Reviews

As well as being our featured reviewer this week, as Gareth has written in with such a detailed review of Lucifer's Tears, we thought that we'd give it its very own blog post! Name: Gareth Rice Occupation: University Researcher and freelance writer Best detective/good guy: John Rebus/Dr. Gill Grissom Favourite place to read: Anywhere really but I prefer cafes that have a quiet hum or, my top floor apartment with a stunning vista of the city. Anything else you want to tell us? Reading crime fiction has taught me a lot about my own psychology and obsessions... Review of Lucifer's Tears With its cold landscapes a perfect setting for grisly tales of murder, 'Scandinavin noir' has been the inescapable genre of recent years. When reviewers search for a 'Scandinavin noir' icon they tend to come up with writers, such as Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Ilkka Remes, Matti Joensuu and, more recently, Stieg Larsson. Enter Lucifer's Tears, James Thompson's second Inspector Kari Vaara novel which is a full-hearted stab at a sequel with more than an invigorating whiff of its brilliant predecessor, Snow Angels. The purgatorial sounding title comes from the first chapter, in which Vaara reflects on his home: "Finland. The ninth and innermost circle of hell. A frozen lake of blood and guilt formed from Lucifer's tears, turned to ice by the flapping of his leathery wings." We join Vaara in Helsinki where he has moved to from his home in the remote Finnish north because his wife, Kate, was offered an opportunity to advance her career in the most upmarket hotel in the capital. It's not long before Vaara and his sidekick, Milo, "a nervous puppy...who needs a firm hand to guide him", are dispatched to investigate a crime scene in the residential district of Töölö. They are faced with what seems like an open and shut case: the nude, dead body of a young woman, Iisa Fillipov, the wife of the Russian businessman Ivan Fillipov. She has been sadistically tortured. Her skin is marked with cigarette burns and she has been whipped viciously with a riding crop, and ultimately asphyxiated. Iisa's lover, an Estonian man called Rein Saar, woke up beside her in bed covered in her blood. Vaara is reluctant to arrest Saar and be done with it, contra his boss's, Jyri Ivalo, suggestion. This marks the start of well paced interwoven plot lines that never feels padded out, and make it difficult to gulp back the keenness to read on. Read More

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairytale. From humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams. A knock on the door one morning ends it all. Universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes the breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk and under her guidance gets parole, returning to his rundown family home in rural Cumbria. Read More

Each month we’ll ask one of our Killer Reviewers to give us an insight into their reading habits and who they are! This month, we spoke to Jackie Farrant… Name: Jackie Farrant Ocupation: Bookseller Best detective/good guy: Charlie Parker/ Phillip Marlowe Favourite place to read: Reads anywhere and it… Read More

This time our reviewers were given the chance to review City of Sins by Daniel Blake. A serial killer thriller set against a backdrop of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, this certainly isn't your average murder mystery... Jackie Farrant writes: Detective Frank Patrese is back in this cracking follow-up to ‘Soul Murder' which sees him uprooted from his beloved Pittsburgh to join a FBI unit in sultry New Orleans. I can honestly say that this is one of the most multi-faceted serial killer thrillers I have read including (takes a deep breath)....the Asian tsunami, body dismorphia, voodoo, ethnic cleansing, Mayan legends, Hurricane Katrina...oh...and a goodly amount of gory murders. I must admit that I felt the flimsy tsunami opener surplus to requirements and added nothing to the plot. One environmental disaster was plenty and the story would have been none the worse for its exclusion. Blake's depiction of the seedy underbelly and voodoo heritage of New Orleans was exceptionally well-drawn and equally, the tense build-up to Hurricane Katrina and its horrific aftermath showed a deftness of touch. I will also say that I have not read any crime novel that used the largely un-addressed issue of body dismorphia as a plot device and this was fascinating and worked well within the overall plot-line. On the subject of character this novel more than establishes Frank Patrese as a credible character with just the right degree of toughness, morality and vulnerability and this bodes well for future outings. Overall, although the central plot-line was a little far-fetched, I found this a good read with just the right amount of twists and turns to keep me hooked and I shall certainly pick up the next one... Read More

