This is rapidly becoming a favourites amongst my recently discovered detective series – it is so good! I absolutely flew through this book, reading more or less straight on from the first in the series, Critical Incidents, and finishing this in less than two days (which is very fast for me, not the speediest of readers!) Now, we ended the first book with Robin Lyons at a crossroads, with two job opportunities open to her: should she return to her old job in London, the city she and her daughter Lennie lived in for so long and loved so much? Or should she remain in her childhood home in Birmin ..read more

This blog tour is taking place to commemorate the reissue of the Simon Serrailler series to celebrate twenty years since they began, and as a result they’ve all received swanky new covers. The series currently runs to eleven books, and has sold over a million copies – that’s 900,000 each, approximately. Impressive! And here’s the new look books, with apologies for the low resolution (the above image is unfortunately the old one, which is all that is displayed on Amazon at present): Of course, this isn’t Susan Hill’s only work. She’s well-known for books such as The Woman In Black and Mrs de ..read more

Wow! This book was really unputdownable, and gave me a couple of ridiculously late nights. So here’s the lowdown… Robin Lyons, sacked in disgrace from the Met for disobeying her superior’s orders and allowing a suspected murderer to go free, has been forced to move back to her hometown of Birmingham and her parents’ home with her thirteen year old daughter. Fiercely independent since leaving home for UCL and managing an unplanned pregnancy in her final year (with the support of her best friend Corrina), her life seems to be finally going the way she’d always planned until her ignominious depa ..read more

So Book Number Two in the #TeamTennison challenge…how is Jane’s career progressing? When we left her towards the end of book one, Jane had seen various areas of the police service at work and had her heart set on becoming a detective in the CID. At the start of this book she’s about to begin her secondment to CID when they approach her early, asking her to join them then, as it turns out they need a female for an undercover assignment and Jane fits the bill. To be honest, it’s a wee bit scary, as they’re trying to catch a man who’s indecently assaulting girls around London Fields. I’ll say no ..read more

So, #TeamTennison…if you haven’t seen this splashed across other blogs or the internet, I shall explain…however, first of all I must apologise that my review is late – I had my final essay for my first OU module due, as I desperately attempt to graduate before I’m, er, 55! I’m back on track now; I can relax and am reading the next book in the series now, and will get it reviewed on time. To explain, this is a collection of bloggers who will, until next summer, read and review the first nine Jane Tennison books roughly every 4-6 weeks. I’m really excited about this project – I’ve read perhaps ..read more

This is a book I’ve been excited about since I heard it was coming out, as, for me at least, a Laura Lippman novel is AN EVENT! Having first fallen for her writing through her PI Tess Monaghan series, now her books are more likely to be standalones: all totally different, and all totally original. Like so many authors, she started her life as a journalist, in her case in Baltimore, the city she still lives, and which she loves – something she reminds us of in every novel. You could probably do worse than take a few of her books as a guide to the city’s eateries, attractions, museums – and are ..read more

First of all, all apologies for my absence this last couple of months. I’ve been a bit unwell, plus any spare time I was well had to be devoted to my Open University course. Unbelievably, it was worth it, as I got 90! So I treated myself to reading some fiction – and I’ll get my catching up to do in the next few weeks! I must say, I really struggled to put this book down. I’ve got Sixteen Horses, Buchanan’s debut, and heard nothing but good things about it. I will definitely be getting round to it asap after this beauty. Greg Buchanan’s prose is utterly pleasurable to read, even when he’s wri ..read more

Aoife Clifford is an author new to me, but she’s definitely one to watch. Those who visit this site often (if there are any of you!) will probably have noticed I have recently developed a fondness for Australian crime fiction. (Iceland is my other favourite setting at present, and of course Scotland, which I’ve rather been neglecting – I’ll make that up to you this summer, I promise!) Anyway, the name “Outback Noir” seems to have been given to the books by Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, Garry Disher, et al. They’re all set in the dry, dusty centre of Australia, where farmers pray for rain. This i ..read more

You’d have to be pretty hard-hearted not to feel sorry for Reagan Carson, the heroine in this novel… The author really puts her through the mill! This is a wonderfully addictive read from Ashley Kalagian Blunt, a Canadian who’s now living in Sydney – although this is a universal story that could have been set anywhere, with themes that are very current, about internet privacy, and what goes on online, in the deepest darkest corners of the web… Reagan is the owner of her own small plant and gardening-supply shop, Voodoo Lily… The plant theme continues throughout the book, as Reagan knows lots ..read more

This is the story of the love affair between two huge stars whose names are still well-known today… I love Golden Age Hollywood – it was so much more glamorous before we saw pics of movie stars going to the supermarket! This was one of the big romances between megastars – rather like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, or Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. They fall in love and eventually marry despite the fact Frank was Catholic, as was his wife Nancy, who was reluctant to divorce him – and he couldn’t face the thought of leaving his three young children. His mafia friends, too, were of the same ..read more