Category Archives: Book Review

Eighteen Below

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3.5 Stars from me

Fabian Risk is an unusual ‘lead’ in that he doesn’t always fit the standard ‘profile’ of the crime thriller lead cop. He seems more vulnerable somehow than most. Dunja Hougaard seemed more interesting to me and I enjoyed her elements of the books – much more grit and determination in her belly!

I loved Braids character the most from this book and actually believe this would possibly work better as a TV series than as a novel. For me, some of the characters blurred a little and I found myself having to work hard to place people and their relevance – which side tracked from enjoying the story. I think if it were televised it would come across better and I know it’s the type of thing I’d love to watch.

Overall, it’s a clever storyline.

Sysnosis: A high-speed chase ends in tragedy when a car crashes into Helsingborg harbour. In the front seat is one of Sweden’s most affluent IT entrepreneurs. Initially all signs point to an accident, but a closer examination of the body shows that it has been frozen. Stranger yet is the time of death: two months before the crash.

Two years have passed since the events of Victim Without a Face. Fabian Risk has taken advantage of the quiet at work to focus on patching things up with his family, while across the strait Dunja Hougaard has donned the uniform once more, this time as a police officer. When a homeless man is brutally beaten to death, Dunja can’t stop herself from starting an investigation of her own. Before long the clues take her to Sweden and Helsingborg, where Risk is investigating the peculiar case of the frozen millionaire.

Gritty and chilling, Eighteen Below Zero is the third stand-alone thriller in the internationally bestselling Fabian Risk series.

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Cruel Acts by Jane Casey

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5 Stars from me!

I haven’t read anything by Jane Casey before so I had no idea what to expect from Cruel Acts and I was very pleasantly surprised by this dark and nasty little tale.

Cruel Acts is aptly named and packed full with deeply disturbing characters and a very clever plot. Balanced by some genuinely pleasant interactions between Maeve Kerrigan and Josh Derwent who make for a pretty much perfect leading pair.

Even though this is book 8 it worked very well as a standalone (or could equally have been book 1 as it so obviously begged to be part of series) which is of huge testament to the skills of Jane Casey.

I thoroughly enjoyed Cruel Acts and look forward to enjoying the series from book 1.

Synopsis: From award-winning author Jane Casey comes another powerful Maeve Kerrigan crime thriller which will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final page!

Leo Stone is a killer. A year ago, he was convicted of murdering two women and sentenced to life without parole. But now, a juror from his trial has revealed the jury was prejudiced, and a retrial is called.

Detectives Maeve Kerrigan and Josh Derwent are tasked with re-examining the evidence. Before long, they uncover links between Stone and a possible third victim.

But with Stone behind bars, a fourth woman disappears in similar circumstances. Is there a copycat killer out there, or have they been wrong about Stone from the start? And will Maeve discover the truth before another innocent victim is killed?

I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney

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5 Stars from me!

There’s a song by the Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow, and is what this book is BOOM, BOOM, POW!

I loved ‘I Know Who You Are’ and I devoured it in one day, I just had to keep reading and going back to it as I couldn’t for the life of me fathom how it was going to turn out.

I was hooked very early on and found both story strands to be equally compelling and brilliantly clever even though they each have a completely different pace and tone.

Alice Feeney has created hugely engaging story and I am thrilled to note this is her second book so there is another out there for me to read too. I’ve just spotted from her twitter bio that she’s had 10 years of rejections – wow, I guess there are some agents out there who are kicking themselves now!

Also, this book is SO devious, SO clever – you know you can sometimes win competitions to have ‘lunch with an author’ (I saw one earlier today in fact to win lunch with Lee Child – something I could never do as all I would end up doing is saying ‘Really? Really, Tom Cruise? Are you kidding me?’ which is probably rude) well suffice it to say if you end up going for lunch with Alice Feeney’s dark and ingenuitive mind it might make sense to let someone know where you are!

Synopsis: l Know Who You Are is the brilliant tale of two stories. One is about Aimee Sinclair—well-known actress on the verge of being full-on famous. If you saw her, you’d think you knew her. One day towards the near-end of her shoot on her latest film, Aimee comes home from filming to find her husband’s cell phone and wallet on the dining room table. He never goes anywhere without them. But he’s nowhere to be found. She’s not too concerned—they had a huge fight the night before. They both said things they didn’t mean. He might have done things he didn’t mean, things she can’t forget. Even though she has a history of supposedly forgetting. After all, she’s a very good actress.

The next morning she goes for her morning run and then goes to her favorite coffee shop. But her card is denied. When she calls the bank they say her account has been emptied of $10,000. She immediately suspects her husband. But they say no, it was Aimee herself who closed out the account. And thus begins a bizarre rabbit hole into which Aimee finds herself falling where nothing is at it seems.

Alternating with Aimee’s story is that of a little girl who wandered away from home. We always tell our kids not to talk to strangers or bad things will happen. Well, bad things happen.

In I Know Who You Are, Alice Feeney proves that she is a master at brilliantly complicated plots and twists after twists. 

