Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz

Days after Holmes and Moriarty have fought and fallen to their deaths at the Reichenbach Falls, two men arrive to identify Moriarty’s body. Inspector Jones, a student of Holmes’ methods has been sent by Scotland Yard. Frederick Chase is an agent with the Pinkerton Detective Agency and he brings disturbing news. One of America’s most ruthless criminal masterminds was about to join forces with Moriarty.

Jones and Chase work together to stop the mysterious Clarence Devereaux but they are thwarted at every turn. Jones’ life may be in more danger than he knows as he and Chase plunge deep into the murky waters of London’s criminal enterprise. Can the pair stop a man hiding in plain sight or will they fall prey to Moriarty’s would-be successor.

Changes

As regular readers know I've not been as active on the blog lately. Writing has taken over and book four is shaping up nicely, I'm also getting a website up and running as it became obvious that the things I wanted to expand into are too complicated to handle in a blog.

I am also looking into doing some book talks via FaceTime and posting some audio reviews on the website. The only review for this month is Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz, enjoy.

Stone Wife, Peter Lovesey

A bungled robbery that turns into murder gives Superintendent Peter Diamond and his team a case that is positively Byzantine. 

The murder victim was a Chaucer scholar and the piece he was bidding for ‘the stone wife of bath’ has taken up residence in Diamond’s office and Diamond isn’t enjoying her company. 

While he is chasing up suspects and weighing motives, DS Ingeborg Smith volunteers to go under-cover to finger the likely gun supplier. A risky operation, made riskier by the actions of one of her impulsive colleagues.

Hold The Dark, William Giraldi

Keelut, Alaska: the present can’t seem to touch the town. It is insular and otherworldly and the wolves are taking its children. Three so far. Medora Sloan, mother of the latest victim brings Russell Core, a wolf expert to her tiny town. She asks him to kill the wolf that took her son while her husband Vernon fights insurgents in the Afghan desert. 

Vernon, wounded in action returns to an empty home and a town that already knows Medora’s terrible secret. He goes after his missing wife,  leaving a trail of bodies across the tundra. Vernon is an army-trained killer. Core reasons if he finds his wife, Medora won’t live to see another sunrise and Core has reasons of his own for pursuing Vernon Sloan. Dark, spare and best devoured in one sitting.

The Secret Place, Tana French

The Secret Place is a bulletin board at St Kilda’s School for Girls. Frank Mackey (The Likeness, Faithful Place) is reluctantly letting sixteen year old daughter Holly board there instead of living at home. Detective Stephen Moran (Faithful Place) hasn’t seen Holly since she was nine.

When she turns up outside his office, with a card she took from the school bulletin board Moran takes the information to Antoinette Conway who worked the original case, a year ago. Popular student Christopher Harper was found dead on the grounds of St Kilda’s and Holly’s photo shows a smiling Harper with the caption ‘I know who killed him’ on the back. At the time, Conway didn’t get past the cliques and the bleating of panicky rich parents and their lawyers. But in her opinion Harper was on a promise with one of the St Kilda’s girls, but why wait a year to dredge the whole thing up again. What changed?

Conway, reluctant to trust Moran, takes him with her to St Kilda’s waiting for him to screw up so that she can boot him from the investigation. Each needs something from the other, for Conway this is a chance to prove what she suspected all along. For Moran it’s an opportunity to join the murder squad, but throw Frank Mackey into the mix and everything gets skewed, especially when he’s thinking like a father not a detective. Conway and Moran have until the end of the school day to unmask a murderer.

The Button Man, Mark Pryor

Before Hugo Marston became head of security at the US embassy in Paris, he held the same position in London. He’s trying to convince his wife to leave Texas and come to London, and the negotiations are not going well. Now he’s been saddled with two Hollywood movie stars, Ginny Ferro and Dylan Harper who, while filming a movie in a rural English village, accidently ran over a local man but drove away, leaving him to die. 

The press and the public are baying for the couples’ blood, but they are not the only ones. A self-styled vigilante has them in his sights. Ferro is released first and promptly vanishes only to show up hours later, hanged in a graveyard. A grieving Dylan Harper gives Hugo the slip, sending the Texan on a star hunt, assisted and hindered by a star struck member of parliament, obstructive journalists and the lovely and resourceful Merlyn. As the bodies pile up and local law enforcement refuses to budge Hugo cuts through the red tape and goes it alone, which is just what the killer was waiting for him to do…

Summer of the Dead, Julia Keller

An old man is murdered yards from his home in Acker’s Gap and another meets the wrong end of a screwdriver in a seedy bar one county over. The townsfolk are still recovering from the explosion that destroyed the local diner the previous year and country prosecutor, Bell Elkins still can’t get her sister Shirley to open up to her. Even though Bell owes her so much she’s finding herself having to act more like the mother the girls never had to prevent Shirley violating her parole and being sent back to prison. 

