‘The City when it Rains’ by Thomas H Cook

Published by Overlook Duckworth,
September 2015.
ISBN: 9780715650202

9780715650202

David Corman, a freelance photographer who can’t sell his pictures any more, goes to the suicide death of a young woman. He has to have a story he can sell ... but what really caused this death?

This lyrically-told novel is part investigation, part exploration of the artist’s dilemma: integrity vs a living wage, and the extent of the sacrifice you’re prepared to make for pursuing what you want to do. The narrative follows Corman throughout: his relationship with his lively daughter, their run down appartment, the news office, and his excursions into the city and the dead woman’s life. New York in the rain is a brooding precence throughout, described through a photographer’s eyes: the sheen on the puddles, the dampened buildings, the discarded objects, like the doll by the dead woman’s hand. Past New York is also brought to like through the photographs Corman has studied: a worker high on scaffolding, the building of St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Triangle factory fire. The mystery is investigated and solved satisfactorily, but the book’s focus is on Corman’s life, and the decisions he has to make.

A hauntingly atmospheric novel centred round a heart-tugging death.

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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

 
 

Thomas H Cook  is the author of eighteen books, including two works of true crime. His novels have been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Macavity Award and the Dashiell Hammett Prize. The Chatham School Affair won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel in 1996. His true crime book, Blood Echoes, was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1992, and his story "Fatherhood" won the Herodotus Prize in 1998 and was included in Best Mystery Stories of 1998. His works have been translated into fifteen languages.

 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

‘Wrongful Death’ by L.J. Sellers

Published by Thomas & Mercer,
24 February 2015.
ISBN: 978-1477822180

Dan Thompson is a police officer at Eugene, Oregon. He is also a caring human being who tries to make a difference. Thompson is giving out blankets and warm clothing at a homeless encampment when he is brutally stabbed to death.

For Detective Wade Jackson of the Violent Crimes Unit the pressure is on to find the killer fast before war breaks out on the streets of Eugene between the police force and the homeless community. To make things worse, Thompson was the cousin of Jackson's partner, Detective Rob Schakowski (Schak.) Two homeless, learning disabled and mentally ill twins are brought in for questioning, but Jackson is not convinced that the evidence against them is sufficient and is unwilling for them to become scapegoats because they are easy targets.

In the meantime Schak has been assigned another case, that of a teenage girl who was drugged and raped at a party and whose parents were then blackmailed: unless they paid $15,000 the rapist would put a video of Ashley's assault on the internet. The parents were unable to get the money in time and Ashley committed suicide. As Schak digs deeper it becomes clear that Ashley was not the first girl to be assaulted and then blackmailed, although the other victims had survived, which is why the police had not heard about it until now.

At first the two cases seem separate but then a sinister link appears and the detectives realise that other lives are in danger from a murderous predator.

Wrongful Death is the tenth book in the Detective Jackson series. It is a powerful book that deals with dark subjects with honesty but without gratuitous violence. The central characters are all people that are fundamentally decent and that the reader can care about, even though they don't always make the wisest of decisions. Wrongful Death is a thought-provoking book and definitely a page-turner.

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Reviewer: Carol Westron

L J Sellers writes the bestselling Detective Jackson mystery/thriller series, a Readers Favorite award winner, as well as provocative standalone thrillers. Her novels have been highly praised by Mystery Scene, Crimespree, and RT Reviews, and her Jackson books are Kindle bestsellers as well as top-ranked novels. L.J., who resides in Eugene, Oregon where her novels are set, is also an award-winning journalist who earned the Grand Neal. When not plotting murders, she enjoys standup comedy, cycling, social networking, and attending mystery conferences. She’s also been known to jump out of airplanes.

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 is the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was published July 2013. Her second book About the Children was published in May 2014.

www.carolwestron.com

‘The Hidden Legacy’ by G J Minett

Published by Twenty7,
5 November 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-78577-0142

 

This was an amazing read. Narrated by multiple characters between 1966 and 2008, it had me totally riveted. Anyone who reads my  reviews will know that I read for the mystery, and this was a mystery. 

