‘How Can I Help You’ by Laura Sims

Published by Verve Books,
25 July 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-85730-875-7 (PB)

Margo, real name Jane, has been working at a little known library for two years. Unknown to all her colleagues, she used to be a nurse. She had worked at several different hospitals, but always had to leave after several suspicious deaths. Margo has settled into a quiet untroubled life at the library, the only irritation being a couple of awkward patrons who visit there regularly.

One day however, a new member of staff, Patricia starts working there. She also is trying to start a new life after writing several novels but failing to get them published. At first, she and Margo get on fine, but she notices Margo sometimes acting rather strangely, making Patricia feel distinctly uneasy. However, at the same time she finds her fascinating and they become quite friendly. The only fly in the ointment is that Patricia reminds Margo of the head nurse at the last hospital she worked at when she had to leave hurriedly after a certain very suspicious death.

Then one of the “awkward patrons” dies in the library toilets. The police put it down to natural causes, but is it? Margo was found by the body insisting she was trying to help her, but was she really?

Unknown to Margo then, Patricia discovers some of the ex-nurse’s past and is so intrigued that she takes up writing again, using “Jane” as her main character. But what if Margo finds out?!

Then there is another death – this certainly cannot be put down to natural causes – the body is found in a dumpster!

What a deliciously creepy and eccentric thriller. Highly entertaining and absurdly amusing, especially as it is essentially a murder story. I found myself laughing out loud at the wonderful characters.

I cannot recommend How Can I help You, enough
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Laura Sims is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Looker. An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast, and more. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she works part-time as a reference librarian and hosts the library’s lecture series. 

Tricia Chappell. I have a great love of books and reading, especially crime and thrillers. I play the occasional game of golf (when I am not reading). My great love is cruising especially to far flung places, when there are long days at sea for plenty more reading! I am really enjoying reviewing books and have found lots of great new authors.

‘Revenge Killing’ by Leigh Russell

Published by No Exit Press,
28 March 2024. 
ISBN: 978-1-83501045-7 (PB)

This is the latest police thriller from Leigh Russell.  A man is found dead, lying at the bottom of the stairs to his flat and it soon becomes clear that this is not an accident.  The dead man's landlord seeks advice from Detective Inspector Ariadne Moralis who is married to his friend.  Ariadne is not convinced she is getting the true picture either from the landlord or the elderly witness who overhears the tumble down the stairs. 

Identifying the killer is the raison d'etre of the entire novel and it is a really great plot which keeps you guessing right to the end.  Lots of references to Police procedure give the story a reliable basis and it is a well written and well plotted crime novel. 

Ariadne is covering the maternity leave of her friend Geraldine Steel.  Geraldine is struggling with coming to terms with her role as a new mother and her desire to be back in the front line of solving crimes.  A very relatable position for many new mothers.  She is delighted to be involved with the solving of her friend's case even on the periphery and gives some sound advice which helps solve what eventually turns out to be two murders. 

I really enjoyed this well-crafted story and particularly appreciated the believable characters that Leigh Russell presents to her readers.  Can't wait for Geraldine to get back to work after her maternity leave!
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Reviewer: Toni Russell

Leigh Russell studied at the University of Kent gaining a Master’s degree in English and American literature. Formerly a secondary school English teacher, with the success of her Geraldine Steel series, Leigh now writes full-time. Her debut novel, Cut Short, was published in 2009 by No Exit Press in the UK, there are now 22 books in the series  featuring detective Geraldine Steel.  Leigh also has a  series featuring Lucy Hall. Her most recent series features Poppy the dog. Leigh Russell is married with two daughters and lives in Middlesex.

 leighrussell.co.uk/

Toni Russell is a retired teacher who has lived in London all her life and loves the city.  She says, ‘I enjoy museums, galleries and the theatre but probably my favourite pastime is reading.  I found myself reading detective fiction almost for the first time during lockdown and have particularly enjoyed old fashioned detective fiction rather than the nordic noir variety.  I am a member of a book club at the local library and have previously attended literature classes at our local Adult Education Centre.  I am married with three children and five grandchildren.

