‘An Urgent Murder’ by Alex Winchester

Published by Matador,
28 August 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-78901496-9 (PB)

When 91-year-old George Armstrong is murdered, the police are sure they have solved the crime within days. The nurse who attends him at his home is arrested when her finger prints are found on the jar of poison which killed him. However, Detective John Wiles who has been seconded to help the Chichester Police solve the murder, can't believe the nurse would be so foolish as to leave her fingerprints on the murder weapon. Together with W.P.C. Alison Daines he investigates further, and they are baffled as to why Armstrong had not pulled the alarm cord which was within his easy reach. A discovery is then made which makes them wonder if George Armstrong was actually his real name.

The case then becomes much more involved when there is another similar murder.

At the same time, it comes to the attention of the police that a gang have a “pet” Chief Constable in the Midlands Police Force who is about to retire. Alison's father Graham is tipped to take up the position, however the gang have other ideas. A Russian, Gregoriev and two Lithuanians are given the job of “persuading” Graham Daines to back down so that their own new man can take the job. When Graham refuses to do as they say, his daughter Alison is put in grave danger. Will he be persuaded to withdraw from taking up the position?

Things become even more serious when it is found a high-ranking minister in the government is involved and he has been leaking top secret information to Russia, but who is he?

The team now really have their work cut out. They need to solve the two murders before there is another and they must find who is behind the threats to Graham and his daughter Alison. Plus, it is vital they discover who is leaking all the secrets to Russia.

The book actually contains two completely different stories, rather cleverly intertwined. The author obviously is very familiar with police procedure and I found it very interesting to get a bit of an insight as to how they go about solving crimes. I don't doubt it is common to have such a heavy work load and I think it helps the reader to understand what a great job they do.

Recommended especially for those interested in an authentic story of police procedure.

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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Alex Winchester was born in West Sussex.  He joined London's Metropolitan Police Force in 1969. During his initial years he served as a Uniformed Police Constable in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and soon became a Detective and worked on specialist groups from New Scotland Yard targeting major criminals. He retired after 30 years. On his retirement, he was employed by a specialist private company for several years. He then returned to West Sussex where he took up a civilian working with the Chichester Police.  He is now fully retired.

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.

‘Death of a Jester’ by Deb Richardson-Moore

Published by Lion Hudson,
18 May 2018. 
ISBN: 978 1 78264 264 0 (PB)

This is the third in the author’s series set in the fictitious town of Grambling in the U.S. state of Georgia featuring local reporter Branigan Powers and her lover Detective Chester Scovey. A report has come into the local paper of a clown being seen in the woods trying to lure a child into the woods. The report is not taken very seriously by either the paper or the police who have already been told, and the investigation is somewhat half-hearted. Neither is a report of a second clown also approaching a child since neither attempt was successful. Branigan is more interested in the news about her aunt who has been diagnosed with a serious medical condition and the imminent arrival of her two cousins, actress Jimmie Jean and school counsellor Isabella. Jimmie Jean lands the lead in a musical being put on by the local theatre company – Annie Get Your Gun – and Branigan is concentrating on her family. But then a child goes missing, a young boy who with his family has been living in a tent city established by a number of homeless people in the woods and the reports of beckoning clowns are taken more seriously. And there is someone else who is deeply concerned by the stories and that is the homeless Malachi who is now living in a tent city in the woods and, after his experiences as U.S. soldier in Kuwait, is suffering from PTSD particularly by his inability to rescue a young Bedouin boy in that conflict.

The missing child cannot be found and concerns for him are increasing. Meanwhile, Branigan is unsettled to hear that Jimmie Jean’s marriage (to Branigan’s own first love) Isabella has not only been stalked by someone but that someone has followed her to Grambling and landed the male lead in the musical. And, because the person who abducted the missing child is pretty certainly the person dressed as a clown who had been trying to lure children, attention switches to the theatre company quite a few of whom have aspects of their private lives that they would prefer not to be known about. And then a body dressed in clown clothes is discovered.

This is a lively, well-written story in the cosy genre with a large cast of likeable characters and a strong portrayal of a typical American small town in the South where the various churches – Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian – play a leading role in the community, supplying effective social support to those in need for whom official care seems either not to exist or to be inadequate. I was surprised that the response to the first reports of beckoning clown were not taken more seriously but perhaps the U.S. has not yet uncovered its very own Jimmy Savile.