In 1966 John Michael Adams aged just twelve sets fire to two of his class mates, killing one and scarring the other for life.

In 2008 Ellen Sutherland receives a letter from a firm of solicitors informing her that she should contact them regarding the will of the late Eudora Nash. Ellen has never heard of Eudora Nash. At first she thinks to ignore it, but a telephone conversation with someone she has always trusted telling her to do just that changes her mind.

As the book progresses we are party to the thoughts of the principle characters, John Michael Adams, his father, and Ellen Sutherland.

Much of the power of this book lies in the characters. A horrendous crime has been committed, but where does the responsibility lie?  And what happens to the people whose lives are affected, not just when the atrocity takes place, but for the generations that follow?  Eventually the threads are skilfully drawn together.

This is a book that will prove marvellous for discussion, but to say why may give away too much.  My advice is to simply read this insightful book which may make you pause before you condemn, when you read the next sensational story in a newspaper.

Gripping, disturbing and heartbreaking, this thought-provoking book is a must read. Highly recommended,

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

This is a debut book.

G.J. Minett studied at Cambridge and then spent many years as a teacher of foreign languages. He studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, and won the 2010 Chapter One Prize for unpublished novels with the opening chapter of The Hidden Legacy.

‘The Life I Left Behind’ by Colette McBeth

Published by Headline,
18 August 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-4722-0599-5 (PB)

Looking into the life of the victim is often a key element in a murder investigation, especially in fiction – but the victim is the one witness who is unavailable for questioning. Usually.

In this twisty thriller, Colette McBeth has gone to some trouble to give the victim a voice. In the manner of The Lovely Bones, TV researcher Eve Elliott looks down on the life that was summarily ripped away from her and tells her own version of the story.

And if that sounds just a tad off the wall, well, occasionally it is; but McBeth gets away with it simply because Eve is such a strongly drawn character. More than that: she has left compelling evidence behind to help police and reader alike, and not in a way that feels at all contrived.

Eve’s body has been found in the same place as the victim of a previous attack, exhibiting the same modus operandi and bearing convincing clues that the two are connected. Enter DI Victoria Rutter, who begins to suspect that the earlier culprit, who has served a sentence for GBH, may have been innocent.

The previous victim, Melody, has recovered physically, but the attack damaged her psychologically. She has become reclusive to the point of agoraphobia, submissive and introvert where once she was assertive and outgoing, and obsessed by domestic minutiae as a way of avoiding the outside world. Then, when she is faced with Eve’s body of evidence, she begins to engage with reality again...

McBeth gives each of these three well-realized women a distinctive voice, and weaves their stories into a complex, gripping narrative which throws suspicion first in one direction then another, until finally it all comes together in one of those denouements that leaves you wondering why you didn’t see it in the first place. The trail of clues is there, but the path the reader is led along has so many twists and turns that the obvious is constantly obscured.

It’s intriguing, well-written and littered with characters who spring to life. It’s easy to imagine even the minor players having a life off the page; and by the end I wanted to cheer as Melody finally got her life back and chose to get on with living it.

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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Colette McBeth studied French and Spanish at the University of Liverpool. She started her career as a trainee reporter on The Journal in Newcastle before moving to Sky News in London where she worked as a deputy news editor. Deciding she missed being on the road she landed a job at the BBC as a news reporter and for the next ten years spent endless hours shivering outside courts, standing in muddy fields and filming on windswept beaches. By consequence she is an expert at applying make- up in the dark on next to no sleep. She has reported on many big stories and crime cases but her friends remember her for the coverage of the invasion of killer crabs in the sea around Norfolk. Colette started her first novel, Precious Thing, while she was still working at the BBC and finished it on maternity leave with her third child. She now writes full time and lives in London in with her husband and children.

http://www.colettemcbeth.com

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 on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.