‘Badlands’ by Preston & Child

Published by Head Of Zeus,
5 June 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-03591570-5 (HB)

A woman walks out into the New Mexico badlands, making sure she isn’t seen. Her destination is one of the dark rock formations... and her skeleton is found there by a film crew, two years later.

It’s a great opening and moves straight from there to introducing FBI special agent Corrie Swanson, given this strange death as her first solo case. She calls her friend archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate, and it’s Nora who spots the extremely rare artefacts by the skeleton’s hands: lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon their gods. Now the hunt is on to find out who the woman was, and why she died in this bizarre way: suicide or sacrifice?

The fast pace continues through the book. Swanson and Kelly make a great team, and the forensic and archaeology strands were fascinating, particularly the legends and lives of the First Nation people of New Mexico. The book was full of interesting characters: Kelly’s irresponsible but engaging brother, Skip; Agent Sharp, Swanson’s supportive boss, and the other agents in her team; and all the people they meet as part of the investigation, a number of them First Nation. As Swanson digs deeper into the woman’s death, she begins to see a pattern, and part of the book’s tension is in how far she ‘ll be allowed to ride this hunch. The tale has a number of unexpected twists and ends with a real nail-biter of a finish. The Badlands themselves are vividly described in their terrible beauty and harshness.

A gripping, atmospheric page-turner which mixes modern-day police work with ancient legends in a very special place. Excellent as a stand-alone, but for those who like to read a series in order, this is the fifth Swanson/Kelly
novel. The series begins with Old Bones.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor 

Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the suburb of Wellesley. Preston attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, chemistry, geology, and astronomy before settling down to English literature. His first job was as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His stint at the museum resulted in his first nonfiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, as well as his first novel, Relic, co-authored with Lincoln Child which was made into a movie by Paramount Pictures. Relic was followed by a string of other thrillers co-written with Child, many featuring eccentric FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. Preston spends his free time riding horses in New Mexico and gunkholing around the Maine coast in an old lobster boat. He counts in his ancestry the poet Emily Dickinson, the newspaperman Horace Greeley, and the infamous murderer and opium addict Amasa Greenough. 

Lincoln Child was born in Westport, Connecticut, in 1957. Lincoln graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, majoring in English. He secured a position with St. Martin's, Press where he was associated with the work of many authors, including that of James Herriot and M. M. Kaye. He edited well over a hundred books. Henow writes full-time and is the co-author, with Douglas Preston, of a number of bestselling thrillers including Relic, Riptide and The Ice Limit. He lives with his wife and daughter in Morristown, New Jersey.

www.prestonchild.com  

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

‘This Book Will Bury Me’ by Ashley Winstead

Published by Head of Zeus,
3 April 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-03590504-1 (PB)

This Book Will Bury Me tells the story of a young woman, Jane Sharp, who experiences a profound personal tragedy and is overwhelmed with grief to such an extent that her world begins to implode.  She questions the very meaning of life with its cruel and apparently random twists and turns.  In her despair she finds solace in online true crime groups and becomes engrossed in the investigations she pursues. 

Before long Jane has dropped out of college and taken a low paid job, but most importantly she has been instrumental in solving a crime.  She enjoys the affirmation she receives from her online buddies and some mainstream media outlets, and being part of TheRealCrimeNetwork community gives her a clear purpose in life.  Hungry to continue her crime solving exploits, Jane is delighted when she is invited to become part of a private chat group.  The group of four members all belong to TheRealCrimeNetwork site Jane has been posting on and their encouragement and suggestions helped her find her way when she first joined.  She’s delighted to accept the invitation, these are people just like her, people who want to make a difference, people who want justice for victims of crime…

Jane’s first person narrative addresses the reader directly with a candour that is convincing and invites empathy.  Her confessional style is interspersed with threads from online exchanges, and this adds to the immediacy of her story as well as contrasting on and offline relationships.  Jane interacts with three distinct groups of people: her family and friends, her online community, and those she addresses directly – her readers.  Characters are revealed through their online postings as well as what Jane writes about them.  The reader must decide how reliable they find the narrator’s reports of her fellow investigators who range from proficient hackers to a former detective. 

