***** Insurance agent Walter Huff gets into deep water when he meets beautiful temptress Phyllis Nirdlinger. Cooking up a plot to kill the woman’s husband, Huff looks forward to getting the money and the girl. Unfortunately, the plan to pull off the perfect murder falls foul of Huff’s boss, Barton Keyes, who knows more about…
Month: December 2020
‘White Nights’ by Ann Cleeves
***** During an art event in the small community of Biddista, Shetland cop Jimmy Perez encounters an Englishman who appears to have lost his memory. When the man is later found dead in a fisherman’s hut, it looks like suicide, but further examination reveals he’s been murdered. Forced to bring in experts and another detective…
‘Ghost Story’ by Peter Straub
***** The elderly members of The Chowder Society meet regularly to tell each other stories, but after one of their number dies, the stories become more ghoulish in nature. More disturbingly, each of the remaining members begins to experience similar, nightmarish, dreams. Contacting the nephew of their dead friend, they find he also has something…
‘Scottish Witches’ by Lily Seafield
*** This is a collection of factual, and no-so-factual, tales of Scottish witches, ghosts, superstitions and folklore, and ranges from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth. For the most part, the stories are about witches and the various confessions, trials and punishments dished out to them by a society that believed ordinary folk could…
‘Sabine’ by AJ Griffiths-Jones
***** New Year’s Eve finds Max Mallery and his team celebrating, but the festivities are destined to come to a swift end the following day when a body is discovered at the Saint Margaux Vineyard. Unfortunately, Therese Bisset’s is not the only suspicious death – the apparent suicide of an engineer begins to look like…
‘Mongkok Station’ by Jake Needham
***** NB This post first appeared as part of the Blog Tour for ‘Mongkok Station’ organised by Emma at Damppebbles. Former Singapore detective Sam Tay is retired. Or at least, that’s the theory. When John August from the American intelligence community asks a favour, Tay doesn’t feel he can refuse. Especially as it involves working…
Colin Garrow 