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The Lonely Lake Killings by Wes Markin
The Lonely Lake Killings is the perfect page turner. This is the kind of book that you’ll want to lock yourself away for to stop any unnecessary interruptions. Loneliness can be a silent killer. Something easily solved, it’s effects sharper than a blade. The Lonely Lake Killings is a fast-paced police procedural. After reading a large amount of them it really doesn’t take too long to decide whether that story is going to be for you. Having read Wes Markin’s work previously, I decided this was a story worth taking a chance on. Once again, Markin’s unique voice, steeped in humour and humanity had me engrossed with only a few…
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The Last Party by Clare MacKintosh
The Last Party is a gripping, eloquently crafted tale seeped in dark secrets. Short chapters and lethally potent writing had me aching for each chapter. A fine blend of police procedural and compulsive thriller. The Last Party ticked all those thriller/crime boxes. It’s so unapologetically Welsh which I loved. This is the first Clare Mackintosh book I’ve read and let me tell you, it won’t be the last. A party to celebrate the new year and the opening of The Shore – a luxurious high-end resort next to the mountains. It’s out of the local’s price range, but owner, Rhys Lloyd throws a party to end all parties – literally,…
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The Hiker by M.J. Ford – REVIEW
The Hiker has it all – suspense, mystery, and tension. A small-town mystery with the nostalgia of midsummer murders or Jonathan Creek. Not one word is wasted. Well strike me down – The Hiker is a story that you will not want to read in the darkened shadows of the countryside. It creeps into the mind’s darkest recesses and makes its home; it lays down roots and leaves you searching for the answers. The prologue set the scene perfectly – a sense of mystery and fear that creeps into the reader’s peripheral vision. I held my breath and attempted to count to ten, I have to say I found it…
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REVIEW: Sundial by Catriona Ward
Sundial, much like its atmospheric veracity, blew me away. I stood in the desolated desert and allowed the dust and the sound of longing carried by the wind to scratch at my skin. I’ve never been one for extremes, especially the heat but this novel made it more claustrophobic, more suffocating, and felt myself clawing for the cool. Sundial had everything that I love in a horror story…oppressing sense of dread. A threat that is entirely human. A will to protect and survive. Horror isn’t exclusively about ghost stories, the supernatural, and things that go bump in the night. Horror examines just how the humanity (or lack thereof) of our…
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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 – 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…
