‘Single Cell’ by Phil Rowlands

Published by Diamond Crime,
10 April 2021.  
ISBN 978-1-8384026-3-1 (PB)

It’s not often that a couple of Catholic priests are the most entertaining characters in a psychological thriller.  Mind you, Fathers Peter Satorri and Liam Orpizeski are not exactly ordinary priests. Although they have the expected qualities of kindness and spirituality, are good company and like a drink or two, in their spare time they happen to be sometime members of a secret “problem solving” Vatican unit rather akin to our MI5.

When Deputy Prison Governor, Giles Lawson, becomes worried about the supposed suicide of life-prisoner Frank Clarke and the incredibly early parole of Frank’s erstwhile cell mate, Ralph Bateman, he consults the prison’s Chaplin, Peter Satorri.  Another prisoner, Sidney Pargeter, tells Peter he thinks Frank was “helped” to die.  Unfortunately, Sidney is killed before Giles gets a chance to talk to him.  Although the Prison Governor instructs Giles to drop his enquiries, Peter and Giles elect to continue with their investigations. Peter enrols the help of Valerie Loring, an attractive investigative journalist, who starts researching the deaths of other life- prisoners.  She also suggests that Peter should seek help from an old friend, Stephen Caron, who helped him through a bad patch before he became a priest.

Whilst all this was going on, several small cameos pop up in the text.  They tell us that the lives of six people: a senior academic, an MP, a hotelier, a senior police officer and captains of industry have been destroyed by the murder or rape of a loved one. Aided and directed by a Faustian character who has definitely sold his soul to the devil, the six form a committee whose aim is to organise the killing of those serving life sentences for rape and murder.

Single cell gathers pace as it progresses. Giles’ family - lively seventeen-year-old twins Kate and Sally and feisty wife Patty - become involved when efforts to transfer them to safety go astray. Valerie’s boat is blown up killing policemen who are playing catchup. Further violence seeks and finds many of those busy dishing out their version of justice to others who have sinned. In their search to destroy the devil masterminding the summary executions, Peter, Liam, Valerie and Giles take to hopping around in private planes. Their endeavours are ably supported by the next generation of holy, or not so holy, handsome young priests and their relatives.

For me, the strength and sheer joy of this book lies not so much with the action, though there is plenty of that, but with the repartee between the characters.  Giles’ twins and his wife keep him on his toes and Fathers Peter and Liam, not to mention Valerie and the support teams, excel at producing a wealth of delightfully apposite comments that sum up a variety of unusual situations.  All in all, a most engaging and diverting read.
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Reviewer Angela Crowther.

Phil Rowlands is a screenwriter, author and producer. After many years as a 'safe pair of hands' actor, mainly in film and television, he moved into the production side as a freelance writer and producer. He has written feature films, TV and radio dramas, documentaries and animation series and is an experienced script doctor/editor and story consultant. In 2009 he was one of the co-founders of Funky Medics, a production company focussing mainly on innovative health education. Their diverse animated and live projects have included singles and series on heart disease, diabetes, smoking and drug abuse. A revised version of his first novel, Siena, has recently been republished by new indie publisher Diamond Books along with his second, Single Cell. A third TimeSlip will be released in August 2021. Originally from Pembrokeshire in West Wales, he now lives near Cardiff and has British nationality and Canadian citizenship.

 www.philrowlandswriter.com

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.

‘Close Your Eyes’ by Rachel Abbott

Published by Black Dot,
11 February 2021.
ISBN: 978-1-9999437-4-5  (PB)

The wife of an up and coming software company has been murdered, and super-efficient office manager Martha Porter has disappeared. On the face of it, it’s an open and shut case for DCI Tom Douglas: track down Porter, find out what she’s been up to, and home in time for tea with wife Louisa and new baby Harry.  

But Tom is all too well aware that nothing is ever that simple, and as he digs deeper into the background of the company and tries in vain to find some information about Martha Porter, he starts to realize just how tangled a web he is caught up in.

