Crime

Review: THE DIRECTIVE by Matthew Quirk (Headline/Back Bay)

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Quirk-MF2-DirectiveUKA series of unfortunate events met with terrible decisions

What if the only way to go straight is to break the law?

Michael Ford has finally escaped his chequered past to lead the respectable life he’s always dreamed of, preparing to settle down with his fiance Annie. But the quiet is shattered when his brother, Jack, comes back into his life.

Jack is a world-class con man who has finally overplayed his hand. He’s in way over his head in a conspiracy to steal a billion-dollar secret from the heart of the financial system. And in an effort to help his brother, Mike soon finds himself trapped by the dangerous men in charge — and responsible for pulling off the heist himself.

With Annie’s safety on the line, Mike tries to figure out who’s behind the job — and realises the only way to keep the honest life is to return to his criminal past. But will he get in too deep to save Annie’s life?

You may have caught my glowing review for Matthew Quirk’s debut, The 500. It was with considerable anticipation, therefore, that I awaited for his next book. The Directive, a direct sequel, failed to live up to my expectations. There are some good things to say, but sadly it had just as many flaws as strengths and they eclipsed much of what I enjoyed.
Continue reading →

BROKEN MONSTERS by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland)

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Beukes-BrokenMonstersUSA superb, surreal crime novel

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams?

If you’re Detective Versado’s geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you’re desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you’re Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you’ll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe — and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world.

Broken Monsters is in many ways a novel of decline: of society, the city, sanity… But not, thankfully, of the author’s talent. Beukes is on top-form here once again, delivering a superb, surreal follow-up to The Shining Girls. It’s really very good. Continue reading →

Mini-Review: THE MESSENGER by Mark Charan Newton (Tor)

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NewtonMC-MessengerGreat introduction to a new character

As an Officer of the Sun Chamber, Lucan Drakenfeld must uphold the two-hundred-year-old laws of the Vispasian Royal Union, whatever the cost.

While stationed in the ancient city of Venyn, a metropolis notorious for its lawless nature, Drakenfeld receives a series of mysterious letters, written in blood, that warn of an imminent assassination attempt on the life of the city’s young Prince Bassim.

Supported by his fiery colleague Leana, Drakenfeld’s investigation leads him down the city’s corridors of power. But nothing is as it seems. Who is behind the conspiracy that threatens the young prince, and will the duo be able to unearth the perpetrator before the prince’s time is up?

Long-time readers of the blog will know that I’m a big fan of Newton’s first series, Legends of the Red Sun. This 9,000~ word novella features the main character of the author’s new series, Lucan Drakenfeld, and is set before the first novel Drakenfeld. It’s a very good short story, and certainly served to whet my appetite for the full-length novels (which I’ve been inexplicable slow about getting around to). There’s a mystery, a rebel group, the possibility of an inside agent, some brutal killing, and the potential for a spot of regicide. Everything that makes a great fantasy crime story. We get to know the main two characters, too, who are two of the more interesting protagonists I’ve read in a while.

A great prequel, and a great way to quickly and cheaply try out Newton’s writing and his new series. Absolutely recommended.

“Created: The Destroyer” by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir (Sphere)

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MurphyW-D01-CreatedTheDestroyerUKLong-running, mega-selling pulp thriller series makes it over to the UK

One legendary hero. One epic series.Sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, ex-cop Remo Williams is rescued from the electric chair at the eleventh hour and recruited by a secret government organisation named CURE. From this moment, he ceases to officially exist.From now on, he will be an assassin, targeting criminals who are beyond the law. Remo’s trainer is a grouchy old Korean named Chiun, whose mastery of the terrifyingly powerful martial art of Sinanju makes him the deadliest man alive.Together Remo and Chiun set forth on their epic, impossible mission to vanquish every enemy of democracy – every bad guy who thinks they can escape justice.This is a new era in man’s fight against the forces of evil.This is the time of the Destroyer.