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Reviewer: Radmila May

Deb Richardson-Moore was a reporter for "The Greenville (SC) News," for 27 years, winning three national writing awards and routine recognition from the South Carolina Press Association. She then took over the religion beat at "The News" and enrolled in a nearby seminary to learn more about it. Her life was never the same. She left the newspaper and earned a Master of Divinity degree. Because jobs for clergywomen were scarce in her own Baptist denomination, she accepted a job as pastor of the non-denominational Triune Mercy Center, a crumbling, inner-city mission church to the homeless.

https://debrichardsonmoore.com/

Radmila May was born in the U.S. but has lived in the U.K. since she was seven apart from seven years in The Hague. She read law at university but did not go into practice. Instead she worked for many years for a firm of law publishers and still does occasional work for them including taking part in a substantial revision and updating of her late husband’s legal practitioners’ work on Criminal Evidence published late 2015. She has also contributed short stories with a distinctly criminal flavour to two of the Oxford Stories anthologies published by Oxpens Press – a third story is to be published shortly in another Oxford Stories anthology – and is now concentrating on her own writing.

‘The Puppet Show’ by M W Craven

Published by Constable,
24 January 2019.
ISBN: 978-1-47212745-7 (PB)

What an exciting, exuberant read this is. I thought from the back-cover blurb there might be a bit too much explicit violence for me, but I didn’t find this – I coped easily; the horror wasn’t dwelt on and it was never a focus. The focus of this book was the characters and they carried me along; at breakneck speed towards the end. A detective with a very clever mind who won’t follow procedure and doesn’t take the same view as other people sounds like a trope we’re familiar with – but you haven’t met Washington Poe. He’s very different, and very engaging too. OK, so if you were nit-picking you might say he behaves a little bit too outrageously for plausibility, but hey, this is fiction, and fiction entertains and illuminates through larger-than-life characters in extraordinary situations. And we always root for the heroic protagonist who, no matter what the pressure, does what he thinks is right.

Nor is Poe the only stand-out character; he finds himself working with Tilly Bradshaw, a young woman with very little experience of social situations but who turns out to be loyal and dedicated, an absolute jewel – as well as a wizard at maths, statistics and computers. Her literalism and social ineptitude make for some amusing as well as moving situations: humour and pathos filter through the book, lightening the story and elevating The Puppet Show beyond simply an exciting crime story. Both Poe and Tilly work not for a local constabulary or CID but for the Serious Crime Analysis Section, an organisation within the National Crime Agency that cleverly gives Poe just a little space for freedom of action which he pushes to the limits and beyond.

The setting of Cumbria – and often the truly wild parts that people will be less familiar with than the tourist honeypots of the region – complements the freshness of the novel and adds to its interest. I found myself wanting to visit and explore very soon. Preferably with a dog like Washington Poe’s Edgar for company.

But you want to know about the story. Does it deliver? Oh yes. While the play between the main characters and the intriguing politics between the various authorities both take a significant part, the focus, just as it should, swings ever more towards identifying the Immolation Man and anticipating his next murderous moves. There are twists and turns aplenty – and even after we know the killer’s identity the novel doesn’t quickly close, but explores other, wider issues in a fascinating way that allows Washington Poe to achieve his full potential, and the reader full satisfaction. Not a novel to miss.

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Reviewer: Dea Parkin

M. W. Craven was born in Carlisle but grew up in Newcastle. He joined the army at sixteen, leaving ten years later to complete a social work degree. Seventeen years after taking up a probation officer role in Cumbria, at the rank of assistant chief officer, he became a full-time author.
The Puppet Show, the first in a two-book deal he signed with the Little Brown imprint, Constable in 2017, was released in hardback in June 2018.  

http://www.mwcraven.com/

Twitter: @MWCravenUK

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DeaParkin is an editor with her consultancy Fiction Feedback and is also Secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association. She writes poetry and occasionally re-engages with The Novel. When she isn't editing, managing or writing she is usually to be found on the tennis court – or following the international tour at home on TV. Usually with several books on the go, she entertains a penchant for crime fiction, history, and novels with a mystical edge. She is engaged in a continual struggle to find space for bookshelves and time for her friends and her cat.