‘Eye of the Beholder’ by Emma Bamford

Published by Simon & Schuster,
4 July 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-3985-2692-4 (HB)

Maddy Wight makes a living by writing other people’s memoirs for them – and a scant and precarious living it is until she’s commissioned by world-famous cosmetic surgeon Angela Reynolds, for a fee beyond her wildest dreams and the promise of high-profile contacts. But the job proves far more difficult than she expects. Not only does Angela require that she works in her remote Scottish house, and through brief online interviews; the deadline is far too tight, and personal information proves almost impossible to find.

The only redeeming feature, aside from the fee, is the arrival of Scott, Angela’s business partner. He and Maddy form a deepening relationship, marred only by his occasional lapses into depression so profound he seems to forget who she is.

Back at home in London, Maddy attends the launch of the memoir, and is as shocked as anyone to hear that Scott has been found dead at the bottom of a cliff near the house in Scotland. She has an even bigger shock a little while later: she sees Scott leaving an Underground station, very much alive.

This tense, pacy psychological thriller raises questions from the outset. Why has Angela chosen a relatively unknown ghost writer when she could afford to take her pick? Why is there almost no information about her online? Why is she so reticent about anything personal, and insistent that nothing of that kind goes into the book? And Scott: what is he doing in Scotland when his and Angela’s company is on the verge of a major development? Why does he undergo occasional personality changes? Who is the strange young woman hanging around the area? Is anything about the project what it appears to be? 

From bleak Scottish moorland with a hint of menace to luxury living with high-end art of the walls, overcrowded Tube station and sweaty nightclub to hipster coffee shop, Emma Bamford proves herself a mistress of atmosphere. There’s a claustrophobic feel to the story right from the start, occasionally leavened by glimpses of spacious, green parkland and empty streets in the small hours. This is heightened by the way the action rarely strays outside the core cast of three, and then only to three supporting players; and everything is perceived through Maddy’s eyes. It’s further reinforced because we never really get to know any of the six, except perhaps Sacha, Maddy’s friend and confidante, whose open and generous personality is a welcome contrast to the elusiveness and enigma of everyone else.

The questions keep on emerging and will keep you reading right to the big reveal. When it finally comes, it’s explosive, but not unexpected – very much ‘why didn’t I see that?’ rather than ‘where did that come from?’ As psychological thrillers go, this one’s a corker.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Emma Bamford is an author and journalist who has worked for the Independent, the Daily Express, the Daily Mirror, Sailing Today and BOAT International. She spent several years sailing among some of the world’s most beautiful islands and wrote two travel memoirs about her experiences, Casting Off and Untie the Lines. A graduate of the University of East Anglia’s Prose Fiction MA, she lives in the UK.

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.

‘Ostler’ by Susan Grossey

Independently Published,
21 August 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-91600199-2 (PB)

The 1820s, and former soldier Gregory Hardiman is the ostler at a busy Cambridge coaching inn. When the inn cook is murdered, he sets out to investigate – and soon finds himself discovering secrets of the hidden life of St Clement’s college – secrets which put his life in danger.

This novel transported me straight back into the past, and the sounds and sights of a coaching inn in the reign of George IV. Gregory Hardiman’s backstory wasn’t over-emphasised, but we got enough to make him a rounded, believable character: a former soldier whose skill with horses had got him a job as an officer’s horseman, he’d seen service against Napoleon in Spain, then gone with his regiment to be a convict guard at Port Jackson. He had, he mentioned, a daughter in Spain who’d soon need a dowry. Otherwise, his life was focused on now: looking after his horses – as a horse-lover myself, I particularly enjoyed the way his interaction with them was drawn. He’s improving himself with reading, going for walks in the country – and now, investigating George Ryder’s death and the goings-on at the college.