Soon there are more questions than answers. Why does company boss Niall Strachan leave the office down a secret back staircase? Why does employee Elise Chapman hate Martha Porter enough to post heavy hints about her guilt on social media? Why did Genevieve, the murdered woman, make contact with her footballer ex-boyfriend? And most important of all, who exactly is the elusive Martha Porter, and what is she hiding?

As Tom Douglas and his team search for Martha Porter, some of the answers emerge through a second story strand which goes back almost twenty years. A big lottery win, a remote house and a mysterious stranger with mesmeric eyes are all thrown into the mix, and after a while the reader has a much clearer idea of why Martha is on the run, though Tom Douglas’s team take a little longer to work it out.

Rachel Abbott has created a meaty and tightly woven plot with a surprise round every corner. But Close Your Eyes is much more than that. This talented author’s many fans will already be well acquainted with Tom Douglas’s complicated home life, and also with Becky Robinson, his loyal DI, both of whom feel as if their lives continue well beyond the confines of the books. Abbott is also a past master at taking an important issue and weaving a gripping story around it, and that’s what she does here. Above all, her bad guys are very bad indeed, but no less believable for that.

She’s also a dab hand with minor characters, all of who spring off the page fully formed and don’t seem minor at all in context. Nicola and Joel in the remote country house; the appalling Elise Chapman in the software company’s office; even Kirsten, the footballer ex’s new partner, and a host of others as well: I felt I would recognize them all if they walked in off the street. And then there’s Aram, who no one with any sense wants to recognize.

The Tom Douglas series gets better and better, and Close Your Eyes is the best addition yet. Long may he continue to seek out the bad guys on the mean streets of Manchester and beyond!
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Rachel Abbott was born just outside Manchester, England.  
 She became a systems analyst at the age of 21 in the early 1970s and formed her own software company in the mid-1980s designing computer programmes for education.   The company expanded into all forms of interactive media and became extremely successful. The sale of the company in 2000 enabled her to take early retirement and fulfil one of her lifelong ambitions - to buy and restore a property in Italy.  Once there she completely restored a ruined monastery and started a second successful business renting it out for weddings and conferences. In 2010 she embarked on her third career and wrote her first book Only the Innocent.

 ww.rachel-abbott.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 in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Shadow Over Southwold’ by Suzette A Hill

Published by Allison & Busby,
22 July 2021.
ISBN: 978-7490-2721-6 (HB)

Set in Suffolk in 1961, this third in the series commences with the news of the demise of one Horace Dewthorp having fallen from cliff in Dunwich whilst walking Mrs Peebles' dog Freddie, Mrs Pebbles having been laid low with chicken pox.  Apart from Mrs P. being annoyed, although Freddie seemed unconcerned, Horace’s passing has created barely a ripple, Horace not being much missed owing to being a teetotal and not therefore frequenting any of the local hostelries.

In Cambridge Dr Miles Loader is brooding on the death of his third cousin, once removed, who had been found hanging half-mast under Clare College Bridge.

On a cheerier note, Felix Smythe proud owner of Bountiful Blooms by Royal Appointment to the Queen Mother, is telephoning his good friend Cedric Dillworthy to share his joy at having been invited to a smart party in Aldeburgh and asking Cedric him to accompany him.

The first disappointment is that the hotel in Aldeburgh is full and eventually Felix ends up at the Guest House run by Mrs Peebles. Not only is the accommodation well below Felix’s standard but he has omitted to pack his favourite waistcoat. Things brighten a little when he manages to purchase a smart waistcoat in Aldeburgh but soon things deteriorate when Felix finds himself caught up in a murder and is questioned by the police owing to the discovery of a dead body in the guest house in which he is staying.

Inspector Jennings is the investigating officer, as his superior Chief Inspector Nathan is at home laid up with a broken leg. Newly promoted Jennings is out of his depth, but his resolve is stiffened by a visit to CI Nathan, and he decides to grill Felix.  He is just as he about to start when he is handed a note which reads ‘he supplies flowers to the Queen Mum – kid gloves.’

Following a line of enquiry obliquely suggested by CI Nathan, Jennings seeks out the local Vicar who is having problems with the sheep – don’t ask. He does however point Jennings in the direction of the twins Joy and Gaye who have formed a group that take the local vicar to task about forgiving sinners.