The book, I discovered, has sparked some controversy, particularly in parts of the United States, where the main murder case driving the plot echoes one that will be tried later this year.  The author addresses this in an introductory note where she explicitly warns readers that real crimes have informed her work of fiction.  Indeed, one of the most intriguing aspects of the narrative is its exploration of true crime as a literary genre.  This is reflected in Jane’s own misgivings about the ethics of true crime as entertainment, even as it acknowledges that it was her compulsion to find justice for victims of crime that saved her from the depths of despair and sorrow.

This Book Will Bury Me is a thoughtful and tantalising thriller.  It considers the ethics and randomness of life and death, but at its heart it is the moving story of a young woman’s struggle to recover from, and make sense of, losing someone you love.

A compelling read and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

Ashley Winstead writes about women finding meaning and catharsis across genres. She has a Ph.D. in English. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide.  She lives in Houston with her husband, two cats, and beloved wine fridge. 

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.  

‘A Mischief of Murder’ by Helen Hollick

Published by Taw River Press,
15 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-06877216-0 (PB)

It is summer 1973, and Jan Christopher is looking forward to going to Devon to stay with her fiancé and his family. A few months ago, Jan’s fiancé, Detective Sergeant Laurie Walker, had been seriously injured by a gunman, and he is still convalescing. Jan has kept herself busy, both with her work at the local library and by looking after the horses belonging to her aunt and herself, but nevertheless she has missed Laurie very much. Jan is accompanied to Devon by her aunt and uncle, Maud and Toby Christopher, who had adopted Jan when she was a small child, and her own parents died. Toby is a Detective Chief Inspector, and Laurie’s senior Officer; he also is on sick leave, having severely sprained his ankle.

When Jan and her aunt and uncle arrive, the whole of the village is preparing for the Annual Flower and Vegetable Show, including Laurie’s parents, Alf and Elsie. Everybody is very busy, checking that their finest fruits and vegetables are pristine, cooking cakes and scones, selecting jams and chutneys, choosing perfect blooms and arranging flower displays. There will be three judges: Maud, who is judging the handicrafts; Beatrice, a television cook, judging the baked goods and preserves; and Rose, a television celebrity gardener, who is in charge of flowers, fruit and vegetables. Jan is happy to join in with preparations for the Show, and the evening before the event, the people who have worked to set it up are invited to a party at the largest house in the village. At the party Jan encounters many new people, including both of Maud’s fellow judges. She finds Beatrice very pleasant but thinks that Rose is extremely unlikeable: she is overdressed for the occasion, and is predatory towards some of the male guests; above all, Rose is drunk when she arrives and gets progressively more drunk throughout the evening.

The evening ends badly when it is discovered that their host’s rose beds have been stripped of all their blooms. This is a great blow, as he was one of the most likely people to win First Prize at the show. Things get even less enjoyable for Jan and Laurie when it becomes obvious that Rose is so drunk that she’s incapable of getting herself home and she has been abandoned by her sister, who has taken the car home without her. Laurie has to drive Rose home, and, of course, Jan accompanies him. As they attempt to unload their intoxicated passenger, they meet Rose’s acerbic and bitter sister, and their severely learning-disabled younger brother. Later that night, more show entries are stolen and vandalised, resulting in bad feeling and distrust. However, things become really nasty when mischief turns into murder. Laurie and Toby are both convalescent, and Devon is not within their jurisdiction. This means that they have to watch from the sidelines, as an arrogant and incompetent detective sergeant makes such a mess of the investigation that it seems unlikely that justice will ever be done.

