels also include several award-winning standalone psychological thrillers. She wrote her first novel (now languishing in the back of a drawer somewhere) when her two children were toddlers, but there was little time for writing when she returned to her teaching career. Now retired, she is able to indulge her love of writing and has begun a life of crime! ‘Writers are told to write what they know about, but I can assure you, I've never committed a murder.
I'm an ex-convent school headmistress for goodness sake!’
Her most recent book is Passage to Greenland  

http://judithcranswick.co.uk/ 

‘The Nowhere Girls’ by Carmel Harrington

Published by Headline Review,
29 January 2026.
ISBN: 978-1-0354356-5 (HB)

Two small girls, abandoned on a railway platform thirty years ago. The press dubbed them the Nowhere Girls at the time, but their origins have remained a mystery ever since. Their story is a gift for a talented investigative journalist, and it's a story Vega itches to go in search of and ultimately write. 

The Nowhere Girls does not take the conventional murder mystery path; in fact, murders, even deaths, are thin on the ground, and in all but one case, incidental to the plot. Instead, we follow Vega on her quest to find out who those little girls were, where they came from, why they were abandoned, and what happened to them as they grew to adulthood. That quest takes her from her home in Ireland across the Atlantic to picturesque Vermont on the eastern seaboard of the USA, then back to Ireland with a wealth of new information which ultimately leads her most of the way to the answers she seeks. It's as much a voyage of self-discovery as a work project, and along the way she rediscovers old friends and makes new ones, solves old mysteries and unearths buried ones.  

Her search involves characters like Apollo, the autocratic and amoral leader of a reclusive commune; and Estelle, vulnerable but clear-sighted, who escapes from his clutches. Senan, the overall head of the media organization Vega works for, is almost as authoritarian as Apollo, but his wilful daughter Caoimhe stands up to him. And then there's Cassie, the mother of the two girls, who becomes a focus of Vega's search for the truth; what happened to her? And why did she fail to return to collect the children as she promised she would? 

Through it all, Luka, Vega's warm-hearted boyfriend, is generous with both time and support; so is Kieran, her boss, the closest she has to a father; and Mama Lulu, head of an extensive family of maple farmers. All three of them play a large part in encouraging Vega towards a less solitary life; she has always been self-reliant, and reluctant to let people get under her skin. 

The Vermont maple farm contrasts with the sparse and comfortless commune, as does Vega's cosy Wexford cottage with Senan's luxurious mansion and the lavish hotel surroundings of an awards ceremony. Carmel Harrington is as skilful with location as she is with character; she doesn't waste words, but the background is visual and almost cinematic. 

In crime fiction terms, The Nowhere Girls is unusual, but no less gripping and page-turning for that. There's even a twist right at the end that the most avid mystery fan won't see coming.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick 

Carmel Harrington lives with her husband Roger and two beautiful children Amelia and Nate, in Ireland. Their lives are full of stories, songs, hide and seek, Mickey Mouse, walks on the beach, tickles, kisses, chocolate treats and most of all abundant love. To make life even more perfect, she has now fulfilled a lifetime ambition to be a writer and a published author with HarperImpulse, a division of Harper Collins Publishers and a playwright. She believes in Happily Ever Afters, because that’s what happened to her. 

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Murder Most Bookish’ by Anthea Fraser.

Published by Joffe Books,
24 November 2025.
ASIN: BOFXXYS527.
Originally published as
Brought to Book in 2003. 

This is the first book in a series featuring Rona Parish who is a successful biographer. She lives in a tall, narrow house in a quiet street in the market town of Marsborough with her husband Max Allerdyce who is an artist. Rona’s twin Lindsey calls Max, Rona’s ‘semi-detached husband,’ as they have been married for 4 years but inhabit two separate houses. The problem being that they both work from home. Max paints with music playing at full volume, and Rona needs quiet when she is writing. Rona’s parents, Avril and Tom had been appalled by the arrangement, but odd though it maybe it seems to be working fine. 

Rona has received a letter from the wife of bestselling author Theo Harvey, who has recently died in mysterious circumstances, asking her to write his life story. Despite the reservations put forward by her husband Max, Rona is intrigued by the Theo Harvey’s two-year writing block, from which he emerged with a totally different style of writing.    