Bell and the Sheriff are hunting a killer who moves like smoke and strikes without warning in a town full of hard luck stories and secrets hidden below the ground. It’s going to be a hot and deadly summer.

Dead Line, Chris Ewan

Respected hostage negotiator Daniel Trent lives in Marseille with his fiancée Aimee. Aimee vanishes, after keeping an appointment with shady businessman Jerome Moreau. Daniel is convinced he has harmed or is holding Aimee and plans to extract the information from Moreau somewhere quiet and private. 

Before Trent can execute his plan Moreau is kidnapped. Trent has to use all of his skills to save the life of the man who holds the key to Aimee’s disappearance whilst hiding his own more personal agenda. Can Daniel save Aimee, or has their time run out? 

A Deadly Wandering, Matt Richtel

In a poll 98 % of the population think that texting and driving is dangerous, yet 43% of those admit to doing that exact thing.

Richtel tells a story that hits close to home in many ways. In 2006, Reggie Shaw, a 19 year old from Tremonton Utah was driving to work when he hit and killed two rocket scientists on their way to their jobs at ATK. Reggie was texting his girlfriend and only took his eyes off the road for a second, but that’s all it takes. 

Richtel, whose reporting on the subject of distracted driving won him and the New York Times a Pulitzer prize, charts the course of Reggie’s trial, the neuroscience behind attention blindness and the landmark Utah law on texting and driving that resulted. 

My takeaway from the book is that smart phones can be as addictive as drugs or alcohol, each ping of an incoming text message or email sparks a little hit of dopamine. I never use my cellphone whilst driving, but I am welded to it at home. After reading this cautionary tale, I’m putting some distance between me and my smartphone. 

Communications Breakdown

Sometimes things that happen knock you for six, put your normal life on hold. They come out of the blue. Just over a week ago we lost Mike, a good friend. He always said that friends are the family that you choose for yourself and as I've met his mum and one of his sisters I would say we were in pretty good company because he had a great family to start with. He went out of this life doing what he loved.

For those of us lucky enough to hang out with him, he was larger than life, full of energy, full of wisecracks too and he's the only guy I know whose name we could use as a verb.  Safe travels Astro Boy.

Life however keeps going full throttle and so the September picks are a little late and mystery giveaway is being tweaked, enjoy.

And the winner is...

A comment from 'yours truly' if that was you email me off-blog and I'll stick your copy of "I Am Pilgrim" in the post.

Recyling plot ideas

I have a folder marked 'story ideas' and it goes back far beyond 2007 which is when I did my first nanowrimo. I look at them occasionally but up until now I've never picked one out, blown the dust off it and used it in a new draft.

Here's the crazy thing, the next book (Excalibur) has a launch party close to the beginning and I'd been looking for a recognizable venue. Somewhere big enough to have a ton of guests but small enough to control access and keep the press at bay and I was going to use the naval academy at Greenwich because I was only there a couple of months ago and the details are still fresh. I started writing it and Greenwich wouldn't work, felt flat and then I remembered Battersea Power Station. I saw it every morning we were in London because our hotel room was high up and facing towards it. A quick search of my story idea folder and there it was, it needed a couple of character changes but it slotted right in. I wrote that nearly two years ago! How cool, and weird is that?

The Silkworm

If you liked The Cuckoo's Calling, you are going to love The Silkworm, you'll think you've got it figured out and then to your surprise and delight you'll realize that you are totally, hopelessly and wonderfully wrong.

Galbraith/Rowling develops both Strike and Robin (one review I read said Robin had nothing to do in this one, I disagree) Both have their backgrounds expanded, Strike's experiences in Afghanistan and Robin, oh and she's been taking some courses on the quiet I won't tell you which because I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.

New Project

Go to the mystery giveaway tab for a new project that I've been working on. There are a few rules but nothing major, enjoy!