A Mischief of Murder is the sixth book in the series featuring Jan Christopher. It is an enjoyable addition to a charming, cosy series. Jan and Laurie are engaging protagonists, and their families are warm and likeable. The seventies setting is skilfully depicted, with enough period detail to be interesting and convincing, and the descriptions of the Annual Show, with all its jealousies, petty feuds and small triumphs, will supply nostalgia for those who remember such shows and enlightenment for those too young to recall such unsophisticated pleasures. A Mischief of Murder is a delightful cosy crime novel, which I recommend as a perfect summer read.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron 

Helen Hollick is a British author of historical fiction. She is the author of the Arthurian trilogy, The Pendragon's Banner (3 books) and more recently two murder mysteries featuring library assistant Jan Christopher and her detective boyfriend, Laurie Walker.

https://www.helenhollick.net/  

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries, the series which began with The Fragility of Poppies.  

www.carolwestron.com

‘Quiet Bones’ by Sarah Ward

Published by Canelo,
5 June 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-80436676-9 (PB)

Quiet Bones is the second novel in Sarah Ward’s series featuring Carla James, a professor of archaeology who has relocated from Oxford to take a post at Jericho, a prestigious college in New England. As with the first in the series (Death Rites) Carla is called in by the local police to help with an investigation and ends up by solving the case.

The body of a baby wrapped in a swan’s wing is found in woods. Discussions take place as to whether this unusual attempt at burial is significant. At the same time Lucie Tandy, a student at Jericho College, has disappeared. The police believe she went of her own accord, but Carla is not so sure as the young woman told nobody she intended leaving and there have been no communications from her.

Following an overnight stake-out, another body is found during excavations on a nearby farm. There are a number of interesting points about the burial, amongst them the fact that the body was face down and a beaker was found next to it. Connections are made with rites other than those usually associated with New England burial practices. When the deceased (Frederika Brown) is found to be related to local detective Baros (who, in Carla’s words ‘had proved a royal pain in the arse’ during her previous case), matters rapidly develop. Before long a policeman, Jeb French, is murdered in a particularly brutal manner, Carla’s home is ransacked and later she is nearly killed.

There are thus four apparently unconnected investigations going on. Who was the mother of the baby, what has happened to Lucie Tandy, who killed Frederika Brown, who murdered Jeb French – and are the cases linked? As previously, Carla is supported by Erin Collins, the state medical examiner.

The novel ranges through a number of themes which will come as no surprise to those who have read Death Rites. Student life is examined, as are society rituals such as initiations (hazing is a matter of particular concern). Local families come into focus. The closed world of influential people in Jericho, which Carla has previously faced, is a dominating thread, particularly in the guise of a society called the Norseman. The shadow of local businessman James Franklin, prominent in Death Rites, again hovers over everything and everybody.

I commented when reviewing Death Rites that it left plenty of scope for further novels. Quiet Bones lives up to that. I wondered then if after successfully solving her first case Carla might be more readily accepted by the Jericho community. You will have to decide. As with its predecessor, Quiet Bones has a plot that keeps you reading and is thoroughly enjoyable.
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David Whittle  

Sarah Ward is the author of four DC Childs novels set in the Derbyshire Peak District where she lives. She is also writes gothic historical thrillers as Rhiannon Ward. The Birthday Girl, is the first book in her new Welsh based series, published 6th April 2023. She has also written Doctor Who audio dramas. Sarah is on Board of the Crime Writers Association and Friends of Buxton Festival, is a member of Crime Cymru, and a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Sheffield University.  

www.crimepieces.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. He is currently convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.

‘The Poole Harbour Murders’ by Rachel McLean

Published by Canelo Hera,
3 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598199-3 (PB)

While dredging silt from Upton Lake, an area of Poole Harbour the remains of a female body is discovered.

DCI Lesley Clarke is pondering on bring in charge of a new Cold Case team in addition to her own Major Crime Investigations Team, hence two DI’s to Manage, one with whom she has clashed with in the past, when DI Hannah Patterson tells her that they have a had a call from Uniform regarding a body found in Poole Harbour.

Initial thoughts turn to Jackie Kendall who disappeared a year ago, but forensics are sure that the body has been in the water a long time, as it is in a bad state. DI Jill Scott, reckons it could point to a cold case, even that of Rowena Sharp who mysteriously vanished after leaving her baby alone in a Sandbanks hotel in 1973?

