Crime

Review: CRIME SONG by David Swinson (Mulholland)

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swinsond-crimesongusFrank Marr is back!

Marr, a retired D.C. police detective working as a private eye for a defense attorney, has a serious problem. He is secretly a drug addict, and his long-time supply of cocaine is about to run out.

While staking out an upscale nightclub in an attempt to target the stash-houses of dealers from whom to steal for his fix, he settles on a target: a young college student. After a long night in pursuit of his quarry, Marr returns home to find he has been burglarized. Though his drugs are safe, several items are missing: his .38 revolver and his cherished music collection (with dozens of albums belonging to his deceased mother.) Marr immediately begins investigating the crime himself.

But when the dealer Marr had been following is stabbed to death in his own fortified home, Frank is certain that the burglary and murder are related. With good cops, bad cops, and exceptionally dangerous drug lords on his tail, Frank is determined to find out the truth, even if it kills him. This time, it just might.

I started reading Crime Song only a few hours after finishing The Second Girl, Swinson’s superb first Frank Marr novel. I’m very happy to report that Crime Song is yet another excellent crime novel, easily cementing Swinson among the ranks of favourite crime/thriller authors. This is a must-read series. Continue reading →

Review: THE SECOND GIRL by David Swinson (Mulholland)

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SwinsonD-SecondGirlUSOne of the strongest crime series beginnings in many years

He’s a good detective… with a bad habit.

Frank Marr knows crime in Washington, DC. A decorated former police detective, he retired early and now ekes out a living as a private eye for a defense attorney. Frank Marr may be the best investigator the city has ever known, but the city doesn’t know his dirty secret.

A longtime drug addict, Frank has lent his considerable skills to hiding his habit from others. But after he accidentally discovers a kidnapped teenage girl in the home of a local drug gang, Frank becomes a hero and is thrust into the spotlight. He reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of another girl — possibly connected to the first — and the heightened scrutiny may bring his own habits to light, too.

Frank is as slippery and charming an antihero as you’ve ever met, but he’s also achingly vulnerable. The result is a mystery of startling intensity, a tightly coiled thriller where every scene may turn disastrous. The Second Girl is the crime novel of the season and the start of a thunderous new series from an author who knows the criminal underworld inside and out.

I was rather slow getting around to reading this novel, and damn was that a stupid idea. The Second Girl is easily one of the strongest starts to a crime series that I’ve read in years. The characters, story, pacing… all of it worked perfectly. I was hooked from the opening scene, and all I wanted to do was keep reading. Continue reading →

Upcoming 2017… Mulholland Books

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upcoming2017-mulholland

Mulholland Books is one of my favourite publishers, releasing a whole range of excellent thrillers and fiction. Here are a few upcoming novels I’m looking forward to — I’m sure there are more, but these are the only ones I could find information about.

Featuring: Kathleen Kent, Richard Lange, Sarah Lotz, Stuart Prebble, Matthew Quirk, Scott Reardon, David Swinson, Felicia Yap

Continue reading →

Review: DR. KNOX by Peter Spiegelman (Knopf/Quercus)

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spiegelmanp-drknoxusAn excellent LA-based thriller

Adam Knox comes from a long line of patrician Connecticut doctors — a line he broke to serve with an NGO in the war-torn Central African Republic. His attempt to protect his patients there from a brutal militia ended in disaster and disgrace, and now he runs a clinic near Los Angeles’s Skid Row, making ends meet by making house calls — cash only, no questions asked—on those too famous or too criminal to seek other medical care.

When a young boy is abandoned at his clinic, Knox is determined to find the boy’s family and save him from the not-so-tender mercies of the child welfare bureaucracy. But Knox’s search for the volatile woman who may or may not be the boy’s mother leads him and his friend, a former Special Forces operator, into a labyrinth of human traffickers, Russian mobsters, and corporate security thugs; and squarely into the sights of a powerful, secretive, and utterly ruthless family that threatens to destroy Dr. Knox and everything — and everyone — he holds dear.

I actually read this quite a while ago, but I kept forgetting to write the review. Dr. Knox is the first novel I read by Spiegelman, but it certainly won’t be the last. An idealistic protagonist, single-minded antagonists, organized crime and vulture business collide in this novel. Easily one of my favourite novels of the year. Continue reading →

Interview with JAMES D. OSWALD

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oswaldj-authorpicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is J.D. Oswald?

Most of the time I am James Oswald, livestock farmer by day and author by night. The D stands for Douglas, in case anyone was interested. I decided to use a slightly different name for The Ballad of Sir Benfro to distance the series from my Inspector McLean series of Edinburgh-based detective novels. I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember, and had a Tharg’s Future Shock published by 2000AD back in 1993. Success as an author has been a long time coming though. My first Inspector McLean novel, Natural Causes, was only published in 2013, and the first of the Ballad of Sir Benfro series, Dreamwalker, came out in late 2014. It really does take twenty years to become an overnight success. Continue reading →

Review: THE BONE TREE by Greg Iles (William Morrow)

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ilesg-pc2-thebonetreecaMore evil that men do, only this time with cleverer evildoers…

Former prosecutor Penn Cage and his fiancée, reporter and publisher Caitlin Masters, have barely escaped with their lives after being attacked by wealthy businessman Brody Royal and his Double Eagles, a KKK sect with ties to some of Mississippi’s most powerful men. But the real danger has only begun as FBI Special Agent John Kaiser warns Penn that Brody wasn’t the true leader of the Double Eagles. The puppeteer who actually controls the terrorist group is a man far more fearsome: the chief of the state police’s Criminal Investigations Bureau, Forrest Knox.