There’s a whole cast of interesting, credible characters: the inn’s hen-pecked owner, his harridan wife and Gregory’s fellow-servants; helpful townspeople like bookseller Giles and banker Fisher. There’s the hierarchy of people who make up the college, from the know-it-all porter who never refuses a tankard, through the worried junior butler and his money-taking senior, the ancient Librarian, the Bursar whose rooms smell suspiciously of a lady’s perfume, up to the Master himself.

Short chapters keep the plot moving swiftly, and though there’s a large cast in the novel, I didn’t have any difficulty in following who was who. One discovery leads to another, and another, and the ending is nearly wrapped up. The description is vivid, and I liked the way Gregory’s ‘voice’ in the first-person narration reflected the speech of the time.

A first-rate historical crime novel, with a sympathetic hero, a good plot and convincing language and atmosphere. It’s the first of a new series, and already I’m looking forward to the sequel.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor 

Susan Grossey has always made her living from crime – for twenty-five years as an anti-money laundering consultant and now writing historical financial crime novels.  In 2012 she published what she thought was a standalone book set in London in 1824, but it turned out that the true hero of Fatal Forgery was a magistrates’ constable who insisted on having a further six books written about him.  When he retired in 1829, Susan turned her attention to her hometown of Cambridge and the University constables who were created there in 1825.  She has published Ostler – the first of five planned novels narrated by university constable Gregory Hardiman – and is currently wrestling with the second in the series.  

Susan Grossey – Historical crime writer

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh and came to Shetland as a newly qualified teacher. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  She lives with her husband. 

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk 

‘The Innocents’ by Bridget Walsh

Published by Gallic Books,
11 April 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-91354752-3 (PB)

Minnie Ward is in temporary charge of the Variety Palace Theatre, but takings are falling and every new idea her boss Tansie comes up with just seems to put them more in the red. Then one of the stars, Bernard, asks her to help him find his missing brother – and soon she and Albert Eastbrook are drawn into another investigation together.

This novel’s set in 1877, but it begins with a vividly told account of a disaster from fourteen years earlier, based on a real tragedy in the Victoria Hall, Sunderland, in which nearly two hundred children died. That’s the springboard for this investigation.

The Innocents follows straight on from the first Variety Palace Mystery, The Tumbling Girl, and the characters are still suffering fall-out from that investigation. In particular, Minnie is trying to distance herself from Albert, telling herself she’s too busy for romance. She’s an engaging heroine, with plenty of spunk, and she’s surrounded by a great cast of characters: Tansie, the impractical manager with big dreams, and his pet monkey; Bernard, who sees himself as a Shakespearean actor slumming it to earn a crust; Frances, the costumier who wants to forget her past; the elegant, enigmatic book-keeper, Mrs Lawrence. Then there are Albert, private detective, and his policeman friend John, who are always ready to help with an investigation, especially when it’s a case of murder. The plot takes us from the theatre out to the houses of both rich and poor, to an animal fight ring and even to the classier end of Broadmoor, all convincingly described. There are good twists, a Gothic feel and a high body count.

A fast-moving Victorian murder-mystery, with a quick-witted heroine, an enjoyable background setting and plenty of action. If you enjoy period crime that’s somewhere between cosy and Gothic, this is for you. Recommended.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor
The first book in the series is The Tumbling Girl.

Bridget Walsh was born in London and now lives in Norwich with her husband. After a degree in English Literature, she worked as English teacher for 23 years. She completed a PhD in Victorian domestic murder at Birkbeck, London University in 2009, and in 2019 completed the Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) MA at UEA where she was awarded the David Higham Scholarship and received the UEA Little, Brown Award for Crime Fiction.

Twitter:@bridget_walsh1
www.linktr.ee/bridgetwalshwriter 

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh and came to Shetland as a newly qualified teacher. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  She lives with her husband and two Shetland ponies.

