***** Five years after being abducted and held captive, Mackenzie Darroch is making a difference in the world. Running a refuge for abused women, things are going well. Then she’s thrown into a bizarre situation when she saves the life of a car-crash victim. But offering the woman a place to stay, has consequences –…
Category: mystery
‘Saint Justice’ by Mike Grist
***** When former CIA agent Christopher Wren picks a fight in a biker bar in Utah, the gang beat him up and steal his truck. But Wren likes to help people and having stolen one of the biker’s wallets, he sets off to pump the guy for information—information that will give him a chance to…
‘Too Close for Comfort’ by Adam Croft
*** Embarking on her first murder investigation, DS Wendy Knight is thrown in with dyed-in-the-wool hard-nosed DCI Jack Culverhouse, whose attitude to newcomers is less than forgiving. With a gruesome murder case on their hands, Knight must work out who to trust and who to fear, and before she knows what’s happening, her own life…
‘Noel’ by AJ Griffiths-Jones
***** When a rain-drenched Dutch traveller hitches a lift to a rural French monastery, the monks take care of him. But when the young man dies, detectives Mallery and Hobbs launch an investigation and the monastery’s seventy inmates quickly fall under suspicion. The mystery deepens when the Dutchman’s grandmother arrives, as the old woman introduces…
‘Absolute Proof’ by Peter James
***** When journalist Ross Hunter gets a phone call from a person claiming to have proof of God’s existence, he’s tempted to dismiss the old man as a nutcase. But after meeting Dr Cook, Ross finds himself intrigued, if a little sceptical. Following an urgent call with the offer of further proof, Ross discovers Cook’s…
‘High Force’ by LJ Ross
***** (Audio Book) Following the escape from prison of murderer Keir Edwards, one of DCI Ryan’s best detectives is missing. Kidnapped from her own home by the notorious serial killer, Ryan knows Edwards will flaunt his new-found freedom and won’t hesitate to slice up his most recent captive. With Detective Sergeant Frank Phillips at his…
Oh, What a Lovely Murder
Ever since Blackwood’s Magazine published Thomas De Quincey’s satirical essay, ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’, in 1827, the British (and of course the rest of the world) have been fascinated by the slaughter of our fellow man in all its many permutations and variations. De Quincey’s musings were prompted by the…
‘Driftnet’ by Lin Anderson
***** A murder in a Glasgow flat sees forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod attending an early-morning crime scene. The shocking killing of a teenage boy brings back memories from MacLeod’s own past as she struggles to come to terms with the disturbing resemblance between herself and the victim. Having given up a baby boy for adoption…
‘The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher’ by Kate Summerscale
***** During a summer night in 1860, a terrible crime is committed. When the Kent family of Road Hill House wake up the next morning, they learn that three-year-old Saville is missing and soon discover he has been brutally murdered. As local police fail to track down the killer, Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard is…
‘Fog of Doubt’ by Christianna Brand
***** When Belgian paramour Raoul Vernet is found with his head bashed in on the night of a particularly dense fog, suspicion naturally falls on members of the house he was visiting at the time. While no-one appears to have been in the immediate vicinity when Vernet was killed, Inspector Charlesworth is certain someone in…
Colin Garrow 