This is the 10^th book the series, and I found it good to catch up with the characters. Lesley is now living with her partner Elsa, who is a lawyer, and in earlier books was handling the business of the crime boss of the Kelvin family but has managed to extricate herself from that. Although now retired Ex-DS Dennis Frampton is sill in touch with Lesley and can still be useful.  But it is clear from the start that Lesley's will require all her managerial skills, tact and diplomacy to handle the two DI’s, Jill Scott and Hannah Patterson.  Also, a further headache for Lesley, is young DC Johnny C who made some bad decisions and had moved to London to escape the tentacles of the Kelvin family. Now he is applying to rejoin the team which could be bad news for Lesley.

A terrific read, cleverly plotted with many twists and turns. A real page turner.  Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Rachel McLean writes thrillers that make your pulse race and your brain tick. Originally a self-publishing sensation, she has sold millions of copies digitally, with massive success in the UK, and a growing reach internationally too. She is also the author of the Detective Zoe Finch series, which precedes the Dorset Crime novels, and the spin-off McBride & Tanner series and Cumbria Crime series. In 2021 she won the Kindle Storyteller Award with The Corfe Castle Murders and her last five books have all hit No1 in the Bookstat ebook chart on launch.

‘Divinity Game by Lou Gilmond

Published by Armillary Books,
17 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-914148-71-2 (PB)

If we choose to believe that even a fraction of the world Lou Gilmond’s trilogy of political thrillers shows us might really exist, it means the future is a dangerous and frightening place. In Divinity Games, the culmination of the three-part story, the worst has happened: the new government is in thrall to the mighty techno-barons and ‘security’ legislation is in place which allows every detail of ordinary citizens’ lives to be tracked.

CCTV has advanced to the point where the tiniest button has listening and video capacity. Deepfake video has progressed so far that anyone could have an AI-generated alter ego. And the skies are alive with delivery drones – but not all of them are delivering parcels. They have the ability to swarm and coerce, even attack people who oppose this new regime. The super-surveilled world that former government chief whip Esme Kanha and backbencher Harry Colbey fought valiantly to prevent has come to pass.  

Harry himself has been cancelled. His credit card, train pass and mobile phone no longer work, and he is trapped inside the House of Commons. Esme has friends in useful places and still moves around relatively freely. The have both taken steps which enable them to communicate with each other, and they are slowly gathering evidence to present to their supporters.

Harry has another problem. His beloved daughter is engaged to the son of one of the main investors in the technology which rules this chilling world. His ex-wife also owns shares in it, which provide her with a lifestyle way beyond the means of ordinary folk, and the privileges afforded to Owners, as the shareholders are called, are hard to resist.

Harry, Esme and their believers and supporters are, each in his or her own way, determined, shrewd and when necessary underhand in the interests of restoring the rule of democracy. Clarissa, Harry’s ex-wife, and Chloe his daughter love the luxury but are far from stupid, unlike Jameson, the inept prime minister, who is taken in by Henri Lauvaux, the smooth-talking and calculating mastermind behind the all-encompassing system he calls Divinity.

The action moves effortlessly between shabby basement offices and conspicuous consumption, stopping off at Chequers, Harry’s Gloucestershire home, Esme’s borrowed London apartment and the more luxurious habitat of the Owners along the way. Lou Gilmond seems as familiar with the back rooms of pubs where the good guys plot as with the Royal Enclosure and exclusive Car Park One of the Ascot races.

The tide of AI seems relentless and all-embracing, and it’s a tortuous and breathless ride to the finish. But is this a battle that can ever be won? The scariest thing of all is the realization that the nightmare technology that Lou Gilmond presents as fiction is either in use or in development right here in the real world. The only thing that prevents this scenario from becoming reality is ordinary people. This book is a rollercoaster read which will keep you up all night on the edge of your seat – but it isn’t just that.

It’s a warning.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Lou Gilmond is an alumna of the Curtis Brown Creative Writing School and also has a diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford, England. The Tale of Senyor Rodriguez is Lou's debut novel, inspired by the magical City of Palma and the surrounding countryside to the south west of the island. Here sheep still wander freely with bells around their necks and potter along to the whistle of the shepherd.  Lou is hopeful another book will follow soon, but as London is the location for the writing, it is likely to involve less sheep.  

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.