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk

‘The Silent Killer’ by Trevor Wood

Published by Quercus,
18 July 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-52943-250-3 (HB)

First it was a homeless man; next came a teenage girl in an unrelentingly grown-up story. There’s one thing you can rely on from a new novel by Trevor Wood: a protagonist unlike any other you’ve ever encountered. The main player in The Silent Killer, and in the series, it heralds, is a detective chief inspector – but I guarantee you won’t have met a detective chief inspector like Jack Parker.

The story opens with a bang – literally. Jack’s sergeant Laura Kemp is driving him home when another car smashes into theirs, killing Laura outright and effectively ending Jack’s life as he knows it. Not through the injuries he sustains in the crash, though they take a while to mend. The killer blow is administered while he’s in hospital, by a CT scan which reveals the early stages of the disease which changed his father’s personality and eventually led to his death: Alzheimer’s. 

Some senior detectives would accept the writing on the wall and take early retirement. Not so Jack Parker. He tells no one except his ex-priest brother and faced with a horrific murder case on his first day back at work, he sets out to prove to himself that he can still cut it. As well as the murder he is tasked with, he also starts to conduct his own investigation into Laura’s death, which he is convinced was not an accident. 

Fans of the genre expect false starts, blind alleys, red herrings; they all go with the territory, along with a bright smart-arse female DS and a victim you love to hate. All these are firmly in place, with Trevor Wood’s own take on everything, so there’s nothing run-of-the-mill about the way the case unfolds. What makes the story doubly unique is the way Jack Parker faces his incipient problems; he runs into them head-on, and not always successfully.

It’s set in Newcastle, the city Wood knows so well, and uses to advantage. Like most cities it has its dark corners and leafy avenues; both have their part to play, as do the places everyday life takes place. Jack’s marital home is cosy and welcoming; his brother’s bedsit is cluttered and dingy; his old school is poorly maintained and crumbling.

Wood has set up a cast of regular characters with immense promise. Jack himself is an old-school cop, sharp as a razor, risen from the ranks, with scant respect for the new regime of policing. Emma, his new sergeant, and Leon, his established one, are in constant competition. Then there’s Jack’s brother and confidant, the voice of common sense but with his own issues; and Helen, the best wife any cop could wish for. Frankie Grant is the local bad guy, foxy and slippery; he will no doubt lurk in the background.

First a trilogy, then a standalone, and now the first in a series; with DCI Jack Parker, Alzheimer’s or not, Trevor Wood is in it for the long haul. This is a police procedural series with a difference, and one that will run for some time. Something to look forward to. 
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Trevor Wood has lived in Newcastle for 25 years and considers himself an adopted Geordie, though he still can't speak the language. He's a successful playwright who has also worked as a journalist and spin-doctor for the City Council. Prior to that he served in the Royal Navy for 16 years joining, presciently, as a Writer. Trevor holds an MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) from UEA. His first novel, The Man on the Street, which is set in his home city, was published by Quercus 19 March 2020, winning the The CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2020.    

https://trevorwoodauthor.co.uk

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.

‘Girl Friends’ by Alex Dahl

Published by House of Zeus Ltd,
11 April 2024.
ISBN: 978-180110833-1 (PB)

“How are they going to get out of this?  There has to be a way.”

Charlotte and Andreas Vinge live in Wimbledon with their two children, Madelaine and Oscar.  As their surname suggests, the family are originally from Norway.  They moved to their current residence when Andreas landed a top job in the city of London.  The relocation came with challenges for Charlotte, a medical doctor, who had to leave her job, friends, family and homeland.  Soon, though, the couple linked up with a community of Norwegian ex-pats and their circle of friends expanded.  Linda and Anette have proved to be good friends to Charlotte and for some years the trio have enjoyed annual breaks at her villa in Ibiza.  Moreover, she has more than matched her husband’s success thanks to an interest in the Keto diet which she has developed into a lucrative business.  So far so fairytale, then she meets Bianka LangeLand, and her world is turned upside down. 