This time our review panelists were asked to review Roseanna, the first book in the series that is said to have inspired many of the future greats, including Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. If you've read the same book and want to comment then please do!   Antony Jones writes: Originally written in the 1960's by the Swedish author Maj Sjowall and her partner Per Wahlöö, Roseanna is a defining point in the genre of crime fiction, not only founding the award winning ten book series that feature Martin Beck - all of which have been made into films - but influencing many authors including Stieg Larsson (author of the Girl with the Dragon tattoo), Henning Mankell (author of the Kurt Wallander series) and Jo Nesbo (author of the Harry Hole series). It all starts with a body, dredged up from the sludge of a lock near Sweden's Lake Vattern. Naked and unknown, there are no clues to her identity or reasons why she had been killed. Martin Beck is called from Stockholm to assist the authorities in trying to find who she was and the identity or her murderer. One of the defining characteristics of the novel is the dogged realism - the fact that month's pass before things actually happen on the case and it's a process of time-consuming legwork that actually moves things along. During these early chapters time is set aside to learn about the character and personality of Martin Beck - an unhappily married father of one who struggles with health issues and seems to suffer from a certain amount of desensitisation, floating through his life without too many strong feelings about anything. This everyday character - a realistic someone who you could quite easily meet in the street really grounds the novel and creates an incredibly realistic voice. Ironically it's this sense of normality which really helps to set the novel apart, bringing to life the hunt for the killer - not with lots of high speed car chases and manly chest pounding but with actual police work by normal, yet gifted people. The pace picks up once they get their first real break and the focus moves back to the story at hand and from then on stays fairly well routed to the task of bringing the killer to ground. Read More

Lucifer's Tears by James Thompson Inspector Kari Vaara of Helsinki is thrown into a case that sees a beautiful young woman murdered in an apparent sadomasochistic attack... But his investigation leads to him coming up against a wall of silence that implicates the very highest levels of power.   His last case left Inspector Kari Vaara with a scarred face, chronic insomnia, a constant migraine, and a full body count's worth of ghosts. Now it's a year later, in Helsinki, and Kari is working the graveyard shift in the homicide unit, terrified of worrying his heavily pregnant wife. Read More

City of Sins by Daniel Blake The pulse-pounding new thriller featuring FBI agent Franco Patrese, in New Orleans on the hunt for a warped serial killer as Hurricane Katrina threatens the city. The first one was found with a rattlesnake in place of her missing left leg, and a mirror smashed into her forehead by an axe blade. Strange... but even stranger that she'd just told new FBI agent Franco Patrese she wanted to uncover a conspiracy as disgusting as it is unthinkable. Read More

This is your chance to have your say about our books and to be part of the quest to find the next killer read! Our panel is made up of our initial volunteers, but each month we will be offering two lucky people the chance to be a guest reviewer… Read More

Roseanna by Martin Beck Long renowned as the novels that shaped the future of Scandinavian crime writing, Roseanna is the first book in the hugely acclaimed 10 book Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s that has inspired the writings of Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo. ‘Roseanna' begins on a July afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged from Sweden's beautiful Lake Vattern. Three months later, all that Police Inspector Martin Beck knows is that her name is Roseanna, that she came from Lincoln, Nebraska, and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people. Read More

Rebellion is a great read. The period detail enhances the story rather than overwhelming it. The story is believable, it might just have happened like this given Hawkwood's past and his abilities - and the reputation of both sides for intriguing and plotting. I particularly liked the weaving in of historical events such as the Jacobites in exile in France following the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 and the references to the Auld Alliance giving credence to the plotline - people who loved France but didn't like the way that things were going under Napoleon and could see beyond the ends of their noses. All in all I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical thrillers that tend towards the alternative history. GORDON J STEADWOOD   Read More

 "25 years ago he stole her innocence, now he knows where she lives..." From the author of To The Power of Three and the Tess Monoghan series, comes Don't Look Back, a gripping and intriguing story of memory and murder. Eliza Benedict leads a simple, quiet family life in the leafy suburbs of Washington. But her world is set to come crashing down around her as she receives a letter from the man who abducted and sexually abused her as a teenager. Now on death row, Walter Bowman, a serial killer and kidnapper, is looking to reach out to Eliza; the victim who lived. The novel is constructed as two parallel narratives; beginning in the present where we meet Eliza for the first time. She is a mother and wife who has just returned to the USA after following her husband's career to London and is finding it difficult to connect with her role as a suburban American. This narrative is intertwined with chapters based in 1985 and the tale of her abduction by Walter Bowman as well as his previous encounters with other young women whom he abused and murdered. The parallel story-lines allow us to connect with both Eliza as a woman whilst also understanding Elizabeth as a teenager. This also allows us to see Walter from both the perspective of killer and abductor as well as his incarcerated present self. Both Walter and Eliza are extremely complex characters who do not conform to generic archetypes of hero and villain. The psychology of both is so well explained through their conversations as well as the use of ‘flashback' chapters that we are presented with a truly unique example of the victim/abductor relationship. Read More