Amazon = Goliath

OK this is a weird title and normally I read the op eds and maybe comment on the side of the indies. This however is a whole different ball game. Hard ball. For those of you who are fans of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series you will know who Goliath are and feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Goliath (in Fforde's books) is the global behemoth that has taken over the UK, they control everything they run a puppet government, they make TV shows, (in the books they aren't above killing people but hey that's fiction for you) When I think of Amazon, Goliath comes to mind so Fforde was going for a global monopoly a Walmart, or an Amazon or some other tech giant that wants to take over the world! (pause for maniacal laugh)

And we're back with everyone else. I speak as a recovering addict, ten years ago I used Amazon for everything and then we moved to the US and I started working in a bookstore and writing a novel and everything changed. First I had access to the trades, the blogs and newsletters that booksellers and librarians use and I didn't like what I was seeing. Also Amazon moved from being just a supplier to a publisher (Create space) self publishing was exploding and they wanted some of that action. And the fact that they don't pay sales tax and bricks and mortar stores do, that turned the tide for me. The thing that made me kick my Amazon habit completely was an article. Amazon uses books as 'loss leaders' it makes no profit whatsoever on books, it actually loses money. It makes money on all the other things you can buy on that site. Then came the e reader, where you 'rent' books from Amazon, yes I did say rent and that is because even though you have purchased the title if Amazon chooses to, they can take it off your e reader without your permission. Don't believe me? hop onto Google and search 'Amazon 1984 kindle' (yes the George Orwell title, pause for irony) oh and while you're there look up the definition of a 'monopsony' because that is what is happening in the publishing world right now. Amazon is now so powerful that it thinks it can dictate terms to publishers to drive down the price of books even more. If Hachette falls, then Penguin Random, and S&S etc aren't going to be far behind. In the short term consumers get cheap books but what happens when there is no competition left? Think about that for a minute. Amazon breakfast cereal, Amazon pants, Amazon furniture, Amazon smart phones (I'm extrapolating from where we are now.)

Now the cynics among you will be saying, 'she's jealous of the competition' nothing could be further from the truth. My passion is books, bookselling is in my DNA, it took me a long time to realize that I am a born book seller. I read voraciously, I get behind authors you've never heard of because I love what they write, their inventiveness. Authors are like rock stars to me, and I get to interact with book lovers like myself every time I go to work. Our dining room table is covered in books. Do you know how long it takes to write a book? For some it can take years, each book, each writer is unique in their style of writing, in their plots, in the times and places they write. Their ideas can inspire new authors, change lives, there is no way to put words in a blender and come up with a book, one size is never going to fit all.

Just one last question before I pack up my soap box. Today, how many of you have commented on 'Goodreads', shopped on 'Zappos' bought second hand books from 'Abebooks', used 'IMDb' to look up a movie or tv show, purchased audiobooks from 'Audible.com' used 'Zyna', 'Netflix' ('LoveFilm' in the UK) 'Foursquare' or 'Dropbox'? Then you have wittingly or unwittingly had an Amazon experience today. Do we really want a world where everything comes from or goes through Amazon? Bez-topia? Bor-ing!

Please note that this article has been researched and written by me, my opinions may not match yours but isn't that what debate is all about?

The Late Scholar, Jill Patton Walsh

St Severin's college Oxford is split over plans to sell an ancient manuscript with connections to Alfred the Great. With another vote on the matter looming and the college Warden missing, several of the faculty call for the Visitor who just happens to be Lord Peter Wimsey, now also known as the Duke of Denver.

His Grace, wife Harriet Vane and their faithful manservant Bunter travel to Oxford and between then uncover a seething fury beneath the veneer of the gentlemen scholars, and more than one murder.

N.B This is the second of Jill Patton Walsh's continuation of Dorothy L Sayers beloved series.

Canyon Sacrifice, Scott Graham

This is the first in a new mystery series set in and around America’s national parks, featuring archeologist Chuck Bender.

Chuck is keen to show his new wife and ready-made family the beauties of the Grand Canyon, but he is still stumbling over the dual roles of husband and father. When one of the girls goes missing Chuck is certain that someone close to him has guessed his secret, a find he chanced upon deep in the Canyon many years ago. Something precious to the Anasazi, something he is determined to preserve. He knows will sacrifice anything to get his daughter back but even he isn’t prepared for the actions, or identity, of her captor.

The Director, David Ignatius

In the wake of a corruption scandal at the CIA, the president appoints millionaire businessman Graham Weber as the new Director.

