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The Night Watch (DS Max Craigie #3) by Neil Lancaster
The Night Watch is a killer concept, an unflinching look at generational trauma and the mind’s reaction. Suffused with menace…it’s bloody brilliant. To follow a series with a sense of abandonment there have to be certain elements that scream to them. The X factor – something that keeps them coming back for more, the DS Max Craigie series is no exception. Travelling the pages is like walking a tightrope, danger threatens to knock the characters askew. There are so many elements that just make this series work – flawed characters. The realism of human nature. Betrayal. Raw storytelling. Neil Lancaster’s storytelling is like no one else. The police procedural should…
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REVIEW: No Less The Devil by Stuart MacBride
No Less the Devil is most definitely a tale of two parts. The first 80% is a taut, twisty detective novel with wit and sarcasm aplenty…the norm for a Stuart MacBride novel. The last 20% however, had me flummoxed. I uttered the words WTF a lot and found myself physically scratching my head. If this was the plot all along it felt incredibly rushed and didn’t make much sense. I can’t give much more away without big spoilers, trust me, you’ll just have to read it for yourself. No Less the Devil opens with the Bloodsmith still being at large. Seventeen months have passed and the officers conducting Operation Maypole…
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REVIEW: The Killer in the Snow (DI James Walker #2) by Alex Pine
Very few authors can keep me engrossed in a story from the beginning, through the middle until the very end. Alex Pine has done just that with The Killer in the Snow. The cover initially pulled me in, but I stayed for the storyline. A family massacre with mother, father and daughter killed in cold blood. It initially looks like a murder-suicide but as the investigation delves deeper it’s found to have dark connotations to a similar murder/suicide on the same property twenty-four years ago. Are the two connected? Or is this a deathly case of coincidence? If you’ve been a follower of my blog for any length of time,…
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REVIEW: The Cult by Abby Davies
The Cult was a difficult read for me. The subject matter was hard-hitting and painful. I’m not saying that it wasn’t what it needed to be – it was but boy did it punch you in the gut. The story is told over two timelines which at times got a bit repetitive and convoluted. Love tells us about her experience of living in a community that at first has its values rooted in Love and values but very quickly we witness it all hit the fan. The chapters from Love become very sinister, something we have read about time and time again about these so-called Cults. I need to be…
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REVIEW – Exit by Belinda Bauer
Exit by Belinda Bauer was a testament to humour and the conflicting need to do the right thing. Felix, a man that has known his share of hardship in the world with the deaths of both his wife and son longs to do some good in the world. He watched his son depart painfully and doesn’t wish to see others in that position, so after much deliberation, he joins the exiteers. A group that believes stringently in euthanasia and the right to choose. Bauer has created a tightly plotted and dark story that shows investigates the complexities of aided suicide. Exit is as complex as it is touching. Aided Euthanasia…
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The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin
The Dark Remains is undeniably authentic and a true testament to everything Glasgow was in the ’70s and ’80s. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading the Laidlaw series by the late and great William McIlvanney but I will be rectifying that as soon as possible. Gangland Glasgow and its brutal violence and its territorial wars, the tone was set and it was addictive as it was horrifying. Ian Rankin had massive shoes to fill but he laced them up, took pen to paper, and paid homage to Scotland’s father of Tartan Noir. The Dark Remains is just that, dark. It doesn’t pull any punches, it doesn’t pretty anything up,…