According to the press release, this series (which clocks in at 50 books!) has sold more than 50 million copies. That’s pretty impressive. First published in 1971, Created: The Destroyer is an interesting first book in an early government assassin thriller series. A literary ancestor of Vince Flynn et al, the novel was interesting and, sadly, disappointing. Continue reading →

Upcoming Re-Issues: KATHY MALLORY Series by Carol O’Connell (Headline)

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I received a press release this morning that really piqued my interest. Over the course of this year (and maybe some of early 2015), Headline will be re-jacketing and re-issuing Carol O’Connell’s Kathy Mallory crime series. I have never read any of the series, I’m sad to say. However, one of the things I love is finding established series on which to binge. I’ve found two ‘new’ series that I was going to start working my way through (Matthew Dunn’s Spycatcher and Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series), but this one has to be added to the list, too. And may even be the first I try. I’m really looking forward to these re-issues.

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Here’s the release scheduled:

Mallory’s Oracle – 14th August 2014

The Man Who Lied to Women – 14th August 2014

Killing Critics – 11th September 2014

Flight of the Stone Angel – 11th September 2014

Shell Game – 9th October 2014

Crime School – 9th October 2014

Dead Famous – 6th November 2014

Winter House – 6th November 2014

Shark Music – 4th December 2014

The Chalk Girl – Pub. Date TBC

It Happens in the Dark – Pub. Date TBC

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Here’s the synopsis for the first novel, Mallory’s Oracle:

Mallory Book 1: the first NYPD detective Kathy Mallory novel from New York Times bestseller Carol O’Connell, master of knife-edge suspense and intricate plotting.

Detective Kathy Mallory. New York’s darkest. You only underestimate her once.

When NYPD Sergeant Kathy Mallory was an eleven-year-old street kid, she got caught stealing. The detective who found her was Louis Markowitz. He should have arrested her. Instead he adopted her, and raised her as his own, in the best tradition of New York’s finest.

Now Markowitz is dead, and Mallory the first officer on the scene. She knows any criminal who could outsmart her father is no ordinary human. This is a ruthless serial killer, a freak from the night-side of the mind.

And one question troubles her more than any other: why did he go in there alone?

Quick Reviews: THE CUCKOO’S CALLING and THE SILKWORM by Robert Galbraith (Sphere/Mulholland)

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GalbraithR-CS1-CuckoosCallingUKJ.K. Rowling’s new series of London-based PI novels are fantastic.

When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case.

Strike is a war veteran – wounded both physically and psychologically – and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model’s complex world, the darker things get – and the closer he gets to terrible danger…

I am not entirely sure how to review these novels. To discuss their plots at any length would ruin the plots – something that’s normal, but for some reason feels even more so the case here. The characters, however, are superb – and it is Cormoran Strike, Robin and their supporting cast that make these novels so good. If you haven’t read this series, yet, I strongly urge you to do so. Continue reading →

News: Vince Flynn’s MITCH RAPP Series to Continue!

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Last September, I wrote a piece about how the movie Olympus Has Fallen bore some incredible similarities to Vince Flynn’s Transfer of Power. The piece was pretty short, but I also mentioned in it the fact that Flynn passed away in June 2013. It was also reported, through Flynn’s newsletter, that the planned next novel in the series, The Survivor, had been indefinitely suspended.

Since then, however, some very interesting news has arrived in my inbox! On June 22nd, Flynn’s Newsletter announced that “Mitch Rapp series will continue; The Survivor Tentatively Scheduled for 2015”!

As it turns out, one of my favourite thriller authors, Kyle Mills, has been selected to continue the series by Flynn’s estate and Emily Bestler, Senior VP and Editor-in-Chief of Emily Bestler Books. From the press release:

Mills will complete The Survivor, the book Flynn was writing at the time of his death on June 19, 2013, and then write two additional Mitch Rapp novels. The Survivor is tentatively scheduled to release in the fall of 2015.

“I’m really honored to have been asked to continue the Mitch Rapp series,” Mills said, “Vince was a great guy who helped me out in my career and as a diehard Rapp fan, I know how devastated his readers are. They’re big shoes to fill, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of continuing an iconic thriller character.”

“Vince and Mitch Rapp are so beloved by readers,” Bestler said, “It’s wonderful that we’ve found just the right partner to uphold the legacy of both.”

“To Vince’s wonderful fans, thank you for your love, support and patience,” Vince’s widow, Lysa Flynn said, “Vince was very proud of his team and we are confident that Kyle Mills will be a great addition. God bless and keep the faith!”