While Rona is turning the matter over in her head, Lindsey, turns up. She is a solicitor and works for Chase Mortimer. Lindsey is now divorced from husband Hugh, but he has now got back in touch and wants to meet up. 

The story is full of well-defined characters who jump off the page. Although Lindsey and Rona are alike in looks, mannerisms and voices they are completely different in character.  Particularly where men are concerned. Then there is Barnie Trent who produces Chiltern Life magazine, to which Rona regularly contribute articles. She and Barnie have a good working relationship, but his temper is legendary. The twins’ parents, mother Avril is a sort of faded woman with a discontented expression, in contrast I liked their father, Tom. 

This is an excellent read, with great characters and of course ‘Murder’. I enjoyed it enormously and highly recommend it.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Anthea Mary Fraser was born in 1930. Her mother was a published novelist, and Anthea began composing poems and stories before she could write. At the age of five she announced that she wanted to be an author. Her first professional publications were short stories. Her first novel was published in 1970, and her first significant success was with her 1974 novel Laura Possessed, which had a paranormal theme, and was followed by 6 other similarly themed novels. She then wrote some romantic suspense stories before turning to writing crime fiction. She has created two mystery novel series, the first featuring Detective Chief Inspector David Webb' with the Shillingham police. There are 16 novels in this series. The second series features 'Rona Parish', a biographer and freelance journalist. Anthea Fraser served as secretary of the Crime Writer’ Association  from 1986 to 1996. She has also published five novels under the pen name 'Vanessa Graham'. 

Coming Soon: The Antique Store Detective and the Riverside Murders by Clare Chase.

Published by Bookouture
11 February 2026.

Book 4 in the Bella Winter series.

A priceless statue, two mysterious deaths and a missing body… it can only be a case for the antique store detective!

Bella Winter is happily settled in Hope Eaton, with her business flourishing: antiques sold and problems solved. So when Margie Fleming approaches her to sell a family heirloom, a beautiful marble statue of a mother and child, Bella jumps at the chance.

But the day before the sale, Margie is found dead: drowned in the river Kite, a year after her older sister Bethan died the same way. Everyone is convinced it’s a tragic accident, but Bella isn’t so sure. One mysterious death might be a coincidence. Two feels a lot like murder…

Bella’s spine tingles when she realises Bethan also had plans for the statue. Could someone have killed to make sure it wasn’t moved? It feels far-fetched… but when they shift the statue, there’s a bloodstain beneath it. Someone is trying to conceal a crime. But who was the victim, and where is the body?

As she investigates the Flemings’ friends and family, Bella becomes convinced the strange graffiti appearing all over Hope Eaton holds answers… Can she paint a clear picture and solve the case, or will she find herself facing a watery end?

 

Clare Chase writes classic mysteries. Her aim is to take readers away from it all via some armchair sleuthing in atmospheric locations. Like her heroines, Clare is fascinated by people and what makes them tick. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in settings as diverse as Littlehey Prison and the University of Cambridge, in her home city. She’s lived everywhere from the house of a lord to a slug-infested flat and finds the mid-terrace she currently occupies a good happy medium. As well as writing, Clare loves family time, art and architecture, cooking, and of course, reading other people’s books.

www.clarechase.com 

‘The Prisoner of Raven’s Gaze Hall’ by J. C. Briggs

Published by Sapere Books,
9 December 2025.  
ISBN: 979-0-831160997-5 (PB)

This is the fourth novel in Briggs’s Gothic Mystery series, all of which feature a remote country house in the northwest of England and the effects of the Great War on its inhabitants and the people who live near it. This novel begins with a prologue set in 1932. Catherine Sisley is looking back to events which occurred immediately after the war, and the reader is tantalized with what mysteries there were at Raven’s Gaze Hall. During the war Catherine nursed at the front where one of her patients was John Lestrange, heir to Raven’s Gaze. When she returns home to Dorset (where she has been brought up by an aunt) after the war, Catherine is mourning the death of her love, Captain Leo Beaufort, and is trying to work out her future. Lestrange writes to her asking if she will come to Raven’s Gaze to nurse his infirm grandmother. Encouraged by her aunt, but with some reluctance, she takes up the offer on an initial three-month trial basis. 