An explosive opening chapter gives way to incisive descriptions of complicated female and familial relationships that underpin the novel.  Charlotte may be the Keto Queen, but her celebrity status doesn’t compensate for her husband’s coldness.  Bianka’s situation is more complicated as she resents having to share Emil’s affection with her stepson, Storm.  Perhaps these domestic tensions explain why Charlotte and Bianka are drawn to each other.  Yet, there is an inequality on both sides of their bourgeoning friendship; Charlotte’s personal triumphs dwarf Bianka’s achievements, on the other hand Bianka’s husband is the new CEO of Andreas’s firm.  Charlotte’s established bond with Linda and Anette is threatened when she informs them that she has invited new pal Bianka to join them on their annual jaunt to Ibiza. 

The accounts of the female relationships within the novel are relatable, realistic and unpredictable.  Violent emotions are never far from the surface.  Tension builds, releases, and builds again as the narrative moves towards a surprising dénouement.  Present tense is used throughout the tale and imbues it with a compelling immediacy.  Charlotte’s point of view is penned in the first person.  It clearly establishes her status as the chief protagonist.  Bianka and Storm, whose viewpoints are delivered through a third person narrator are no less compelling and provide an appropriate contrast to Charlotte’s tale. 

Girl Friends is a thrilling and thoroughly modern story that explores twenty-first century relationships and what happens when they go wrong.  Disturbing and fascinating in equal measure the novel delivers an astounding final twist – the perfect coup de grâce.  A super read.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

Alex Dahl was born in Oslo, Norway, and is half American, half Norwegian, fully Francophile, and London resident. Alex is the author of The Boy at the Door, published world-wide in 2018. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, as well as an MSc in Business Management. Alex loves to travel and has previously lived in Moscow, Paris, Stuttgart, Sandefjord, Switzerland and Bath.  To learn more about Alex Dahl, please visit her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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.  

‘Between Two Worlds’ Olivier Norek

Translated from the French by Nick Caistor
Published by Quercus,
23 May 2024.
ISBN: 0-85705-921-5 (HB)

Syrian police officer Adam Sirkis is afraid his cover as an anti-Bassad activist has been blown. He needs to get his wife and daughter out first, sending them with people-smugglers to France – to the Jungle in Calais. As soon as he can, he follows them – but there’s no trace of them at the camp, and it will take all his police training to survive there himself.

Each of Norek’s novels plunges you into a reality that’s miles away from a conventional crime novel. His Banlieue Trilogy followed the work of police officers in Paris’s most dangerous suburb. In Between Two Worlds he moves to newly-appointed lieutenant Bastien Millar, finding his feet in Calais. Like Adam, he has a wife and daughter, but his wife is suffering depression after the death of her father, and he throws himself into police work to escape his helplessness at home. He soon finds out that normal rules don’t apply in policing the Jungle and its thousands of refugees who try each night to escape on lorries bound for England.

Inside the camp, Adam is also finding out that his police instincts will only get him into more trouble. In this miileu, the violence in the book is almost taken for granted; the shocking opening pages where people smugglers tell a mother she must throw her coughing child overboard prepares us for the ruthlessness of those involved. Because of this, I’d almost forgotten the murders Adam wanted to investigate by the end of the book, but it turned out to be a whodunnit after all, cleverly plotted, with a central shocking and unexpected revelation, followed by another. Norek’s writing is swift-paced and vivid, taking you right into the migrants’ world.

A moving, haunting story of two ordinary policemen caught up in the violence of our times.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Olivier Norek served as a humanitarian aid worker in the former Yugoslavia, before embarking on a eighteen-year career in the French police, rising to the rank of capitaine in the Seine-Saint-Denis Police Judiciare. He has written six crime novels, which have sold a million copies in France and won a dozen literary prizes.

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  Marsali also does a regular monthly column for the Mystery People e-zine. 