Weber has a mountain to climb; the old guard don’t want him to shake things up as he has promised to do. Some want him to succeed, most want him to fail. As Weber’s tenure begins, a scruffy young kid walks into the US embassy in Berlin with a message for the new broom. “The CIA has been hacked, we’re reading all of your encrypted data.”

Weber has to use all the analogue assets he has to find the leak before an army of hackers launches an all-out assault on a pillar of anglo-US co-operation that goes all the way back to 1945. If they can bring it down a new era will begin and Weber may be powerless to stop them.

Identity, Ingrid Thoft

Loyalty introduced us to Fina Ludlow, the tough Boston PI equally adept at shooting from the lip or the hip. In the follow-up Fina’s father, Carl takes on a client whose daughter was fathered with donor sperm. The single mother wants to track down her donor and possibly sue the sperm bank, against the wishes of her daughter. Carl smells money and puts Fina onto finding the donor’s identity. Her success is dashed when the donor is killed only hours after he and the client meet for the first time.

Fina is hired by the dead man’s son, on the understanding that nothing is off limits if he wants to find his father’s killer. As she starts turning over rocks all kinds of suspects and motives emerge. Fina knows she’s getting close when the killer threatens her, that she can handle, but when the target moves to her niece Haley, Fina has to take action.

Action is required on the home front too, because Fina’s brother Rand is determined to worm his way back into the family and her father seems ready to put out the welcome mat and for Haley’s sake Fina cannot let that happen.

Vertigo 42 (A Richard Jury mystery), Martha Grimes

Widower Tom Williamson asks Jury to reopen an accidental death case. Tess Williamson, Tom’s beautiful wife, suffered from vertigo and when she was found dead at the foot of a flight of stone steps on their country estate seventeen years ago it was ruled a tragic accident. Tom is still convinced it was murder.

Jury’s initial investigations seem to point in that direction. He also uncovers another ‘accidental death’, this time a drowning on that same estate. Five years before her death Tess held a party for six local children and one little girl died. Jury and Wiggins, his sergeant, try and track down the other kids at the same time as Jury pokes his nose into an apparent suicide close to his friend Melrose Plant’s North Hampshire home. Just when Richard Jury thinks he has worked out the identity of the guilty party the case takes a twist worthy of Hitchcock.

If this is your first Richard Jury mystery (how could I have missed this gem of a series?) then go back to the beginning and pick up The Man with a Load of Mischief, the first Richard Jury novel.

An update and new for June

As you may have noticed, the blog posts have tailed off a bit recently. Things have been more than a little crazy, including a trip to the UK during which the Armchair Mystery book group from TKE went to do two things. The first? To visit our good friend and much-missed bookseller Wendy Foster Leigh, and her hubby who have been on sabbatical in London since September (yes we flew all the way to London to see her, she's that cool:-)

Our second thing was two readings by authors who have been to TKE before (Chris Ewan (with author James Carroll) and Peter Lovesey.) Due to a baby (Chris) and no current plans to come to the US (Peter) we went to them. Both readings, at Waterstones flagship store in Piccadilly, were fantastic, although I learned from Chris that the Good Thief's Guide series is pretty much dead. He will continue to write stand alone novels, I have a copy of Dead Line to read and review.

Peter's reading was great too, he joked that there were so many familiar faces in the audience that he was expecting a hand on his shoulder and "Peter Lovesey, this is your life," to be intoned by whoever is doing that show now!

You'd think that would be plenty for one month, but no. We also had Jenny Milchman, author of Cover of Snow (Mary Higgins Clark award-winner at this year's Edgars!) come back to TKE for her new book Ruin Falls. Jenny is in the midst of another long 'all over america' book tour. As I'm writing this she and the family have reached California and they are not done yet. Jenny has been incredibly supportive of my writing, even though she has yet to read any of it (!!) I did the intro for Jenny and we had a pretty good turnout for a Friday evening.

I also joined Sisters in Crime and have just written a two page piece for their newsletter. Those of you who know how long it takes me to write a five minute intro can guess how long that took! Add to that a bathroom remodel and a land rover safari and May was just packed. Enjoy these new releases!

The Skin Collector, Jeffery Deaver

A Rhyme/Sachs novel.

In the depths of a brutal New York fall, a killer stalks the underground passages and basements of the city. He literally inks his victims to death, using a tattoo gun loaded with poison. Lincoln Rhyme is drawn into the case and he and his partner Amelia Sachs are soon on the killer’s tail. What is the significance of the killer’s message, the locations, the fascination he seems to hold for the Bone Collector, the case that brought Rhyme and Sachs together in the first place.