When Catherine arrives at Raven’s Gaze, she finds its remoteness and inhabitants unsettling. Bennet Lestrange, John’s father, is a dislikeable character who spends most of his time researching and writing books about local history. Mrs Whitenow, Catherine’s patient, is not an easy woman. Mrs Slee, the housekeeper, is unpleasant and deals out ‘rough insolence’. Her niece, Betty, who helps around the hall, is no better. John, cowed by his father, is frequently away on unexplained business leaving Catherine feeling very isolated. There is mystery concerning the deaths of John’s mother and brother some time previously, any mention of whom is avoided as far as possible. Catherine discovers an abandoned nursery and a room with a bed in which a patient had clearly been restrained. As Bennet Lestrange observes at one point, ‘We all have our secrets’. Catherine’s only friends are two local women, Annot Syke and Grizel Knipe. 

Catherine feels she is under permanent scrutiny at Raven’s Gaze, and this, combined with her revulsion at the tense atmosphere (nobody seems to like anyone else), makes her determined to leave. Unfortunately, events conspire to keep Catherine at the house. Her personal circumstances alter in an ultimately unsatisfactory way. There are deaths, and a will makes Catherine’s position even more difficult. By this point her two friends have moved away, She is on her own. 

The last section of the novel returns, as it were, to 1932 and events consequent to the prologue. By this time both Annot Syke and Grizel Knipe have returned to Raven’s Gaze and ask Catherine to visit them. They are able to tell some of the secrets that were kept from her, and between them the three women manage to unravel one particular mystery which has hovered, almost unspoken, throughout the story. The discover other things as well. It is a very satisfying conclusion. As in the previous novels, Briggs writes with considerable sympathy, intelligence and a keenly researched sense of the period (as ever she provides some interesting notes at the end). She is particularly good at yearning, loss and oppression – and mystery, of course. Strong, confident and decent women ultimately prevail, but Briggs is far too even-handed a writer to make it a feminist polemic. The bleakness of much of the story is leavened by the decency at the end of it. It is an excellent novel which I am happy to recommend wholeheartedly.
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Reviewer: David Whittle 

Jean Briggs taught English for many years in schools in Cheshire, Hong Kong, and Lancashire. She now lives in a cottage by a river in Cumbria with a view of the Howgill Fells and a lot of sheep, though it is the streets of Victorian London that are mostly in her mind when she is writing about Charles Dickens as a detective. There are eleven novels in the series so far, published by Sapere Books. The latest, The Jaggard Case, came out in October 2022. Number eleven, The Waxwork Man, comes out on September 15^th. Another novel will come out at the end of 2023. This is a new departure, a novel about an empty house called Foulstone in the old county of Westmorland, a house with secrets kept since the First World War. She was Vice Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association (2018-2022), is still a board member of the CWA, a member of Historical Writers’ Association, the Dickens Fellowship, The Society of Authors, and a trustee of Sedbergh Book Town. 

jcbriggsbooks.com  

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then.

 

‘First Act’ by Rachel Lynch

Published by Canelo Crime,
29 January 2026.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-121-4  (PB)

London in 2008 is experiencing a surge in new buildings as it prepares for the 2012 Olympics and, when a body is unearthed on a building site, the Bethnal Green CID is contacted.  It is DI Kelly Porter’s last day there, as she is moving to a new post with the Metropolitan Police’s Major Investigation Team.  However, it’s an important case and she does not feel that she can leave her colleagues (and, indeed, friends) to cope unaided.  When she arrives at the scene, she discovers that the age of the body is uncertain and it will not be clear who is responsible for the case until this is ascertained.  However, the body does have some interesting grave goods, including a plastic nose and a wooden toy that looks like Pinocchio.  

