‘Seat 7a’ by Sebastian Fitzek

Published by Head of Zeus,
13 May 2021.
ISBN: 978-10838935818 (HB)
Translated by
Steve Anderson

Nele is waiting for a taxi to take her to the clinic for a caesarian operation when her waters break. She hurriedly texts her father in Buenos Aires and tells him it has started. However, the taxi driver takes her to a remote abandoned building and ties her up. Her contractions start.

 

We then go to her father Mats, a psychiatrist, boarding a flight to Berlin to be with her. He is terrified of flying and has been convinced seat 7a is the most dangerous place to sit. He has booked it as an extra seat so that no one sits there, but he gives it up to a distraught mother with her young baby when there is a mix up over her booking.

 

Not long after take-off Mats receives a phone call from someone using a voice changer, saying his daughter has been kidnapped and her and her baby will die an agonising death unless he does as he is told. He is to find an old patient of his on board, reverse her treatment and somehow get her to cause the plane to crash, killing all on board.

 

He is desperate, not only is the overriding fear of flying making him feel ill, but he also now has to choose between his daughter and her baby's lives and being the cause of the death of everyone on the plane.

 

He manages to contact a colleague of his, Felicity who agrees to find out all she can concerning his daughter's whereabouts. He pleads with her not to alert the police as it will mean instant death for Nele and her baby.

 

Tension mounts now to an almost unbearable pitch as we are taken constantly between Mats' dilemma on the plane, Felicity's attempt at finding out more, and the terrible suffering of Nele at her kidnapper's hands. To make matters even more tense, we are kept up to date constantly with how many flying hours there are left before reaching Berlin.

 

It can only end in disaster one way or another surely?

 

My goodness by the end of the book I felt drained, there are so many tense moments and unexpected turns of events, my head was in a whirl by the last page. A highly recommended exceptional psychological chiller. Especially if the reader is not afraid of flying!
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Sebastian Fitzek was born 13 October 1971 in Berlin Germany. He is a writer and journalist. His first book Therapy was a bestseller in Germany in 2006, toppling The Da Vinci Code from the #1 position.  Fitzek is currently one of the most successful writers in Germany.

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 new authors. great new authors.   

 

CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition

The world-famed Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced the shortlist for its Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize.

The competition celebrates the classic mystery story, and entries had to adhere to Allingham’s definition of a mystery. The great Golden Age author summed it up as: “The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.” 

Margery Allingham Shortlist 2021:

Antony M Brown        For Laura Hope

Chris Curran                All the Little Boxes

Camilla Macpherson Heartbridge Homicides

Hazell Ward                As Dead as Dodo

Antony M Brown, who lives in Eastleigh, is the author of the Cold Case Jury Collection (Mirror Books) – true crime mysteries in which readers can deliver their verdicts online at coldcasejury.com. He has appeared numerous times on radio and television talking about true crime and crime writing, including The Porthole Mystery, the BBC News Channel documentary based on his second book.

Chris Curran lives in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. Her first novel, Mindsight set in Hastings, is a psychological thriller. It was chosen as the lead title for Harper Collins’ new digital first imprint at Killer Reads. Subsequent books include Her Turn to Cry, All the Little Lies and Her Deadly Secret. She also writes under the name Abbie Frost (The Guest House).

Camilla Macpherson lives in The Hague in the Netherlands. Her debut novel, Pictures at an Exhibition, which revolves around the National Gallery during the Second World War, was published by Random House in 2012 and translated into Dutch, German and Polish. Camilla is currently working on a detective story set in the Netherlands in 1940. She has won a number of awards for her short stories and travel writing. 

After completing an MA in 2019, Hazell Ward is now working for a PhD by Practice in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, part of which involves writing a crime novel. It also allows her to read detective novels, and call it ‘work’. Although she has had success in a number of general fiction competitions, this is the first crime writing competition she has entered. Hazell is also a freelance writer and teacher. She lives in North Wales.