‘Secrets in St Ives’ by Deborah Fowler

Published by Allison & Busby,
22 May 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-74903109-1 (HB)

 It’s July 1992 at Trehearne Farm, St Ives, West Cornwall. Sarah calls to her husband that supper is on the table. The kids have gone to the cinema and Sarah and her husband Philip settle to their meal. It is clear from the banter between them that they are a happy couple. Philip asks Sarah if she would mind if he dropped into the Halsetown Inn for a quick one as he reckons Jim Farrell has sourced some winter feed at a good price. Sarah laughs and says that sounds almost a genuine reason for going to the pub.  She waves him off but never saw him again.

 Fast forward to the present day. Chief Inspector Louis Peppiatt is called in by his boss Chief Superintendent John Dent who wants him to take on a cold. Why are we opening a cold case after 30 years when no one was able to find him at the time he asks.  Because explained John ten days ago his wife Sarah killed herself.  Her son Tom who has run the farm for many years is angry and bitter that his father was never found and he is stirring up a huge amount of media coverage nationally as well as in Cornwall. Tom’s sister and her husband are flying back from Australia to join the campaign to help discredit the police.

Where to start: Who to talk to that might have some background on the family. Louis Peppiatt recalls Merrin McKenzie who is related to the family and had crossed his path in an earlier investigation and proved helpful.

The question is, who possibly has something to hide?  Somewhere there is a thread that will reveal the mystery of the missing man.

As the paths taken in the original investigation are reinvestigated, I found this a fascinating story. It seemed that all bases had been covered, but to avail.  However, eventually family secrets and emotional betrayals, are shockingly exposed. 

A compelling story that kept me turning the pages. Recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Deborah Fowler's first short story was published when she was seventeen. Since then, she has published over six hundred short stories, novels, a crime series and several works of non-fiction. Deborah lives in a small hamlet just outside St Ives and Secrets in St Ives is the second in the series set against the beautiful backdrop of the West Cornish coastline.

 

‘The Lollipop Man’ by Daniel Sellers

Published by Allison & Busby,
20 February 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3261-6 (HB)

It’s 1994 and young Adrian Brown works for the local newspaper, assisting Nige, the photographer. When his editor Linda calls him to say that the police have found a young girl’s clothes by the canal at a place called Gorton Lane.  Just the name makes him shiver. Eight Years previously three young girls had been kidnapped by a man known as the Lollipop man. Adrian has been taken but escaped.

When they arrive, the police are there, also journalist Sheila Hargreaves, the anchor of Yorkshire Tonight, Yorkshire’s TV magazine programme. With her motherly appearance often called Yorkshire’s auntie. She clearly recognised Adrain but couldn’t quite place him. Adrian felt sick and needed to get away. 

Pleading a migraine, he hurries away to phone his friend Gav, who is strikingly gothic with his Russian trench coat, backcombed hair and eyeliner. The news is soon out that after a gap of eight years another young child has been taken. The word travels fast. Is the lollipop man back?

While back at the newsroom, his mum calls, asking when he will be home, clearly rattled, she was sobbing ‘it’s him again’. While on his way home he is accosted by a stocky old woman he’d seen at Gorton Lane. ‘Adrian Brown, isn’t it? Don’t lie’. Who are you? he said, heart racing. ‘Edna Wormley, just want a little chat. I know your name – your real name, I mean.

As the story progresses it becomes clear, that both Adrian and Sheila Hargreaves are burdened by their past but for different reasons.  Adrian has an uneasy relationship with his parents, but have they been honest with him.  Sheila with memories of the previous abductions, is holding onto secrets she cannot share even with her friends.

The ordeal that Adrian experienced has shaped his life, so much so that he finds it impossible to interact with his parents. The only person he is comfortable with is his friend Gav.

Cleverly plotted, full of twists and turns.  This tale has a chilling ending and will keep you riveted to the end.  Most highly recommended.
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Review: Lizzie Sirett 

Daniel Sellers grew up in Yorkshire. He has lived and worked in Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, and Vaasa in Finland. Daniel loves crime fiction, old and new, particularly the work of Margaret Murphy, Mo Hayder, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James and Josephine Tey. He is a huge (if not obsessive!) fan of Agatha Christie. Daniel's detective thrillers are pacy and dark, with as much interest in whydunit as who. He now lives in Argyll with his partner.