Kelly arrives at her new post on the following Monday feeling slightly hot and bothered and perhaps a bit nervous.  She is introduced to her partner, DI Seb Crook, who seems helpful and shows her around.  Almost immediately they are assigned to a murder case following the discovery of a body at a school.  They are faced with the body of a woman, which appears to have been arranged for maximum effect.  Behind the body is a small booth in which is a puppet of Mr Punch (the violent protagonist of the traditional British Punch and Judy seaside puppet shows).  Kelly and Seb start their investigation on this somewhat grisly case and it becomes clear that there is a connection between this and the murder on the building site (on which her colleagues at Bethnal Green are still working).  A sad story emerges of historical institutional ill-treatment of children and its continuing malign legacy.  As Kelly and Seb get to know one another, Kelly discovers things about him that don’t quite make sense.  She also feels that, despite her new boss, DCI Leia Lord, being complimentary about her work, there is something not quite right about her.  

This is a carefully plotted story, with quite a large cast (including the Museum of Childhood, now the Young V&A).  It maintains a continuing tension and varied pace, tracing events over several decades, and having a realistic setting in 2008.  The pressures of maintaining personal lives and loyalties come up against professional expectations.  

The story is actually a prequel to the author’s popular D I Kelly Porter series and works completely as a stand-alone.  For those readers already captured by Kelly and her life it will be and interesting and informative read, as well as being a good introduction to the series for newcomers.
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood
Books by this author:  Detective Kelly Porter series:  as well as this prequel, Dark Game;  Deep Fear;  Dead End;  Bitter Edge; Bold Lies; Blood Rites; Little Doubt; Lost Cause; Lying Ways; Sudden Death; Silent Bones; Shared Remains.  Helen Scott Royal Military Police Thrillers: The Rift, The Line. Stand-Alones:  The Rich; The Famous. 

Rachel Lynch grew up in Cumbria and regularly hiked the fells from a young age. She studied History at the University of Lancaster and gained her Post graduate Certificate of Education at the Institute of Education, London. She married an Army Officer, whom she followed around the globe for thirteen years. After children led to personal training and sports therapy, but writing was always the overwhelming force driving the future. The human capacity for compassion as well as its descent into the brutal and murky world of crime are fundamental to her work.

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop .  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery Allingham Society.

‘Etiquette for Lovers and Killers’ by Anna Fitzgerald Healy.

Published by Fleet,
7 August 2025. 
ISBN:  978-0-349-12734-7 (HB)

Billie McCadie is living in Eastport, a small town on the Maine coast enlivened mostly by the arrival of the wealthy holiday homeowners who look down on the residents and their little lives.  One day, as she sits at her sewing machine in Primp and Ribbon Alterations, altering clothing and applying for jobs she never gets, she receives a letter addressed to someone called Gertrude from someone called Edgar.  It’s a love letter and includes an engagement ring which fits Billie’s finger – all very interesting and puzzling.  To add to this, she then meets wealthy, handsome Avery Webster, whose parents own Webster Cottage, a large house by the sea.  He invites her to a party there, at which she sees a woman murdered.  Billie, as one of the last people to see her alive and the first to see her dead, decides to do a bit of investigating on her own. 

The plot twists and turns as life in Eastport goes on.  Billie continues to receive letters and phone calls connected to Gertrude, while discovering secrets and attracting unwanted attention from the man in a fedora and other unlikely characters, as well as the local police.  Above all she tries to understand what Avery is thinking, because romance is as interesting as investigation. 

Billie is a great character, sharp, bright and rather daring.  She lives with her grandparents and yearns for more from life than collecting her grandmother’s strawberry syrup and knee rouge.  She rides a bicycle when she can’t steal her grandfather’s car.  Her relationship with Avery provides a constant, if erratic, thread throughout the book, ending with an interesting suggestion that requires her most careful consideration.  

This book manages combines violent crime with romance and a slight touch of weirdness.  The author writes with flair and a nice sprinkling of wit.  The atmosphere of the early 1960s is maintained throughout with small references to the music, the television, the food and the society.  The opening quotation sets the tone, each chapter opens with a piece of essential information on etiquette, and the footnotes provide useful information on etymological and other matters.  This is an entertaining and interesting first book and readers may well hope for more.
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood 

Anna Fitzgerald Healy grew up on a small island in Maine. Her writing is largely informed by her childhood in rural New England and cold winter nights curled up watching black-and-white movies. Her writing has been featured in several literary magazines and short story anthologies, including Mystery Tribune, the Hoxie Gorge Review, and Brigid’s Gate Press. Anna works in Los Angeles, where she lives in a miniature castle in the Hollywood Hills. 

