‘The Uniform’ by Jodie Lawrance

Published by Joffe Books,
18 June 2021.
ISBN: 978-1-78931733-6 (PB)

Edinburgh 1977. It’s new cop Helen Carter’s first detective case: a man tortured to death in an abandoned cinema. There’s a strange symbol drawn on the wall, like an inverted V in a circle, and the business card of an ex-cop turned PI is left under the chair. Then another body is found ...

This thoroughly readable PP is told in the third person, and follows Helen Carter, her boss Inspector Craven and the PI George Stanley in alternating chapters, which keeps the story moving quickly from one strand of the investigation to the other.

Helen’s a sympathetic main character, struggling to reconcile her boyfriend to the demands of the job – after all, what any bird wants is just to get married and not have to work, right? – while also dealing with the misogeny she encounters at work. She’s ignored, patronised, sent to make the tea and given the nastiest job of all, breaking bad news to families. The world of 70s policing is vividly evoked, particularly through Craven, who’s an honest guy and a good cop, but very much a product of his era.

Edinburgh of the seventies is also lovingly described - trust me on this one, I was there, and it brought all sorts of memories back. The body count rises and the plot’s cleverly finished off with an unexpected perp.

An enjoyable, fast-moving PP with a sparky heroine and a vivid 70s Edinburgh setting.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Jodie Lawrance graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2018 with an MA in Creative Writing. When not writing, she is also an actress and has appeared in a variety of television, stage and film.

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 Click on the title to read a review of her recent book
 The Shetland Sea Murders
www.marsalitaylor.co.uk

‘Many Deadly Returns’ by the Murder Squad: Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Margaret Murphy, Chris Simms, Cath Staincliffe, John Baker, Chaz Benchley and Stuart Pawson.

Published by Severn House,
26 August 2021.
ISBN: 978-0-72789093-1 (HB)

This cracking collection of 21 stories by some of crime writing’s finest is a real treat. Each of the current Murder Squad (Cleeves, Edwards, Ellis, Murphy, Simms and Staincliffe) has three stories in the anthology, former members Baker, Benchley and Pawson have one, and every story shows the quality you’d expect. The general style is traditional, focusing on a clever plot with a sting or twist in the tail, but there’s a wonderful variety of styles within that sub-genre. There are great examples of ‘the biter bit’ in Edwards’ wife-killing Lucky Liam, Pawson’s would-be perfect murderer in Ultra Violent and Staincliffe’s atmospheric post-apocalyptic Perfect Storm.

Naturally several stories have an unexpected twist in the tail, like Staincliffe’s Scorpion, with two young men in jail, Baker’s historical An Old-Fashioned Poisoning, Ellis’s stately-home murder, My Oleander, Edwards’ Bad Friday, where a traveller finds herself next to the passenger who insists on sharing her whole life with the carriage via her mobile, Simms’ story of a gang informer, Gaffed, and Edwards’ elderly widow being drawn, or conned, into a spiritualist meeting in The Other Life.

There are wonderful character studies: the rules-stickler foreman in Simms’ Skeleton Crew, Murphy’s sinister predator in Read the Label, Cleeves’ imperious Queen of Mystery, Simms’ racist woman in The Passenger and the final story of the collection, Still Life, where a man who’s locked in and a girl who’s locked out come to understand each other. Cleeves’ A Winter’s Tale conjures up the bleak loneliness of a Dales farm in winter, and Benchley’s thoughtful For Kicks and Staincliffe’s historical Two Birds both look at the theme of domestic violence. Ellis has two cleverly-clued classic whodunnits with The Fox and the Hens and The Confession of Edward Prime. Murphy’s two country singers find unexpected depths in Big End Blues, and Cleeves opens the collection with a riff on the latest craze for Wild Swimming.

A superb variety of short crime stories in the traditional style.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Murder Squad was the idea of Margaret Murphy, who was getting good reviews, but sales were disappointing and in publishing the marketing budget tends to follow success. She realised it was vital to promote her own work and thought that it would be much easier to do that collectively than as an individual. So, she invited six other crime writers living and writing in the north of England to join forces. They are Ann Cleeves, Martin Edwards, Margaret Murphy, Cath Staincliffe Kate Ellis, Chris Simms. Two of the original line-up, John Baker and Chaz Brenchley, have since stepped down from the Squad, and Stuart Pawson died in February 2016. Published in August 2021. Many Deadly Returns contains 21 stories celebrating 21 years of Murder Squad.

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
The Shetland Sea Murders

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk

‘Murder Now and Then’ by Faith Martin

Published by Joffe Books,
15 September 2021.
ISBN 978-1-78931-875-3 (PB)

This is book 19 in the DI Hillary Greene series. Those who have read recent books in the series will know that after a brief experiment with retirement, Hillary has returned to work as a civilian consultant solving cold cases for the CRT (Crime Review Team) at Thames Valley Police’s headquarters in Oxford. She is helped by Claire Wooley, a retired police sergeant in her early fifties and Gareth Proctor who has been invalided out of the army. Gareth is in his mid-thirties and carries both the physical and mental scars that accompany such a background.

The case Hillary’s team is given to examine dates back to 2011. A young medieval history graduate, Michael Beck, went out on his bicycle one morning and was found dead in a water meadow a couple of miles from his home later that evening.  He had been hit over the head with a round instrument of unknown origin, and was dead before he was put in the water.