‘The Inside Man’ by Trevor Wood

Published by Quercus,
3 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-52943255-8 (HB)

On the surface, Jack Parker is the old-school style of detective chief inspector: a bit of a maverick, and a hands-on hard man who doesn’t suffer fools or tiptoe around other people’s feelings and prejudices and has little patience with new ways in the police force. But dig under that surface and there are secrets to be unearthed. One big secret in particular, which he’s determined to keep from his colleagues. Jack has early onset dementia. It’s in the early stages, and in a bid to ensure it stays that way for as long as possible, Jack is taking part in a drug trial – and that carries its own hazards.

The Inside Man is the second outing for Jack and his cohort of supporting players. Emma and Leon, his detective sergeants, are in constant competition, especially now there’s an inspector post in the offing. His boss Bob Curtis would rather he toed the conventional line a little more. His wife Helen and teenage son Aidan are trying to persuade him to move back into the family home, after he left it in a fit of misguided unselfishness; and his ex-priest brother is firmly on their side.

All this is only the background; there’s also a twisty and perplexing manhunt (actually woman and child hunt in this case) with enough blind alleys and near misses to satisfy the most demanding of crime fiction readers. A young woman and her four-year-old son have gone missing, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the team are looking for at least one body. But nothing is ever simple in Jack Parker’s world. Alongside the case they are officially investigating, Emma is looking into the death of her predecessor, who was the victim of a hit and run in the first book of the series. Having ruled out the involvement of one of the city’s gang leaders, Jack has asked her to get close to the son of the other – and Leon thinks she is being a little too enthusiastic about it.   

As well as showing several different faces of Newcastle, Wood’s adopted home, the story travels to a rural haven in the Scottish borders and the darker corners of the Northumbrian countryside and is equally at home in them all. There’s enough detail to place the reader in each location, and Wood seems equally at home in comfortable, informal home as in a dingy, run-down back street or a mansion or party venue glittering with conspicuous wealth.

Breathing life into his characters is also something he does with a light touch. Jack’s vulnerability shows through more clearly this time around, as do Helen’s and Aidan’s. Emma and Leon are developing new layers. Among the bad guys, Harry Connors the gangster’s son stands out: is there something dark under that sophisticated, reformed criminal exterior? In contrast, his dad Stevie has few redeeming features, and nor does Evan Groom, the main suspect in the hunt for the woman and child.

DCI Jack Parker isn’t the first protagonist to harbour a dark secret, but his is the kind that can’t remain under wraps for ever. This is inevitably a self-limiting police procedural series, but there’s a long way to go before Jack succumbs to his condition. I hope so, anyway. There’s a real kicker of a cliffhanger right at the end of this one; I’m itching to know what happens!
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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.

‘Everyone In The Group Chat Dies’ by L.M. Chilton

Published by Head of Zeus,
13 March 2025.
ISBN: 978-183793031-9 (PB)

Everyone In The Group Chat Dies is narrated by Clare, aka Kirby, Cornell whom we first meet as she clears up the previous night’s debris at the ‘SUNKISSED AND SINGLE’ resort in Magaluf.  Kirby’s job is tedious but, she thinks, it’s a small price to pay for anonymity and there are far worse places to escape the past than under the blue skies of Majorca.  Then a WhatsApp message arrives and with it is the bad thing she wants to forget. 