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop .  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery Allingham Society.

Coming Soon: 'The Killing Time' by Elly Griffiths

 
Published by Quercus
12 February 2026.

The 2nd Mystery in the Ali Dawson series

Ali Dawson is a police detective who leads a unit that investigates cases so cold her team must travel to the distant past to solve them. But Ali and the team haven't been allowed to time-travel ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London, never to be seen again.

To distract herself from meaningless tasks, Ali decides to look into a present-day case - a series of apparent suicides, all young men who fell to their death from high places. She believes the deaths are linked to a psychic medium called Barry Power, who convinced the boys they could fly. Ali goes to one of Power's shows where he claims to be in contact with Jones.

When Ali notices that evening that her cat, Terry, has gone missing, she decides to go back in time just long enough to prevent Terry from escaping through his open cat flap. A dangerous plan which backfires, and she finds herself once more in Victorian London, where she meets Jones, as well as Power, and the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton with whom Ali has unfinished business from her previous visit to the past . . .

Elly Griffiths is the author of a series of crime novels set in England’s Norfolk County and featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. The first in the series, Crossing Places, earned a good deal of praise both in Griffiths’ native country, England, and in the U.S. The Literary Review termed it “a cleverly plotted and extremely interesting first novel, highly recommended.  Since then, Elly has written fourteen further novels in the series.  Recently she has written a second series set in Brighton in the 1950’s featuring magician Max Mephisto and DI Stephens. There are seven books in the series. Her third series features DI Harbinder Kaur. Her most recent series features Police Detective Ali Dawson who deals with Cold Cases. 

www.ellygriffiths.co.uk 

‘The New Year’s Party’ by Jenna Satterthwaite

Published by Verve Books,
4 December 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-85730932-7 (PB)

The prologue to The New Year’s Party takes place barely an hour into 1^st January 2020.  It describes Olivia Rhodes as she edges her way unsteadily through the kitchen of the building she had fled earlier.  A sense of mystery and despair grows as Olivia’s faltering progress takes her deeper into the house and then we are taken back to where this all started. 

A group of four high school friends, now in their thirties, have traditionally held a party on New Year’s Eve.  Over the years the responsibilities of adulthood came along, and some have moved away to pastures new.  Marriages meant that spouses were invited to the annual shindig, but not, when they arrived, children.  Then, five years ago, something happened, something unpleasant; since then, the friends have, for a variety of reasons, not been able to meet up.  Nathan Phelps decides it’s time they resurrected the custom and invites the old gang to what sounds like it will be a wild celebration.  It’s fair to say that not everyone is as enthusiastic as Nathan is to meet up, nevertheless on 31^st December 2019 the guests gather at his home. 

All the characters in the novel have secrets, several made mistakes when they were young adults, and some are tortured by their recollections of the past.  It is clear from the outset that there is bad blood, not to mention irreconcilable difficulties, between some of those preparing to party.  The friendship group feels fractured, but most of the midults are not yet ready to say goodbye to youthful excess and whilst some of them hope to rekindle their previous camaraderie the truth is that this once close-knit group is now a collection of individuals.  It is fitting, therefore, that almost every chapter heading includes a character’s name and the episode it describes focuses mainly on him or her.  There are three notable exceptions where first person narratives are used.  This authorial technique emphasizes the strained relationships between friends and couples and builds tension as the novel progresses. 

We know from the beginning that the party will descend into chaos, the question is what will it be, who will it involve and how will it resolve?  There are twists and turns along the way as the narrative cleverly either misleads the reader or leaves them in suspense by switching to another character’s perspective.  During the final chapters the potential for devastation builds to a head as the world turns upside down for revellers and readers alike. 

The New Year’s Party is an unusual novel with themes ranging from the impact of historic sexual abuse to marital mismatches.  At the book’s heart is a mystery that unfolds and resolves in a most unusual and certainly unexpected way. 