Click on the title to read a review of her recent book
Death At A Shetland Festival

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk

‘The Summer Dare’ by Joanna Dodd

Published by Canelo Hera Books,
11 July 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-80436-842-8 (PB)

Some childhood and teenage friendships fade away when life intervenes, and everyone goes their separate way. Others last into adulthood, held together by – what? Geography? Mutual interests? Or something darker: a long-held secret, perhaps?

Maddie, Hayley, Claire, Jenna and Lucy were members of the cool crowd at school. Well, maybe not Lucy, two years younger and a newcomer to the area, but the others took pity on her. Especially Maddie, the self-styled leader of their little group. Twenty-five years later four of them are still close and have formed a WhatsApp group calling themselves the FabFour. But Maddie hasn’t been seen since they were teenagers. She disappeared during a summer camp, and an extensive police investigation failed to turn up any trace of her.

Then Lucy starts to receive strange, vaguely threatening texts from an unknown number. And she thinks she’s being followed. And there’s something very important that they never told anyone about the night Maddie went missing, not even the police. Especially not the police.   

The FabFour set out to track down the sender of the texts, and it soon emerges that theirs is not the only longstanding secret. Joanna Dodd sends them down a twisty, multi-timeline path, and creates a vivid picture of complex adult relationships and even more tortuous teenage ones. As women, the four are almost like grown-up Spice Girls – a sporty one, a clever one, a shy one and a bold one. As teenagers they are still feeling their way, all but confident Maddie, who knows exactly what she wants and goes all out to get it, and ironically is the one who meets a sticky end. Or does she...?

The other characters – parents, spouses, people involved in the original investigation – all come to life too; there’s a real sense of ordinary people trying to get on with ordinary life after something huge crashed through it. It all helps create the tension that pulled them all together in the past and still pervades everything in the present. Maddie’s disappearance has always hovered in the background, because when a question like that remains unanswered, it never goes away.

The ending is as shocking as it is inevitable, and Joanna Dodd leaves a tantalizing loose end – not to make room for a sequel, but to let the reader decide what happened next.

So, what did happen to Maddie? There’s only one way to find out – read her story.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Joanna Dodd is fascinated by toxic friendship and family groups and the long shadows cast by old secrets. She lives in London and enjoys acting in plays, running very slowly, and spending time with her (lovely and not at all toxic) family and friends. She’s wanted to be a crime writer since she became addicted to Murder She Wrote as a teenager (although her real-life sleuthing skills are probably not quite as honed as Jessica Fletcher’s). When she’s not writing crime fiction, she also loves reading it!

 

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.

‘The Murderer Inside the Mirror’ by Sarah Rayne

Published by Severn House,
4 July 2024
ISBN: 978-1-4483-1095-1 (HB)

It is 1908 and the Fitzglen family is one of the best known theatrical families in London. However very few people outside the Fitzglen family are aware that they are also have a part-time career as thieves. When it comes to their ‘filches’ the Fitzglens have a firm code of conduct and they never steal from people who cannot afford to lose the object or will be badly hurt by the loss.

At the start of the story the entire Fitzglen family is distressed to hear of the death of Montague Fitzglen who had fallen down the stairs of his house. Montague was one of the senior members of the family, he was Great Uncle to Jack, the leader of the family, and to Byron, Jack’s contemporary who shares many of Jack’s more physically demanding adventures, and also to Tansy, the orphaned youngest member of the family, who has just been allowed to join their deliberations. As well as his work in the theatre Montague was also a highly skilled forger, a master of deception and a superb storyteller. He has been teaching Byron his forgery skills, but Byron is not yet as proficient as Montague. As well as the sadness of loss the Fitzglen family are anxious to discover and retrieve any evidence of their illegal activities that might be present in Montague’s house. Also, Montague had told a story about his possession of a mysterious tin box but would never tell anybody about the contents. The family is anxious to search Montague’s house to find and remove any notes he had made about the next prospective filch, the theft of a Gainsborough portrait from a country house, before anyone else discovers them, but Jack and Byron are also eager to discover the iron box. It is Jack who finds the box and when he opens it, he discovers a manuscript that seems to be an unknown play by one of Ireland’s leading playwrights, Phelan Raffety, who died five years ago. When Jack reads the first few pages he is overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of dread; because of this he does not immediately remove the manuscript and when he returns to do so it has disappeared.