Oblivious New Yorkers face a threat of biblical proportions, one that only Rhyme can detect and stop, and the killer knows where he lives.

The Son, Jo Nesbo

Sonny Loftus’ father was a dirty cop and Sonny is a killer doing prison time for two murders and now a possible third, but there is a conspiracy revolving around Sonny. For some reason it is important to keep him locked up and doped up on heroin. For if Sonny should somehow learn the truth he might be motivated to escape, clean himself up and go after his father’s killers.

And for some people that would be very bad news indeed.

N.B. This is not a Harry Hole novel.

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, Joel Dicker

First novels propel you into the stratosphere and then you have to write the second and Marcus Goldman is suffering from a massive case of writers block, he hasn’t written any pages and with his publisher losing patience Marcus runs to his mentor Harry Quebert.

Enfolded in the small seaside town of Somerset, Marcus stumbles on a stunning fact. Harry had an affair with 15 year old Nola Kellergan, a waitress at Clarks diner and when a body is found on Harry’s property clutching a damning piece of evidence the writer is arrested, his book withdrawn from sale. In the court of public opinion he’s already been found guilty.

Marcus begins his own investigation into Harry and Nola, juggling ever approaching deadlines and legal threats with discovering the secret that someone killed to keep hidden 33 years ago. Can Marcus save the man he owes his writing career to and what will that do to their friendship? This book within a book (which unseated Dan Brown from the top spot in Europe) has twists, turns and surprises galore and will keep you guessing right up to the final page.

The Devil’s Workshop, Alex Grecian

Dangerous prisoners are on the loose in London, some with old scores to settle with members of the murder squad.

While Inspector Day’s officers are determined to recapture them, Day himself finds his investigations hampered by an old mentor who seeks a different kind of justice for the escapees.

And deep below London’s streets waits the unthinkable, one whose name caused a city wide panic, now freed to kill again.

Invisible City, Julia Dahl

At the tender age of six months old, Rebekah Roberts lost her mother. Aviva went back to the Hasidic faith she’d struggled to break free from and Rebekah never forgave or forgot her.

23 years later Rebekah, now a stringer for the NY Tribune is called to report on a murder. The victim, Rivka Mendelssohn is removed from the crime scene by Hasidics and Rebekah, aided by an old friend of her mother’s is drawn into their closed world, where people like her mother suffocated under the secretive religion and mental disorders are allowed to run unchecked.

The story has everything a cub reporter could need to make their career, corruption, murder, madness but will Rebekah break the story before it breaks her?

Water Rat of Wanchai, Ian Hamilton

An early chapter in the career of Ava Lee, globe-trotting forensic accountant. Andrew Tam needs Ava’s help. His business partners have spirited away five million dollars worth of inventory, money his family can’t afford to lose.

Ava makes quick work of tracking the money the hard part is going to be getting the account holder out of his bolt hole in Guyana and convincing him to give the money back. To do that Ava has to deal with Captain Roberts and his little brother Jack, who think they can push Ava around. Big mistake.

Jack of Spies, David Downing

Take an English businessman with a uncanny knack for languages, give him a few ‘tasks’ to do while he’s selling luxury cars around the globe and you have Jack McColl. McColl’s Scottish roots are going to come in handy, he’s been a part-time spy for several years and as 1913 rolls to a close he realizes that the spy game is calling him, luring him into dangerous waters. Using the luxury car business for cover he’s picked up some useful intelligence in China, along with the radical but feminine journalist Caitlin Hanley.

Jack falls for Caitlin but she may not feel the same way. Her San Francisco based family has ties to some dangerous alliances, connections that Jack may have to exploit to complete his mission. The world is lurching towards war; and Jack’s got to choose between his personal and professional lives, and either decision will cost him dearly.

I Am Pilgrim, Terry Hayes

On September 12, 2011 ‘Scott Murdoch’ retires. He is one of the best covert intelligence agents the US has ever had but the upcoming war on terror renders his skills useless. ‘Murdoch’ slips away to Paris and starts a new life, writing a book under the pseudonym Jude Garrett. The book brings resourceful NYPD detective Ben Bradley into his life and not long after he’s recruited to find a cleanskin, codenamed Saracen, this man has no country, no allegiance and one goal; to bring down the ‘far enemy’. If he succeeds, he’ll make 9/11 look like a church picnic. All ‘Murdoch’ has is snippets of a satellite phone call, his tradecraft and his codename ‘Pilgrim’.