The only way Penn can save his father, Dr. Tom Cage — who is fleeing a murder charge as well as corrupt cops bent on killing him—is either to make a devil’s bargain with Knox or destroy him. While Penn desperately pursues both options, Caitlin uncovers the real story behind a series of unsolved civil rights murders that may hold the key to the Double Eagles’ downfall. The trail leads her deep into the past, into the black backwaters of the Mississippi River, to a secret killing ground used by slave owners and the Klan for over two hundred years… a place of terrifying evil known only as “the bone tree.”

The Bone Tree is an explosive, action-packed thriller full of twisting intrigue and deadly secrets, a tale that explores the conflicts and casualties that result when the darkest truths of American history come to light. It puts us inside the skin of a noble man who has always fought for justice — now finally pushed beyond his limits.

Just how far will Penn Cage, the hero we thought we knew, go to protect those he loves?

The is the middle volume in Iles critically-acclaimed Natchez Burning trilogy. Penn Cage, Caitlin Masters and their allies have overcome one diabolical obstacle, only to be faced by the real power in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Bone Tree is another tale of Southern politics, historical brutality, and the evil that echoes down the generations. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE TIME TO KILL by Mason Cross (Orion)

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CrossM-3-TheTimeToKillUKCarter Blake’s previous employer cleans house…

It’s been five years since Carter Blake parted ways with top-secret government operation Winterlong. They brokered a deal at the time: he’d keep quiet about what they were doing, and in return he’d be left alone.

But news that one of Blake’s old allies, a man who agreed the same deal, is dead means only one thing — something has changed and Winterlong is coming for him.

Emma Faraday, newly appointed head of the secret unit, is determined to tie up loose ends. And Blake is a very loose end. He’s been evading them for years, but finally they’ve picked up his trace. Blake may be the best there is at tracking down people who don’t want to be found, but Winterlong taught him everything he knows. If there’s anyone who can find him — and kill him — it’s them.

It’s time for Carter Blake to up his game.

After two superb novels featuring Carter Blake, Cross has him clashing with the organization that helped train him to become the near-perfect, deadly operative he has become. Another fantastic novel, it shows us some key moments of Blake’s past, and also his determination and strategic genius. Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE VANISHING YEAR by Kate Moretti (Titan)

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morettik-vanishingyearAs part of the blog tour celebrating the release of Kate Moretti‘s The Vanishing Year, Titan Books has given us a short excerpt from the new thriller. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

Zoe Whittaker appears to have a charmed life. Newly married to a rich and attentive man, she has the best of everything.

But five years ago, Zoe’s life was in danger. Because back then, Zoe wasn’t Zoe at all.

When an attempt is made on her life, Zoe fears that her past has caught up with her. But who can she ask for help when even her own husband doesn’t know her real name?

Zoe must decide who she can trust before she — whoever she is — vanishes completely…

And now, on to the excerpt… Continue reading →

Review: NATCHEZ BURNING by Greg Iles (William Morrow)

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ilesg-pc1-natchezburningcaThe evil that men do…

Raised in the southern splendor of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows of duty from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor has been accused of murdering the African American nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the 1960s. Once a crusading prosecutor, Penn is determined to save his father, but Tom, stubbornly invoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses even to speak in his own defense.

Penn’s quest for the truth sends him deep into his father’s past, where a sexually charged secret lies. More chilling, this long-buried sin is only one thread in a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the most powerful men in the state. Aided by a dedicated reporter privy to Natchez’s oldest secrets and by his fiancée, Caitlin Masters, Penn uncovers a trail of corruption and brutality that places his family squarely in the Double Eagles’ crosshairs.

With every step costing blood and faith, Penn is forced to confront the most wrenching dilemma of his life: Does a man of honor choose his father or the truth?

This series past me by, when Natchez Burning was first published. With the highly-anticipated final volume in the trilogy due out later this year, though, I was happy to get the opportunity to take part in the blog tour in honour of that upcoming release. Natchez Burning is a hefty book; packed with intrigue, mystery, secrets and violence. It’s an immersive, gripping and sometimes chilling novel. Continue reading →

Excerpt: LAWLESS AND THE FLOWERS OF SIN by William Sutton (Titan)

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SuttonW-Lawless&TheFlowersOfSinToday, we have an excerpt from William Sutton‘s second Victorian crime novel, Lawless and the Flowers of Sin. Recently published by Titan Books, it’s the sequel to Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square.

Here’s the synopsis:

It is 1863, and as a reluctant Inspector of Vice, Campbell Lawless undertakes a reckoning of London’s houses of ill repute, a shadowy netherworld of frayed glamour and double standards, mesmerising and unspeakable by turns.

From the erotic booksellers of Holywell Street to the alleys of Haymarket, he discovers backstreet cast-offs and casualties of the society bordellos, and becomes fascinated by a musician who has established a foundation for fallen women. But his inquiries draw the attention of powerful men, who can be merciless in defending their reputations. Lawless must unlock the heart of a clandestine network, before he too is silenced…

Read on for the excerpt… Continue reading →