This is a multi-viewpoint novel set in several times and in both England and Ireland. Some of the story is in the viewpoint of Ethne Rafferty, Phelan’s daughter, who still lives in Ireland in Westmeath House, the family house she had shared with her much-loved father. Ethne has always been obsessed with a portrait that has been in the house for centuries, although nobody knows who painted it or how it came to be hung in Westmeath House. The portrait is of Thomas Fitzgerald, the 10th Earl of Kildare, known as Silken Thomas, an Irish nobleman who led an abortive rebellion against Henry VIII of England. This portrait and another sketch of a young woman link several aspects of the mystery, as the third story line goes back many centuries and starts in 1534 as it traces the love affair between Thomas Fitzgerald and Catherine Ó Raifeartaigh.

Back in Edwardian London, the manuscript of the play, which is called The Murderer Inside the Mirror, resurfaces in the hands of another theatrical company who are the Fitzglens’ long term rivals. Tansy is the only member of the Fitzglen family who is not widely known, which means she has to go undercover to discover whether the manuscript is a threat to her family. Jack knows that sending Tansy into this situation is risky, but nobody anticipates how dangerous it will prove to be.

The Murderer Inside the Mirror is the second book in the series featuring the Theatre of Thieves. It is a complex multi-viewpoint novel with separate storylines that are skilfully linked and often enter dark and disturbing territory. The historical action is skilfully depicted, which is especially impressive as it involves storylines in both the sixteenth and nineteenth century, and the characters are engaging, especially Jack, Byron, Tansy and other members of the Fitzglen family. This is a darkly compelling story, which explores love, loyalty and obsession. It is a page-turner which I thoroughly recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Sarah Rayne's first novel was published in 1982, and for several years she juggled writing books with working in property. Much of the inspiration for her dark psychological thrillers comes from the histories and atmospheres of old buildings, a fact that is strongly apparent in many of her settings - Mortmain House in A Dark Dividing, Twygrist Mill in Spider Light, and the Tarleton Theatre in Ghost Song. Her work has met with considerable acclaim, and is also published in America, as well as having been translated into German, Dutch, Russian and Turkish.  In 2011, she published the first of a series of ghost-themed books, featuring the Oxford don, Michael Flint, and the antiques dealer, Nell West, who made their debut in Property of a Lady. This was followed by a series featuring music researcher, Phineas Fox. Her most recent series is the Theatre of Thieves. 

www.sarahrayne.co.uk
https://sarahrayneblog.wordpress.com/
www.facebook.com/SarahRayneAuthor
www.youtube.com/user/SarahRayneAuthor

Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a Creative Writing teacher.  She is the moderator for the cosy/historical crime panel, The Deadly Dames.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times.  The Terminal Velocity of Cats the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was published July 2013. .

Carol recently gave an interview to Mystery People. interview

www.carolwestron.com
To read a review of Carol latest book click on the title
Death and the Dancing Snowman

‘The Small Museum’ by Jody Cooksley

Published by Allison & Busby,
23 May 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-74902-315-2 (HB)

This story was inspired by the extraordinary cabinet of curiosities in the Hunterian Museum in London.  It is a Victorian melodrama with overtones of Blue Beard and Gothic horror.  It is set in the late Victorian period when medical experimentation was at its height and continues to fascinate readers today. 

The main character is Madeleine Brewster who marries a Dr Lucius Everley at the beginning of the story.  She is a rather innocent young girl who is strongly encouraged to marry the doctor as a means of improving her family's standing in the community.  There are strong hints of malign intent from the very beginning and the house she is meant to be the mistress of is run by an unpleasant couple Mr and Mrs Barker who do not allow Madeleine any control over her life in this oppressive house.  She is very lonely, and her only friendship is with Caroline the wife of another doctor and her maid, Tizzy. 