Fasting moving and chillingly plausible, Hayes delivers a thrilling debut.

Marvelous May reads

Just got back from a packed trip to London and Holland. We went with a group of people from the bookstore and the only things set in stone were two book signings. One with Chris Ewan (and James Carroll) and the other with Peter Lovesey. Both readings took place at the Waterstones flagship store in Piccadilly. Both were fantastic and of course I now have Dead Line and The Stone Wife, both signed by Chris and Peter respectively.

I took the opportunity to do a bit of research for book #4, managed to communicate in Dutch without making an ass of myself. So there is my excuse for the May post being late, it's a pretty impressive one:-)

The Intern’s Handbook, Shane Kuhn

John Lago is twenty five years old and on the eve of his retirement releases The Intern’s Handbook , a document that could get you killed just for possessing it. You see John’s employers, HR Inc are an assassination bureau and this is John’s version of a tell-all.

One of three high powered NY lawyers is selling off witness protection files to the highest bidder, HR Inc task John to discover the partner’s identity and then kill him. Problem is that the FBI is already on the case in the seductive shape of Alice, she’s just John’s type but he’s not sure how far down this particular rabbit hole he’s prepared to go.

John throws his readers plenty of twists, turns and curveballs but will he make it to retirement or is The Intern’s Handbook posthumous? I guarantee you’ll never look at an intern the same way again.

Ruin Falls, Jenny Milchman

Every mother’s worst nightmare is to lose sight of their children even for a second. That nightmare is Liz Daniel’s world right now. Her children are missing and so is her husband Paul. After a fruitless search, Liz returns to their home in Wedeskyull determined to shatter the perfect image that Professor Daniels projected to his students.

Liz starts to look through Paul’s papers, his laptop and what she finds paints a disturbing picture. How long has he been planning this? And then the warnings start, if Liz digs too deep into Paul’s past she will be stopped. Liz is determined to risk everything to get her kids back-even her own life. But Paul has put his entire family in danger, because it wasn’t his plan…

The Collector of Dying Breaths, M J Rose

Jac L’Etoile’s beloved brother Robbie is close to death, the police suspect that the Chinese triads are behind the killing and that puts Jac in danger too. With his dying breath Robbie urges her to complete a project he was working on at a magnificent chateau in Fontainebleau.

When she meets the owner, an eccentric heiress, Jac learns of Rene la Florentine, plucked from a death sentence to become perfumier to Catherine de Medici. The queen didn’t just use him to make perfumes and he pursued the heresy that a person’s soul could be preserved and transferred to another body, just by capturing their last breath. Robbie and Jac’s friend and lover Griffin North were in the midst of recreating that formula.

As Jac watches Rene’s heartbreaking story play out, the heiress becomes increasingly erratic. The woman will do anything to preserve her legacy no matter who is in her way. But as Jac’s time lines criss-cross she learns Rene’s terrible secret and this could cost her Griffin’s life.

Under A Silent Moon, Elizabeth Haynes

Who killed Polly Leuchars?

Operation Nettle; DCI Louisa Smith’s first murder case as lead investigator. Polly was a vital young woman who didn’t know the meaning of the word monogamy. According to the village gossips of Briarstone, Polly had slept with half the population. Did one of them kill her? Complicating Lou’s case is the apparent suicide of Polly’s next door neighbour. Polly’s employer is Nigel Maitland, a crooked farmer with lawyers on tap, his daughter was in a relationship with Polly.

Lou needs a result before the case goes cold and her resources get re-assigned. She’d be happy to lose her DI, Andy Hamilton, the pair have some uncomfortable history, but one of her team is about to get themselves in way over their head.

The Word Exchange, Alena Graedon

A debut novel, set in the near future. Print is dying and language, the very fabric of what makes us human is under attack. Ana Johnson works for her father Doug at one of the only two dictionaries left in print. The night he disappears is the night that Ana begins to fall out of love with the technology that her generation have become so dependent on.

Ana, her friend Bart and the dwindling members of the Diachronic Society are the only obstacles standing in the path of the mighty Synchronic Corporation’s crusade to own language but even Synchronic have no idea of the firestorm they are about to unleash.

Graedon has taken our current technology obsession and extrapolated from there, you might cut down on your smartphone use after reading this.