The original investigation had identified two main suspects, Michael’s tutor, Dr Timothy Durning and his, rather too ardent, lover Dr Mia de Salle. Hillary begins by interviewing Michael’s parents, Timothy Durning, and Mia de Salle, and Michael’s old school friend, the amiable, but not terribly bright, Kevin Philpot. Her investigations gather momentum when she learns that Michael’s main hobby at the time of his death had been using a metal detector to hunt for buried treasure.

Six months before Hillary started looking into Michael’s death, two criminals - a fence for stolen goods and a money lender-were murdered on the same day.  DI Robin Farrell is determined to finger Oxford’s king of crime, Larry Spence, for the murders, but Hilary is not so sure.  Her gut feeling tells her there might be a link between Michael’s death all those years ago, and the deaths of these two criminals six months ago.  Unfortunately, she has no evidence to support her feelings and no idea what the link might be, and DI Farrell remains set on arresting the man he fancies for the killings.  Hillary is also worried about what sort of a fix Gareth might have got himself into whilst trying to help an old army mate suffering with death-inciting PTSD.  Will she risk her own reputation to help him?

In this easy to read and intriguing Hillary Greene mystery, Faith Martin moves the story along at a good pace. The book is peopled by a variety of realistically human characters who actually eat and get cross when they’re tired. In Murder Now and Then, Michael’s relationships with his tutor, his girlfriend Mia, and his old schoolfriend Kevin, are at the heart of the story. Mia is a little mentally challenged, but in the end, it is her kinky behaviour that inadvertently provides the police with a delightful stratagem for corroborating their suspicions. At the beginning of the book, I felt a little sad to learn that Hilary’s old boss and would-be husband, Chief Supt Steven Crayle, had died, thus depriving her of a happy resolution to her personal life. That may yet come in a later book.  Hilary is still only in her mid-fifties, so plenty of time for romance.
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Reviewer Angela Crowther.

Faith Martin is a pen name of English author Jacquie Walton who was born in Oxford. She is best known for writing a series of books set around Oxfordshire, with the starring character being DI Hillary Greene. She also has a series set in Oxford in 1960 featuring PC Trudy Loveday, who is assigned to help coroner Clement Ryder. Writing as Joyce Cato she has published 7 books featuring Jenny Starling, a travelling cook and amateur detective. And four books featuring Monica Noble, a vicar's wife with a taste for solving crimes.

Angela Crowther is a retired scientist.  She has published many scientific papers but, as yet, no crime fiction.  In her spare time Angela belongs to a Handbell Ringing group, goes country dancing and enjoys listening to music, particularly the operas of Verdi and Wagner.

 

‘Come and Be Killed’ by Sally Spedding

Published by Endeavour Media Ltd,
7 September 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-71801076-5 (PB)

Frankie Holt was adopted as a baby but is made to feel as she grows up that she is not a proper part of the family. Whereas her adoptive parents’ natural daughter, Shannon is spoilt rotten and takes every opportunity to have a dig at Frankie. Seizing the chance one day she throttles Shannon and tips her into the deep water of the river Irwell.

We also meet a Martin Webb, who dreams of being a police officer, but his application seems to have been in vain. Later with his life in disarray and having to leave his job with a Turf Accountant, he moves away and starts a to train as a roofer where he meets Dora, and they soon become very close.

Meanwhile, back with Frankie, we learn that she takes a course in caring for old people so that she will not lose her dole money. Surprisingly she actually enjoys it and eventually lands a job with an agency who place her as a carer for a Merle Scott, a very wealthy woman. Frankie also carries out odd jobs for Merle’s sister Evelyn who is struggling with osteoporosis. Unknown at first to the two sisters, Frankie is trying to trace her real parents, especially her mother.

Martin, meanwhile thinking a friend of his committed suicide, is persuaded by his late friend’s partner that no way would he have taken his own life. This reawakens his keenness to be a police officer and he decides to look into the death. Little does he know what he is getting into, and that Shannon was his friend’s ex-girlfriend.

Back with Frankie, Merle then appears to have gone missing. A new Detective Avril Pinkerton takes up the case. She seems to take a dislike to Frankie who is now getting closer to finding her real mother.

Martin and his girlfriend Dora begin to understand what Frankie is capable of. She is a very deeply disturbed character. Why does she have a life-like baby doll that she believes talks back to her? It’s certainly very creepy and she tells people that she has a daughter.

As Martin gets nearer learning the truth, he begins to realise what he is up against. Can he solve his mate’s death before he meets his own, and can Frankie get away with the murder of Shannon?

Sally Spedding certainly knows how to write a deeply dark novel She has an insight into people’s disturbing characters. I found Come And Be Killed really absorbing right until the last surprising lines. Once again, I highly recommend one of her gripping crime novels.
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Sally Spedding was born by the sea near Porthcawl in Wales and trained in sculpture in Manchester and at St Martin's, London. Whilst her work was demand, Sally began to realise words can deliver so much more than any narrative sculpture or painting. Her first crime mystery, Wringland, was published in 2001 and has a strong historical thread and is set in the bleak fenland around Sutton Bridge. Her second book Cloven also invokes the past. Sally has written a further seven novels. Her strong familial connections with the Pyrenees, Germany and Holland have provided her with themes of loss and exclusion. The dark side of people, and landscape. The deceptive exterior, the snake in the grass are all themes which recur in her writing. In 2018 she started a series featuring DI John Lyon. There are three books in the series. More recently she has a series of five books set in France featuring Lieutenant Delphine Rougier of the French Labradelle Gendarmarie

 http://www.sallyspedding.com/

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.