 

I Want You Gone by Miranda Rijks

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5 Stars from me

Brilliant – I raced through this and read it in one day as I just couldn’t put it down. Main character Laura is flawed and likeable and the story revolves around her as her life is pretty much decimated by someone who seems hell bent on ruining everything for her.

Things quickly take a sinister turn as it begins to look as though ‘they’ may have had some involvement in her sisters death.

I felt really sorry for Laura throughout this, the more she tried to get help and work things out the worse everything looked for her – until she was virtually in a living nightmare.

This is one of those insidious ‘who can she trust’ type books that will get under your skin and you will just want to keep reading until the very last page.

I read this as part of a Damp Pebbles blog tour – huge thanks to Emma for the opportunity.

 

 

 

 

 

Synopsis: Laura Swallow is dead.
A life cut tragically short, says the newspaper obituary.
But that’s a lie.
Estate agent Laura did not die in a car accident. She is alive and well.
Laura thinks it’s a sick joke.
When the death announcements ramp up, Laura is plunged into a living nightmare. Her fragile, new life post-divorce crumbles.
Who can she trust? Her new lover? Her clients and work colleagues? What about her ex-husband and his smug fiancée? Can Laura rely on her best friends? And why is it that Laura’s present is so tied up with her sister’s death?
Whoever is announcing her demise, wants her to suffer. Wants her gone.

Critical Incidents by Lucie Whitehouse

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4 stars from me

I really felt for Lennie throughout this book – what a great kid!

Robin is her own worst enemy, she never quite knows when enough is enough, when to rely on other people and when to keep her mouth shut! But she pays one hell of a price for her actions and so does poor Lennie.

I thought Critical Incidents was a really solid 4 – the blend of investigations, intrigue and characterisation was spot on and the humiliation of being back in her childhood bedroom was tangible.

The storyline appears simple to start with but gets more complex as you read on, it certainly keeps you guessing and needing to keep on turning pages!

The only character I really struggled with is Luke, especially so at the very end, not sure at all of his motivation?

 

Synopsis: A gripping literary thriller and the first of a new crime series, from the bestselling author of Before We Met

Detective Inspector Robin Lyons is going home.

Dismissed for misconduct from the Met’s Homicide Command after refusing to follow orders, unable to pay her bills (or hold down a relationship), she has no choice but to take her teenage daughter Lennie and move back in with her parents in the city she thought she’d escaped forever at 18.

In Birmingham, sharing a bunkbed with Lennie and navigating the stormy relationship with her mother, Robin works as a benefit-fraud investigator – to the delight of those wanting to see her cut down to size.

Only Corinna, her best friend of 20 years, seems happy to have Robin back. But when Corinna’s family is engulfed by violence and her missing husband becomes a murder suspect, Robin can’t bear to stand idly by as the police investigate. Can she trust them to find the truth of what happened? And why does it bother her so much that the officer in charge is her ex-boyfriend – the love of her teenage life?

As Robin launches her own unofficial investigation and realises there may be a link to the disappearance of a young woman, she starts to wonder how well we can really know the people we love – and how far any of us will go to protect our own. 

Death Before Coffee by Desmond P Ryan

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4 Stars from me

This is a gritty, old school style crime thriller with a no-nonsense, rough n ready cop called Mike O’Shea at the heart of it.

Detective Mike O’Shea is a man’s man who likes things the way they were and probably wouldn’t fit well into the modern day police force – minding his Ps and Qs and small details like ironing his clothes don’t feature high up on his list of priorities.

What he is though is hard working, determined and hell bent on solving his cases – albeit not always by following the rules; which frequently lands him in hot water.

Putting his personal safety to one side throughout the book O’Shea and battling with scars from the past, O’Shea still manages to impress the ladies and I will certainly be recommending this book to my father in law as I know he’ll enjoy reading about old crumple pants!

My review forms part of the Damp Pebbles blog tour.

 

 

 

 

 

Synopsis: By 2:27 on a Thursday afternoon, the one-legged man from Room 8 at 147 Loxitor Avenue has been beaten to death with a lead pipe. Twenty-eight minutes later, Detective Mike O’Shea is testifying in a stuffy courtroom, unaware that, within an hour, he will be standing in an alleyway littered with beer cans and condoms while his new partner—the man who saved his life thirteen years ago—flicks bugs off of a battered corpse with a ballpoint pen. When a rogue undercover copper prematurely hauls in the prime suspect, Mike blows a fuse, resulting in an unlikely rapport developing between him and the lead homicide detective sergeant, a woman known for her stilettos and razor sharp investigative skills. At the end of his seventy-two-hour shift, three men are dead and Mike O’Shea is floating in and out of consciousness in an emergency room hallway, two women by his side. Death Before Coffee, the second book in the Mike O’Shea Crime Fiction Series, weaves a homicide investigation through the life of an inner-city police detective intent on balancing his responsibilities as a son, brother, and newly single father with his sworn oath of duty. When faced with death, Mike is forced to make decisions that stir up old memories, compelling him to confront his demons while fighting the good fight.

Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward

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4 Stars from me

The opening pages, ominously entitled ‘The Day of the Killing‘ absolutely sucked me in and then I was then rudely wrenched from the bloodied crime scene and dumped back in the past as the book teasingly led me back to the present day. Whose blood was it? Who had died? Who did it?

Once I got over being dragged away from the edge of your seat, high alert scene of the crime the book settled into a reasonably chronological account of the events leading up to that frantic 999 call.

Maddie has lead quite the life as a travel writer and she and her best friend Jo (who is a ballsy lady who does whatever she pleases and to hell with the consequences) get into some dangerous situations. The whole part of the story when Maddie first meets Ian gives a fascinating insight into the difficulties faced by those trying to protect and deliver aid in worn torn areas.

I loved the bits with ‘Cami-toe’, and sensed that not everything Maddie shared with us could be relied upon entirely, there are a few clues and red herrings along the way and I have to confess I thought I had guessed the ending and ‘whodunnit’ but I wasn’t quite right…

Overall, great book, gripping and thorough engaging.

 

Synopsis:

‘Ward writes with the same compelling energy as you get in a blockbuster Netflix series’ 
Daily Mail

‘Compelling. Filled with unexpected twists… a riveting read’ 
Sarah Pekkanen, author of The Wife Between Us

Maddie and Ian’s romance began when he was serving in the British Army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend Jo in Europe. Now sixteen years later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America.

But when an accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son Charlie; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.

From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, the years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of shocking crime.

But what in this beautiful home has gone so terribly bad?

The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath

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3 stars from me

My word, what a horrible bunch of people. I think the only one I actually liked was Will!

The 4 friends the story revolves around are all self obsessed and stuck in the past where their friendship meant everything, it’s like they’ve all moved on in their lives but only partially as they are all anchored together because of their nasty ‘little black book’. Honestly, what a grubby bunch they are.

I struggled to rate this book, I have ended up with 3 stars because the storyline became quite hard to follow and veered quite far into unrelateable – I don’t mind at all reading about unlikeable characters but it just went to far with them all pretty much being despicable and immoral and as for Anna and Bo…

Overall I feel this isn’t far from being a great book, it just needs a bit of a tweak. Maybe a ‘kill your darlings’ moment or a ‘less is more’ mindset would help.

Synopsis: On a night out, four friends witness a stranger in trouble. They decide to do nothing to help.

Later, a body washes up on the banks of the Thames – and the group realises that ignoring the woman has left blood on their hands.

But why did each of them refuse to step in? Why did none of them want to be noticed that night? Who is really responsible?

And is it possible that the victim was not really a stranger at all? 

Eye for Eye by J K Franko

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5 Stars from me

What is it they say about not judging a book by its cover… Well with a cover as striking as this one I couldn’t help but be intrigued and Book 1 of the Talion Series – Eye for Eye by JK Franko did not disappoint.

Eye for Eye has it all from murder, mystery, clever cover ups and hidden secrets to police questioning, allegations of rape and many questions of morality along the way. The characters are well defined and relatable and the scene imagery is stunning, you’ll see for yourself when you read it but there are so many descriptive passages that leap off the page and into your mind.

Although this is primarily a crime thriller, there is a subtle undercurrent of a wicked sense of humour throughout which particularly appealed to me.

This is a beautifully crafted example of an intelligent thriller. I can honestly say I was hooked from the first few pages of the book and I can’t wait for the next one in the series; this debut author has truly made his mark.

As ever, no spoilers from me!

If having a brilliant book isn’t enough, there is a brilliant book launch coming up soon too – details are here if you fancy coming along to Covent Garden https://jkfranko.com/2019/03/01/limited-vip-fan-tickets-giveaway-be-part-of-the-story-at-eye-for-eyes-london-book-launch/

 

Synopsis: When I first met Susie, she appeared to be a normal, happily-married woman dealing with tragedy.

Then, I uncovered her secrets.

While I could understand everything that she’d done, I could never approve.

But, knowing what she was capable of, it became clear that if I was going to survive her, I had to play by her rules.

And, the first and most important rule is… leave no singing bones.

Run Away by Harlan Coben

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4 Stars from me

This is a solid standalone by literary legend Harlan Coben and is a good, well orchestrated read.

Simon’s love for his family is pure and admirable and he is a man on a mission throughout this book – his mission to find and save his daughter, Paige.

The descriptive elements are lovely, having been to New York at sat where Simon sat to watch Paige I could very easily picture the area and Harlan Coben captured the feeling of the place beautifully. In fact all of his descriptive passages are highly evocative.

The emotions throughout and are and tangible and they are what pull this book up. However, there were some parts of the book where I find myself thinking ‘sorry who are these guys?’ and flicking back to try and find out who/what/why which detracted a little from the main story.

Overall, any thriller fans out there are likely to enjoy this book.

 

Synopsis:

You’ve lost your daughter.

She’s addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be found.

Then, quite by chance, you see her busking in New York’s Central Park.

But she’s not the girl you remember. This woman is wasted, frightened and clearly in trouble.

You don’t stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.

She runs.

And you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Where criminal gangs rule, where drugs are the main currency, and murder is commonplace.

Now it’s your life on the line. And nowhere and no one is safe.