Murder in Pigalle, Cara Black

Aimee Leduc and Rene her partner at Leduc Detective have plenty of work. With Paris in the sweaty grip of world cup fever and Aimee feeling like a beached whale as she enters her second trimester, everyone keeps telling her to slow down. Aimee is doing the opposite.

A serial rapist is attacking young girls in their own homes and when he escalates to murder and Zazie, the daughter of the proprieter of Aimee’s favourite café goes missing, Aimee isn’t going to wait around like the flics. Zazie is running out of time, it may already be too late.

The Enchanted, Rene Denfeld

An unnamed prison, a death row inmate: who was a lifer before the ‘incident’ and used to spend all his free time in the prison library. He contrasts the brutality of prison life with the ability to roam through the literary images stored in his head.

Not all are prisoners. There are the fallen priest, the warden, the corrupt guard and the lady. The prisoner worries for the lady, her job is to exonerate death row inmates and her latest project is York, who thinks the world would be better without him in it.

The enchanted is a strangely beautiful little novel about life, death and redemption.

The Accident, Chris Pavone

Dawn in Manhattan and literary agent Isabel Reed just finished reading an explosive manuscript (author anonymous). An expose of a powerful man with equally powerful friends; friends who still stoop to any means to stop publication.

Some say it’s a hoax. Isabel is convinced that this is the real deal but even she never anticipated the shocking truths and lies exposed by the author.

Settle in for this literary thrill ride, from the author of The Expats.

Blood Will Out, Walter Kirn

Part 48 hours part memoir, Kirn details his fifteen year friendship with Clark Rockefeller. They first met when Kirn transported a hunting dog for Rockefeller and Kirn makes no bones that he wanted to cultivate the young and rather secretive banker from that famous family. He’d be great material but he had no idea how great.

At the time Kirn was an aspiring author ‘Up In the Air’ hadn’t happened yet and he helped out with the dog thing as a favour for some friends in his new home of Montana. When Clark asks if he can come to stay for a couple of weeks Kirn, now a new father with writing deadlines to meet turns him down and as we’ll see it’s a good job he did.

Knightley and Son, Rohan Gavin

Shrublands nursing home currently houses one of the world’s great detectives, Alan Knightley. Comatose for almost four years, his only regular visitor, his teenage son Darkus (aka Doc)

Darkus, now living with his mum Jackie and stepfather Clive (a TV presenter on a cut-price version of Top Gear) has been reading his dad’s case files, unknowingly adding ‘the knowledge’ to his already agile brain.

Knightley senior emerges from his coma just as The Code a new self-help release tops the best seller lists. The book has been having a weird effect on select members of the public, making them do bad, sometimes unspeakable things. Knightley, convinced that shadowy organization ‘the combination’ are behind it somehow, picks up his investigation right where he left off, except the hard drive containing his case files has vanished. The only copy is in Darkus’s head, which puts Knightley junior and his brainy stepsister Tilly right in the firing line as Alan Knightley keeps dozing off at the most inopportune moments. The pair take on ‘the combination’ with the help of Uncle Bill from SO42, Knightley’s housekeeper Bogna who wields a mean frying pan and is also a great cook and occasional help from Jackie and hindrance from Clive.

Unlike some middle reader books where the adults are ciphers, Knightley and Son has a cast of rich characters, fun, excitement and dangerous situations all served up with lashings of humour, more please!

Seven Grams of Lead, Keith Thompson

The news site RealStory, run by high profile blogger and investigative journalist Russell Thornton has broken some major coups in its time but Thornton is about to become his own headline.

A soviet scientist is dead and the while the media are busy blaming the Russians thereby jacking up the tension between Russia and the US, Thornton voices a different opinion causing someone high up to take a rather unusual interest in him. One of Thornton’s sources just got erased and he’s been turned into a walking transmitter. What Thornton discovers will bring a whole new meaning to the word ‘insider’ and what he doesn’t know is that he’s the only thing standing between a catastrophic attack that could wipe Washington DC off the map for good.

Shadow Protocol, Andy McDermott

Agent Adam Gray isn’t a mimic or a memory man. He’s a crack operative armed with a new ultra secret technology which enables him to download another personality over his own. For 24 hours he can become America’s greatest enemy, a sleazy card sharp or a nuclear scientist complete with all the mannerisms and speech patterns, then he’s back to being Adam Gray again.

New addition to Adam’s team Dr. Bianca Childs awakens the realization that he has no memory of who he was before he joined the ‘Persona’ program. Could it be that the greatest threat to America is Adam Grey himself?

