Shay Doyle (not his real name) grew up on a rough housing estate in Manchester. He came from a family which was on the wrong side of the tracks - they weren’t criminals per se, but they weren’t strictly law-abiding either, and there was lots of fighting with other residents of the estate. His father was what might be called one of the estate’s “hard men”. He also physically abused Shay’s mother. It was in part to escape his father that Shay joined the army. Here he was unruly, but dedicated, and quite the risk taker. He left the army and someone suggested he join the police. This he strugg ..read more

  A great book for the crime writer this, and as a crime thriller writer I was keen to read it. Each chapter is dedicated to a different poison, how it was discovered (if relevant, some have been around since “the dawn of time” to use a cliché), their legitimate uses, etc.  Then, through the use of a nefarious case study - someone murdered with the said poison, and how the murder was discovered and solved - the author shows how the compound works on the body, biochemically speaking. This isn’t a science book, it’s easily comprehendible to the lay reader like myself, and is very ..read more

By the author of Look Who’s Back, a satirical novel about Hitler travelling through time to present day Germany, and how modern German society responds to him (which is well worth a read, by the way) comes this title. Again, it’s a satirical novel, and again, Like Look Who’s Back, it’s long. The Hungry and the Fat comes in at nearly 600 pages! This is a book about a reality TV star/presenter, Nadeche Hackenbusch, who goes to film her show, Nadeche Hackenbusch: An Angel in Adversity, in a refugee camp in sub-Saharan Africa. Her show previously has shown the plight of refugees living in hostel ..read more

A “biography” of murder and manslaughter in the UK told through legislation. This is really a biography of the law of homicide, rather than of homicide itself. This was a fascinating read and gave a good insight into things like insanity defences, etc, through various test cases.  That said, other reviewers have complained it wasn’t what they expected, because they thought it was going to be a “biography”/ history of murder itself, rather than the legislation (clearly they didn't read the blurb). I didn’t make that mistake, but I still felt this was lacking somewhat. For example, one ..read more

  Self-improvement titles are not my usual read and Uri Geller is someone who divides opinion. Some think he’s a true psychic, some not. So I picked this up on a whim, not exactly sure what I was going to get. I actually found this title quite inspirational. You don’t have to believe in the author’s claimed psychic powers to benefit from this title, a lot of the content involved visualisation techniques and positive thinking methods which are helpful and effective. This is a short book, but an engaging one, and Geller has a good writing style which kept me turning the pages ..read more

  A sequel to the author’s brilliant first novel in the series, The Hunted, The Inheritance picks up a little after the first novel ended, with Maggie trying to live a quiet life while still searching for her mother.  She’s got a job in a bar and when her manager is attacked by a patron who’s clearly extorting money, she follows the man and blows up the warehouse he’s in. She’s always been a little impulsive and has an urge for natural justice, after all. The man is linked to a drug cartel though, and it’s no surprise that he ends up following her to Melbourne, where she’s followi ..read more

  Daniel is a milkman who’s split up from his partner and young child. He lives and works in a remote rural area and does his rounds and has little in the way of any social life. The village and surrounding areas are full of eccentric characters and his work colleagues aren’t all particularly collegiate or nice.  It’s when people begin to have nightmares that the real troubles begins. And the Fallen Stock drivers (Fallen Stock being the people who collect dead animals up from farms) keep running people off the road. When Daniel meets Kathryn, a witch who makes witch bottles which ..read more

  A novel set in Ireland, the protagonist Mina is an aspiring artist who's struggling for money, and accepts a job from a friend in the pub to deliver a parrot to a buyer. She drives into a remote part of Galway where her car mysteriously breaks down on the outskirts of a wood. She walks along the road which leads through the woods and this is the worst mistake she could make. Because at nightfall, with screams chasing her, she’s beckoned into a building by an older woman who then slams the door shut Inside, she finds her rescuer, Madeline, and two others, Daniel and Ciara. But now the ..read more

  I’m a fan of Dominic Nolan’s first two novels, contemporary crime thrillers, Past Life and After Dark. Vine Street is a departure from Nolan’s previous books because it is a historical crime thriller, set in London in the 1930s. I’ve always loved London’s Soho and used to enjoy night outs there in the 1990s, and its reputation and history is rich and storied. Vine Street is set in a world of organised crime set around prostitution, prostitutes, and corrupt police. With the war on the horizon in the first half of the novel, and then the war itself and postwar, there are also fascists ..read more

  The 4th in the Tuva Moodyson series, and Tuva is back in Gavrick, but her beat now extends to a town up the road, the hill town of Visberg. In fact, the story opens with Tuva visiting the town and after hearing a cry for help in the woods, discovering a headless corpse. Will Dean’s strength is in his conjuring of eccentric characters. In the previous three novels he’s filled Gavrik and the surrounding woods with such people, and now he populates Visberg with more. And his best creation of all returns in this novel: the wood carving sisters, complete with their gruesome trolls. Visb ..read more