The Margery Allingham Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author whose most well-known hero is Albert Campion, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition. One of the UK’s most prominent organisations for the support and promotion of crime writing, the CWA was founded in 1953.
Each year the competition attracts many entries from the UK and overseas.

Dea Parkin, Secretary of the CWA, said: “We are in awe of the quality and number of entries we received this year. We’ve witnessed a huge resurrection in the popularity of mystery stories in the pandemic, thanks in part to the popularity of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and authors like Robert Thorogood who created the popular BBC murder mystery series, Death in Paradise. This short story competition is a fantastic way of building a writer’s craft, and profile, in the mystery genre.”

The winner will be announced later this year and will receive £500 and two passes for the international crime writing convention CrimeFest in 2022. The renowned competition also brings attention and prestige for both established and aspiring authors.

‘Bury Me Deep’ by Jane Adams

Published by Joffe Books,
21 April 2021.
ISBN: 978-1-78931659-9. (PB)

Bury Me Deep begins with two murders in the fictional town of Theadingford but - and here’s the twist - they are separated by more than a thousand years.

The first happens in the present day and describes an audacious killer who disposes of his victim in a grave that has been conveniently excavated as part of a local archaeological dig.  Detective Inspector Rozlyn Priest is called to the scene and recognises the victim as Charlie Higgins, one of her informers.  Whilst Higgins’s death is not surprising given his petty criminal status, the fact that his corpse has been dumped in an ancient grave is.  The law-enforcer’s eyebrows raise even higher when she finds out that the old English spear used as a murder weapon is not an artifact from this particular dig site.  So where did it come from? 

The second murder is set in 878 AD when Allis Scrivener and her Welsh lover are battered to death as they plan a new life together far from Theadingford.  Lord Treven is charged with finding the perpetrator of the bloody act and he is assisted by his friend Hugh De Vries.  Both men are soldiers in King Alfred’s army, and they have been rewarded with additional responsibilities by their sovereign.  Treven was recently gifted Theadingford Manor by King Alfred but his promotion comes with strings attached.  The new lord of the manor has complicated local issues to deal with not least because Theadingford provides the last line of defence against the Danish King Guthrum’s warriors who frequently raid Wessex from their Chippenham stronghold.

The two very distinctive sleuths, one female and one male, one modern and one ancient, are gradually revealed to share certain similarities as the two storylines edge closer and closer together.  They are outsiders, forced to negotiate with members of the tribe to which they are attached rather than belong.  One aspect of their otherness lies in their respective responses towards otherworldly possibilities that transcend the human condition.  

In Treven’s case, his attachment to the old religion is at odds with King Alfred’s Christian realm, whilst Rozlyn’s surname, Priest, hints at spiritual sensitivities which seem out of place in an increasingly material world.  However, the author presents Rosalind’s psychic awareness so deftly that it quickly seems quite natural for her dreams to inform the investigation.  Of course, she cannot reveal such intuitions to her colleagues, particularly the insufferable DCI Brook. 

Bury Me Deep, the first in the Rozlyn Priest series, is a great read. The dual plots are as thought-provoking as they are intriguing and the character of Rozlyn is eminently likeable and engaging.  Jane Adams writes with assurance and pace; her prose is immersive, and the reader is involved in the action throughout the novel.  I thought her blending of two such different periods was nothing short of spectacular.  Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

Jane Adams was born in Leicestershire, where she still lives. She has a degree in Sociology and has held a variety of jobs including lead vocalist in a folk rock band. She enjoys pen and ink drawing; martial arts and her ambition is to travel the length of the Silk Road by motorbike. Her first book, The Greenway, was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Award in 1995 and for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award. Jane writes several series.  Her first series featured Mike Croft. Several books featuring DS Ray Flowers. Seven titles featuring blind Naoimi Blake, and six titles featuring Rina Martin. In 2016 she started a series set between the two World Wars and featuring Detective Inspector Henry Johnstone and his sergeant, Micky Hitchens.  Bury Me Deep is the first book in a series featuring Detective Inspector Rozlyn Priest.  Jane has also written several standalone novels. She is married with two children.

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.