Well written, a great plot and an enjoyable read.  Recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent 

Jenna Satterthwaite was born in the Midwest, but grew up in Spain, lived briefly in France, and is now happily settled in Chicago with her husband and children. Jenna studied classical guitar at the Conservatorio Profesional de Música de Zaragoza and earned her BAs in English Lit and French at Indiana University. Now she is a literary agent with Storm Literary and also works a 9-5 style office job.  Once upon a time, Jenna moonlighted as a singer-songwriter in folk band Thornfield. In the winter, you can find Jenna obsessively and cozily pounding out novels on her laptop by the fireplace. In the summer, you can find her getting sunburned at the pool with her kids, vaguely wondering how a novel is even written. She loves sushi, reading in her natural habitat (aka her bed), and women taking back their power.

Connect with Jenna on Twitter @jennaschmenna, Facebook on her author page, and Instagram @jenna.satterthwaite.author. She loves to hear from readers! 

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction. 

‘Watch Your Back’ by Emma Christie

Published by Mountain Leopard Press,
23 October 2025.
ISBN: 978-80279-467-0 (PB)

Born and raised in an Ayrshire coalmining town, Emma Christie studied literature and medieval history at Aberdeen university.  She graduated into journalism, then moved on into crime fiction. 

Watch Your Back is the fourth of Christie’s thrillers set in Portobello – Edinburgh’s flourishing seaside neighbourhood. 

The story is led by Jo, convicted as a teenager for the murder of her mother. We meet her fifteen years later, out of prison and working in a charity shop where she has found a new best friend – her boss Jean. 

Determined to create a life she can drive and control, Jo has surrounded herself with strangers, who apart from Jean, know nothing of her history. 

Inevitably, the past strikes back.  She receives a box of letters addressed to her, unopened and unread, posted from the prison in which she served her time. They are stolen before she can read them. The conclusion she comes to, is that someone outside the prison, someone who knows her well, must have a dangerous secret to hide. 

Jo falls back into long ago learned patterns, as she struggles to protect her new life from the violence of her past. The truth – as far as she has always accepted it – must not be revealed. Once again, safety becomes her priority, her default reaction lying. She reverts to a state of constant defence and danger. Her present day, mirroring her childhood, spirals out of control. 

Christie writes in a dual timeline format. Throughout the back story, Jo is written as Tink, her nickname from childhood. Her close friend and comrade in arms, a few years older than Tink is nicknamed Spider. Christie allows us huge access to Tink, but not to Spider – who’s name and real identity is not revealed until the two timelines collide in the closing chapters of the story. It’s a long wait for this… 

Christie takes a while to unfold the story and unlock the secrets.  So, from here, no more story details. There are far too many potential spoilers up ahead.  

Not keen on multiple storylines, this reviewer found himself having to work hard at the outset. But sticking to the task in hand, suddenly he was a dozen chapters into the story and hooked. 

It has to be noted, that male characters in Watch Your Back are not much more than plot devices.  But that’s okay, because the real beating heart of this story lies in the strong female relationships – loving, broken, hateful, deceitful and deadly – which drive the narrative with huge chunks of emotion and grit.  And finally, the ending delivers a genuinely satisfying payoff.~
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Reviewer: Jeff Dowson.

Emma Christie grew up in a book-filled house in Cumnock, an Ayrshire coal-mining town. After quitting her law degree to study English literature and medieval history at Aberdeen University, she spent five years working as a news reporter with one of the UK’s top-selling regional daily newspapers, The Press and Journal. Throughout her journalism career, she secretly wanted to be every author she ever interviewed. When she’s not writing, Emma now works as a tour director and lecturer in history, culture and politics with a US travel company, leading educational journeys across Spain, France and Portugal. 

Jeff Dowson began his career working in the theatre as an actor and a director. He moved into television as a writer/producer/director. Screen credits include arts series, entertainment features, documentaries, drama series and TV films. Turning crime novelist in 2014, he introduced Bristol private eye Jack Shepherd in Closing the Distance. The series developed with Changing the Odds, Cloning the Hate and Bending the Rules. The Ed Grover series, featuring an American GI in Bristol during the years following World War 2, opened with One Fight At A Time. The second book New Friends Old Enemies was published in May 2021. Jeff is a member of BAFTA, Mystery People and the Crime Writers Association. 

www.jeffdowson.co.uk