Madeleine is curious about her husband's work as a collector of natural curiosities and tries to help him by offering her services as an accomplished artist.  As she learns more about his small museum of bones and specimens in jars, she becomes increasingly worried about the true origins of these items.  Madeleine becomes pregnant and is hopeful that perhaps at last she and Lucius can form a proper family.  However, her fears increase as her maid is removed and her sister-in-law becomes ever more unpleasant.  Her baby is apparently still born although Madeleine knows she has been drugged and has no memory of the birth.  She is not allowed to see her baby. 

We are then transported to the Marlborough Assizes where Madeleine is on trial for her life having been accused of murdering her baby.  This is a truly frightening account of what it must have been like for Victorian prisoners in gaol at that time.  Her friend Caroline is determined to help her’

This is a dark tale, with a Gothic setting. An exhilarating read - I loved it - and can thoroughly recommend it to any readers who enjoy the thrill of a drama set in Victorian England and with an immense amount of research into the age of discoveries of fossils and bones which of course continues to this day. 
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Reviewer:  Toni Russell

Jody Cooksley studied literature at Oxford Brookes University and has a Masters in Victorian Poetry. Her debut novel The Glass House is a fictional account of the life of nineteenth-century photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. The Small Museum, Jody’s third novel, won the 2023 Caledonia Novel Award. Jody is originally from Norwich and now lives in Cranleigh.

https://jrcbooks.co.uk/  

 

Toni Russell is a retired teacher who has lived in London all her life and loves the city.  She says, ‘I enjoy museums, galleries and the theatre but probably my favourite pastime is reading.  I found myself reading detective fiction almost for the first time during lockdown and have particularly enjoyed old fashioned detective fiction rather than the nordic noir variety.  I am a member of a book club at the local library and have previously attended literature classes at our local Adult Education Centre.  I am married with three children and five grandchildren.

‘Dig Two Graves’ by Helen H. Durrant

Published by Joffe Books,
7 March 2024.
ISBN  978-183526492-8 (PB)

Dig Two Graves is the first in a new series of books by the prolific Police Procedural author Helen Durrant. It features Superintendent Headly Sharpe – an irascible, curmudgeonly individual rapidly approaching retirement. His cynical take on life is often at odds with those of his more sympathetic sidekick DI Stuart Vasey. Despite their different approaches the two men work well together.

A dead body with a single shot to the head is found in a cellar beneath an empty shop. Sharpe and his DI are called to investigate the crime scene. The body had lain there for over a year. A second body is found in the cellar next door on the following day also shot in the head although this murder is recent, and the victim identified as that of a local homeless man known as Cowboy. The first victim is eventually identified as Dean Rawlins a gangster who Headly Sharpe believes was responsible for murdering his wife but has managed to evade justice despite all police attempts.

The pace of this novel is fast and furious. Every chapter raises yet another question, and the picture becomes more and more complicated as the investigation proceeds. Further down the line, it becomes clear that things are not quite what they seem. Everyone appears to have their own agenda. Can their stories be believed? What is it that they are keeping secret?

Although the reader is compelled to keep reading by the breakneck action, Hellen Durrant’s characters are skilfully defined by their dialogue. In less experienced hands, Superintendent Headly Sharpe might well be a difficult character to like but I found myself drawn to this outwardly difficult man from the beginning because I had absolute faith in his ability to find his way through the web of confusion and uncover the truth.

I loved this book – one of the best I’ve read in recent months – and I have no hesitation in recommending it.   
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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick  

Helen H. Durrant writes gritty police procedurals and is published by Joffe Books. Until six years ago she hadn’t written a word, now she has twenty six titles out there and counting. Her novels are set in the Pennine villages outside Manchester. Writing was a dormant ambition. It was retirement that gave her the opportunity to have a go. The success of her books came as a huge surprise, now she can’t stop!

www.helenhdurrant.co.uk  

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/