Suddenly it is a year earlier when Kirby was an aspiring journalist for a local newspaper and shared a flat with Dave, Dylan and Seema in the sleepy village of Crowhurst.  The four flatmates are an unlikely group of friends drifting towards thirty but living like students and having not-quite-made-it-in-life-thus-far.  Their group chat name, The Deadbeats, is an appropriate soubriquet for the four pals and when a young woman, Esme, knocks on their front door, they are a little put out that their predictable Thursday has been disturbed.  The newcomer explains that she’s a temporary lodger and the quartet assume that ‘Creepy Frank,’ the landlord they detest, has decided to employ the tiny box room to squeeze yet more money from the run down property.  They invite Esme to make herself at home and then to join them for an evening at the local pub, where her relative youth and go-getting approach to life soon challenges The Deadbeats inertia.  She has amassed a large following by investigating cold cases on a trendy social media app, ShowMe and has come to Crowhurst to delve into an evil event from thirty years earlier when five teenagers were murdered during Crowhurst’s annual Crawe Fayre.  The killer was believed to have taken his own life, but Esme thinks otherwise.  She has come on the eve of the annual event to pursue her theory whilst live streaming her findings to her online followers.  Kirby is fascinated by Esme’s success as an independent investigative journalist.  She’s also piqued; her latest assignment is to write about the proliferation of potholes in the local area!  The two women join forces in their search for the truth.  What happens next surprises everyone…

Kirby’s first person narrative imbues the novel with a sense of immediacy as well as being witty.  Prose is frequently interrupted by short, sharp text messages zinging between the flatmates.  This enhances the pace of the plot as well as discombobulating the characters.  This disorder is mirrored in the recurrent time shifts between past and present as Kirby tries to make sense of past atrocities and an unfolding mystery.  Gothic tropes abound; they unsettle and deceive the twenty first century narrator as well as those around her. 

In Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, L.M. Chilton successfully fuses sinister crime and comedy in a contemporary setting.  A great read and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

L.M. Chilton is a journalist with fifteen years’ experience working on TV shows for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 in the UK, as well as writing columns for magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour, and reporting for national newspapers across the world, everywhere from Doncaster to Delhi. He lives in London, thinking of twists for murder mysteries while practising the banjo, much to the annoyance of his neighbours.  Don't Swipe Right, his debut novel, was published by Head of Zeus in 2023.  

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. 

‘A Granite Silence’ by Nina Allan

Published by Riverrun,
10 April 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-52943-567-3 (HB)

As the old adage asserts, crime fiction is a broad church. It can cover a huge spectrum of types of stories and characters and embraces a variety of approaches ranging from gritty police procedurals to Agatha Christie’s elegantly crafted who-dunnits, from tales of monstrous serial killers to cozy mysteries involving cats.

 A Granite Silence adopts a socio-psychological approach, with its author inserting herself in the story as both witness and investigator and delivering the story in prose that often verges on the poetic. Based on a true story, A Granite Silence examines a notorious crime that occurred in Aberdeen in the spring of 1934: the murder of eight-year-old Helen Priestly who lived with her parents on Urquhart Road.

Nina Allan is at pains to describe the context of the crime. At the time, Aberdeen was the largest fishing port in Scotland and the third largest in the UK. Urquhart Road was a community of four-storey Victorian tenements filled with working class people – granite buildings housing families labouring under the twin strains of overcrowding and poverty in conditions that were unhygienic and uncomfortable. Allan introduces us to the eight families occupying Number 61 (two on each floor) – the Priestly’s and their neighbours – and describes the shared lavatories and drying green and the eight coal sheds.  

For Helen and her family, it’s a typical April day. Helen returns from her nearby school at noon for her lunch and, once she’s finished eating, her mother sends her to a bakery down the road for a loaf. As time goes by, Helen’s mother wonders where she might be, worrying her daughter will be late for school. Mrs. Priestly goes out to look for Helen and questions neighbours, but in vain. Finally, the police are summoned, and they organize searches of the vicinity.

Helen’s fate remains a mystery until early the next morning, when her body is discovered in a sack lying on the floor of a communal lobby in the building. A cursory examination indicates she has been strangled and sexually assaulted, and suspicion initially falls on a mysterious man reported lurking in the area. But it transpires he’s the figment of the overheated imagination of a little boy. The plot thickens. It had rained heavily on the night of the child’s disappearance, but the sack in which she is found is dry, indicating it had been placed there by an inhabitant of the building. Curiously, the bruising to the child’s genitals appears to have been inflicted by a wooden instrument.

Allan’s book confirms another adage, that truth is stranger than fiction. One unexpected revelation follows another as the author gradually uncovers what actually befell that ordinary little girl on a spring day in a bustling Scottish port city in the early 1930s. Recommended.
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra.