Mills is the author of the Mark Beamon thrillers and a handful of stand-alone thrillers. Most recently, he wrote The Immortalists (which, I am ashamed to admit, I have not read yet) and also The Ares Decision, The Utopia Experiment, and the upcoming The Von Neumann Machine – books 8, 10 and 1? of Tom Clancy’s Covert-One series. Many of Mills’s novels are very hard to find in the UK, which I think is a crime. It is also why it has always taken me a long time to get around to reading them – I discovered his novels well before CR was ever a thing.

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Mark Beamon Series: Rising Phoenix, Storming Heaven, Free Fall, Sphere of Influence and Darkness Falls

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Stand-Alone Novels: Burn Factor, Smoke Screen, Fade, The Second Horseman, Lords of Corruption, The Immortalists

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An Interview with ALISON GAYLIN

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GaylinA-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Alison Gaylin?

Hmm, I’m still trying to figure that one out.  For the purposes of this blog, I am a suspense writer and reader of all sorts of things.

Your next novel, Stay With Me, the third in your Brenna Spector Trilogy, is due to be published in June by Harper. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader? What can fans of the series expect?

Stay With Me is the third book in the Brenna Spector suspense series, and the culmination of what readers of the series would know as the “Clea Trilogy.” Brenna is a private investigator blessed – and cursed – with hyperthymesia (perfect autobiographical memory.) It makes her pretty great at her job, but it wreaks havoc on her relationships with others. (How can you forgive and forget when you can never forget?) She specializes in missing persons cases, but the one missing person she’s never been able to find is her older sister Clea, who got into a blue car 28 years ago when she was 17, never to appear again. That event triggered Brenna’s hyperthymesia at the age of 11 and has haunted her ever since. In Stay With Me, Brenna’s life is turned upside down when her 13-year-old daughter, Maya, disappears. Also in the book, the mystery of Clea – which plays a major role in the first two books, And She Was and Into the Dark – is finally solved. Continue reading →

Upcoming: “Broken Monsters” by Lauren Beukes (Harper)

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Beukes-BrokenMonstersUKI’m a latecomer to the excellence that is Lauren Beukes’s work. Last year, I was quickly sucked into The Shining Girls, and since then I’ve been eagerly awaiting her next novel. Now, BROKEN MONSTERS is on the horizon! Published in the UK on July 31st by Harper.

In the city that’s become a symbol for the death of the American dream, a nightmare killer is unravelling reality…

Broken city, broken dreams

In Detroit, violent death – along with foreclosure and despair – is a regular occurrence. But the part-human, part-animal corpses that have started appearing are more disturbing than anything Detective Gabriella Versado has ever seen.

As Gabriella works the case, her teenage daughter Layla embarks on a secret crime-fighting project of her own – hunting down online paedophiles – but it all goes horribly wrong…

TK has learned how to make being homeless work for him and his friends, but something evil is threatening the fragile world he’s constructed on the streets…

Ambitious blogger Jonno is getting desperate. The big four-oh isn’t that far away, and he’s still struggling to make his mark. But then he stumbles across some unusual and macabre art, which might just be the break he needs to go viral…

Broken Monsters lays bare the decaying corpse of the American Dream, and asks what we’d be prepared to do for fifteen minutes of fame, especially in an online world.

Can’t wait to read this! Broken Monsters is published by Mulholland Books in the US, and Umuzi in South Africa. Here are the other two covers…

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Review: FIELD OF PREY by John Sandford (Putnam/Simon & Schuster)

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Sandford-24-FieldOfPreyUS24 books in, series still firing on all cylinders…

The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky.

He’d picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was… something smelled bad – like, really bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another.

By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork. How could this have happened without anybody noticing?

Because one thing was for sure: the killer had to live close by. He was probably even someone they saw every day…

It really is quite impressive, the fact that this is the 24th book featuring Lucas Davenport (also known as the Prey Series) and it is so very good. Add to that the fact that Sandford is also writing the Virgil Flowers spin-off series as well (each gets a new book each year, for the past seven or eight years), and you start to realise just how talented and disciplined Sandford is as an author. I have read all of the Prey novels, and each one has been at the very least great and gripping. Field of Prey is no exception, but this time you can also add harrowing and intense. A great addition to the series. Continue reading →