My Review (5 stars out of 5) Slough House boss Jackson Lamb travels to Oxford to check what a dead body might be doing on a bus. When the corpse turns out to be former spy Dickie Bow, it sets Lamb wondering if the apparently assassinated spook left some sort of message, something that might…
Category: Crime
‘Chasing Her Shadow’ by Joy Mutter
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Actor Wilhelm Schreiber lives in London with his Italian wife and their sons. But the growing rivalry between siblings Wolfgang and Conrad, soon takes a dangerous turn. I’ve read most of this author’s books so am familiar with her penchant for those classic literary themes, murder and lust.…
‘Get Carter’ by Ted Lewis
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Back home for his brother’s funeral, Jack Carter wants to know what happened. Told that Frank was found dead and drunk in a car at the bottom of a cliff, mob-enforcer Jack knows his sibling was no great drinker. Instructed by his gangster bosses Gerald and Les to…
‘The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken’
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Most of us, at some point in our lives, either ourselves or one of our loved ones, will go through the experience of having to appear in a criminal courtroom. Written anonymously by a barrister, this book brings to light some of the cases where justice doesn’t work…
‘Finders Keepers’ by Stephen King
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Obsessed with the books of author John Rothstein, Morris Bellamy breaks into the writer’s house with a view to stealing a stash of notebooks that could contain an as-yet unpublished novel. Years later, as Bellamy is coming to the end of a jail sentence, schoolboy Pete Saubers discovers…
‘The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ by Alan Sillitoe
My Review (4 stars out of 5) Thought to be a groundbreaking work on its first publication, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner is a collection of short stories describing the lives of working-class people in the Midlands during the fifties and sixties (the title story relating the thoughts of a Borstal boy who finds…
‘Something Wicked’ by Carol Ann Lee
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) In 1612, ten people from Pendle were executed as witches. Most of the information known comes from Thomas Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, but now true-crime author Carol Ann Lee takes an in-depth view of the case, exploring the lives of the people involved, their backgrounds and…
‘Unnatural Exposure’ by Patricia Cornwell
My Review (5 stars out of 5) A series of murders committed thousands of miles apart sets Kay Scarpetta on a path to find the connection. But discrepancies with the most recent corpse suggest someone else may be behind the killings. When another body is found, however, the body points to a sinister and deadly…
‘The Detective Gone Gray’ by Jake Needham
My Review (5 stars out of 5) A diplomatic reception at a Bangkok university would normally be pretty tiresome, but when a lone gunman appears, the scene becomes one of mass murder. Former detective Sam Tay – now feeling his age and worrying about the future – is approached by Interpol to help with the…
‘The Cursed Writer’ by Holly Hepburn
My Review (5 stars out of 5) In her basement office within the Baker Street Building Society, Harriet (Harry) White has been given the job of responding to mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes. A telegram asking for the great detective’s help prompts Harry to investigate. A nephew of the author Philip St John is convinced…
Colin Garrow 