The story is full of interesting characters. And there are puzzling clues to follow - penguin biscuits for one……

So, we have two deaths in Suffolk and one in Cambrudge – are they connected and if so, how? Under the calm exterior of the little town, they are murky goings on.  There is indeed a Shadow over Southwold.

Cleverly plotted, the threads are gradually drawn together with a tense climax. The author has a deft touch with prose, and as with all previous books I enjoyed this one immensely.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett
Earlier books in the series are A Southwold Mystery, and Shot in Southwold

Suzette Hill was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1941; but has lived in many locations - the Midlands, Nottingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Berkshire - and finally in retirement to Ledbury in Hereforshire. Although being an English graduate of two universities and having taught ‘Eng. Lit.’ all her professional life, she never did ever contemplate doing any creative writing herself. It was only when she was sixty-four and well retired, that out of idle curiosity she thought she might try her hand at a short story - just to see what writing fiction felt like. And to her ongoing surprise the Bones series is the result!  Publishers Constable & Robinson.  A Little Murder is the first in a new series featuring Rosy Gilchrist. Followed The Venetian Venture & A Southwold Mystery. There are now three books in the series featuring Primrose Oughterard, a sequel to the earlier ‘Bones’ series.

http://www.suzetteahill.co.uk/

‘The Crooked Shore’ by Martin Edwards

Published by Allison & Busby,
22 July 2021. 
ISBN: 978-0-74902786-5 (HB)

The question
‘So, you want to know why I killed Ramona Smith?
is the opening line and it is addressed to DCI Hannah Scarlett. But who is asking the question?

Scarlett is just back from a conference in London where she had presented a paper on the challenge of leading cold case reviews. She is still surprised to find herself now described as an expert in solving unsolved crimes.

When Kit Gleadall, the new Police and Crime Commissioner, asks Hannah to look into the twenty-one- year-old case of the disappearance of Ramona Smith from Bowness, it takes her a while to bring the case to mind. Recollection brings back memories of the investigating officer Ben Kind who had a prime suspect who he was convinced was guilty. Although Smith's body was never found the prime suspect was charged and tried for the murder. He was found not guilty, but eventually committed suicide.  Following another death, the case has resurfaced. 

Kingsley Melton is the manager of Strandbeck Manor, a period house that has been turned into luxury apartments.  Taking his ease on the shoreline, named The Crooked Shore, Kingsley is shocked to see jogging past him Logan Prentice who Kingsley suspects of evil deeds.

As Hannah begins re-interviewing the people who were investigated in the original case, those that are still alive, that is - she ponders on Ben Kind - a very shrewd cop, who she had liked very much but who had sadly subsequently been killed in a hit and run.  These pondering naturally take her to his son Daniel Kind, ex TV historian who Hannah had been dating. But she had not seen him for six weeks as he had been travelling abroad promoting his new book. Whilst it had been wonderful to see him again things seemed different. Maybe, he had someone else.

Narrated in the third person by Kingsley Melton and Hannah Scarlett, there are many strands to this story, which are skilfully drawn together. Like many good stories the clues lie in the past.  The Crooked Shore is one of the best books I have read in along time.  Just when you think you know it all, there is a sudden jaw-dropping twist that I most certainly didn’t see coming. Most highly recommended as a book not to be missed.
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Reviewer; Lizzie Sirett

Martin Edwards was born 7 July 1955 at Knutsford, Cheshire and educated in Northwich and at Balliol College, Oxford University, taking a first-class honours degree in law. He trained as a solicitor in Leeds and moved to Liverpool on qualifying in 1980. He published his first legal article at the age of 25 and his first book, about legal aspects of buying a business computer at 27, before spending just over 30 years as a partner of a law firm, where he is now a consultant. He is married to Helena with two children (Jonathan and Catherine) and lives in Lymm. He is a member of the Murder Squad a collective of crime writers.  In 2007 he was appointed the Archivist of the Crime Writers Association and in 2011 he was appointed the Archivist of the Detection Club. He is a former chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and since 2015, he has been President of the Detection Club. For more information visit:

 www.martinedwards.com.         
www.doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com