Prisoner 4374 Scottish-born Dr. Thomas Neill Cream is often suspected of being the face behind the Jack the Ripper murders, but has he been misrepresented? There’s no doubt he was responsible for several deaths, but does the fact that he spent time in an American prison during the Whitechapel killings let him off the hook,…
Category: Reviews
‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus
The Plague In the town of Oran, rats begin to appear – in the houses, in the streets and scrabbling around the dustbins. But the creatures bring with them a deadly plague that consumes and contaminates the population, forcing them into their beds, to the hospitals and finally the morgue. The central character, Dr Rieux,…
‘Old Friends and New Enemies’ by Owen Mullen
Old Friends and New Enemies When Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron is engaged to find a missing husband, his contacts soon lead to a body in the mortuary. But it isn’t the one he was expecting. Shocked to discover an old friend has been murdered, Charlie sets out to find the killer, but the path to…
‘End As An Assassin’ by Lex Lander
End As An Assassin With the killing of a sleazy drug baron, hit man André Warner completes his final contract and heads for Geneva where he hopes to begin a comfortable retirement. Then on route to Monaco, he meets young and beautiful divorcee Gina, and finds himself contemplating a different future from the one he’d…
‘Raven Black’ by Ann Cleeves
Raven Black The beginning of a new year brings death to Shetland when the body of a young woman is found lying in the snow. But the murder also sparks memories of another girl who disappeared years before, and the focus of the community falls, once again, on simple-minded loner Magnus Tait. The police meanwhile,…
‘Barking at Winston’ by Barry Stone
Barking at Winston When battered rescue dog Bruce is adopted by a wild and wacky family, he finds his new owners have troubles of their own. As well as sharing several episodes from his own short life, Brucie uses his canine second sight to dig into the truth behind a complex tale of family life…
‘How to Be a Victorian’ by Ruth Goodman
How to Be a Victorian If you’ve ever wondered what life was like during the reign of Queen Victoria, you should either build a time machine, or get your hands on this book. Historian Ruth Goodman charts the Victorian experience from getting up to going to bed, and everything in-between. Goodman is a historian and…
‘The House of Silk’ by Anthony Horowitz
The House of Silk: The Bestselling Sherlock Holmes Novel Sherlock Holmes is dead and now his ageing companion, Dr Watson, also teeters towards death. With no-one left to answer to, the great detective’s biographer puts pen to paper one last time to document two very different, yet inexplicably connected, mysteries. When Edmund Carstairs turns up…
‘Long Way Home’ by Eva Dolan
Long Way Home When a man is found burned to death in a garden shed, Hate Crimes Unit Detective Zigic and bolshie sidekick Ferreira find themselves battling a wall of silence. Investigating an ill-treated and untrusting immigrant population who are slow to give up the truth, the good guys are left with nowhere to go…
‘Oy Yew’ by Ana Salote
Oy Yew Nabbed by waif-catchers in the alley where he spends his days sniffing bread and dreaming of floury loafs, Oy Yew is dragged in front of the wiry-haired Mrs Rutheday who sets him to work at bench 54. Oy meets Linnet Pale, a colour-drained girl who becomes his first friend. But assembling unknown items…
Colin Garrow 