Nina Allan is a novelist and critic. Her first novel The Race won the Grand Prix de L'imaginaire and was a Kitschies finalist. Her second novel The Rift won the British Science Fiction Award, the Kitschies Red Tentacle and was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her short fiction has previously been shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Shirley Jackson Award and the British Fantasy Award. Her most recent novel is The Dollmaker. Born in London, Nina Allan lives and works in the west of Scotland.

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising three murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels.

‘The Case of the Mad Doctor’ by P. D. Lennon

Published by Canelo.co,
10 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-087-3

It is July 1772, and Bristol, in the west of England, is a prosperous trading and business centre. Isaiah Ollenu is a clerk to the barrister Jacob Dunne, and he is working towards one day becoming a barrister himself. Ollenu is highly intelligent, lively, imaginative and diligent, but he is also Black. Although Ollenu is freeborn, and legislation has recently been passed to abolish slavery in Great Britain, it is still the accepted practice in much of the world, including in British colonies, and there is deep-rooted prejudice against Black people, however well-educated and respectable. Ollenu has great respect for Dunne, and is very grateful to him, so when Dunne asks him to go on a mission for him and Dunne’s client, Edward Barrow, Ollenu does not feel that he can refuse. Barrow owns an insurance company and claims that three of his clients have deliberately disappeared so that their families can fraudulently have them declared them dead and claim their insurance money. Dunne and Barrow want Ollenu to accompany Barrow’s insurance agent to Jamaica in search of the missing people.

Ollenu is horrified at the thought of visiting an island where slavery is still an accepted way of life and is desolate at the thought of leaving his pregnant wife and their two children, but he succumbs to the pressure upon him and agrees.

When Ollenu and Ruben Ashby, the insurance agent, meet as they board the passenger ship the Isabella, it is clear that the partnership between the two men is destined to be far from cordial. Ashby is older than Ollenu, pious, stingy, and instinctively unwilling to believe evil of respectable white people. Ollenu finds the journey a nightmare, he is aware of the hostility of his fellow passengers and the crew of the Isabella and is unsettled when he realises that a ship called Isabella had been involved in the slave trade, despite Ashby’s assurances that this had been a different ship and the name is just a coincidence.

In Jamaica things do not improve for Ollenu, because the majority of white people assume that he is Ashby’s property, and he is disgusted by the cruelty with which many of the slave owners treat their slaves. What is more, he soon distrusts many of the officials that they had been assured would assist them, and he increasingly believes that there is deceit festering beneath the surface civility. At an official evening event, Ollenu and Ashby encounter Doctor Lewis Hutchinson, a man with a vile reputation, who nevertheless is accepted into polite society, despite rumours that he is a violent man and probably a killer. As they continue to search for the three people they are employed to find, Ollenu and Ashby find themselves trapped at Hutchinson’s remote house, grandiloquently called Edinburgh Castle, and realise that they are at the mercy of a mad and ruthless murderer, who has already killed numerous people.

The Case of the Mad Doctor is the first book to feature Isaiah Ollenu and Ruben Ashby, but I very much hope that it is not the last. The book is not a straightforward mystery, because both the title and back cover information makes clear the identity of the major villain, although Hutchinson is not the only evil person portrayed in the story. The character of Doctor Hutchinson is based on a real-life serial killer, who was active in Jamaica in the eighteenth century; however the plot and the majority of the characters are fictional, including Ollenu and Ashby. All of the characters are well drawn, and Isaiah Ollenu is an engaging protagonist, courageous, generous and determined to help those who have nobody to fight for them. One of the strong, underlying themes of the book is trust, and the instinct to accept as right behaviour that which is the accepted norm. The historical details are vivid and convincing and describe the horror and injustice of the slave trade without preaching or pretension. This is an excellent, thought-provoking read, which I thoroughly recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Paula Lennon was born to Jamaican parents in England. She lived in Jamaica during her teens and developed a great affinity for the island. Although Paula came back to England to study law and was once a London commercial lawyer, she eventually saw sense and returned to live where the weather is more conducive to smiling.

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries, the series which began with The Fragility of Poppies. 

www.carolwestron.com