Never heard of S J Bolton?

Nope, neither had I until I happened to be thumbing through 'Deadly Pleasures best books of 2013' and saw the blurb for her book, Dead Scared. I was a bit confused at the time because I saw the SJ and tacked Watson onto the end of it. SJ Watson wrote Before I Go To Sleep so you can see how easy it was to make that mistake.

Having worked this out I ordered a copy of Now You See Me, the first in the Lacey Flint series and wow. Even though the book is about a serial killer who seems to want to keep young DC Flint very close to the case, it's not that gory, your imagination fills in the blanks. The plot is the definition of twisty turn-y and just when you think you know what's going on the action shifts. It's clever without arrows saying 'look at me I'm clever' I loved it. Dead Scared is on order. NB Bolton has written other stand alone books, including Awakening, Lost and Blood Sacrifice.

The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches, Alan Bradley

"The Gamekeeper is in jeopardy."

So says the stranger on the station platform. Before Flavia de Luce can find out more the man has an unfortunate accident. Harriet is coming home to Buckshaw one final time and to distract herself from her mother's impending return, Flavia raids the attic, unearthing an old reel of film. Footage of her mother and father in happier times.

As Harriet's funeral draws ever closer questions crowd Flavia's mind, who shot the footage? how many branches of the De Luce family are there? and why on earth are those in the know talking about pheasant sandwiches?

Flavia hatches a plan to resurrect her mother and the De Luce fortunes at a stroke, the plan veers off course but Flavia and her trusty bunsen burner are about to reveal a shocking secret one that could take her away from her beloved Buckshaw forever.

Blood Promise, Mark Pryor

Hugo Marston, head of US embassy security, is stuck with babysitting duty. His charge, blue collar senator Charles Lake is a potential presidential candidate. Lake is in Paris to sort out a minor diplomatic matter and bolster his foreign policy credentials. The talks come to a crashing halt when Lake accuses his hosts at Chateau Tourville of going through his papers.

The matter takes on a different complexion when fingerprints taken from the senator’s room link one of the guests at the Chateau to an unsolved crime. A murder that unearthed a secret dating back nearly two centuries; one that puts Hugo’s close friends in danger.

This is the third in the Hugo Marston series (Bookseller and Crypt Thief)

The Last Dead Girl, Harry Dolan

David Malone first met first year law student Jana Fletcher the night her car hit a deer. David and Jana have ten days together before someone ends her life and David becomes a prime suspect. Jana had secrets, the mark on her face, the trip to New York she never took, the innocence project, but she’s not the only one with secrets, David carries his own big one. Sophie.

David begins obsessing about the same things Jana did, but as he retraces her steps, he doesn’t realize that Jana’s killer is watching his every move.

The Red Pole of Macau, Ian Hamilton

Ava Lee’s assignment has a much more personal edge in her third outing. Despite only having met her half brother Michael in passing just a few weeks ago Ava’s on her way back to Hong Kong at the request of her father.

Michael and his business partner have money tied up in a lucrative land deal that is rapidly becoming a nightmare. Ava’s plan to rescue the business blows apart when kidnapping enters the equation. Hesitant to involved her partner Uncle in her family business Ava has to seek help from May Ling Wong who has her own reasons for wanting to mend fences with the forensic accountant. Ava is on a rescue mission and somebody is going to get hurt.

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, Peter Swanson

George Foss wished for a little excitement in his humdrum daily existence and as if summoned Liana Decter comes back into his life. His old college lover needs a favour and when it’s Liana that’s asking you say ‘yes’ hold on tight and hope to survive the experience. George’s real life femme fatale is about to get him in trouble all over again…

Happy 2014!

Another great year for books, some thrilling new series, newly established authors start to hit their stride and a trip to London with the mystery book club. 2014 is going to be fantastic. I'll give you a couple of for instances, Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson, should be on every Stieg Larsson fan's list. Blood Promise by Mark Pryor, third in the Hugo Marston series, Chris Pavone's The Accident will keep you glued. Andy McDermott's new series starts with the Shadow Protocol, as fast and tech-laden as his previous Wilde/Chase adventures. Under a Silent Moon, Elizabeth Haynes new police procedural, hope this is the start of a series. In true crime Walter Kirn's Blood Will Out is a fascinating portrait of a psychopath, whom the author considered a friend at one time.

There are many others so consider this a taster.

I do a regular 'mystery pick' on TKE's blog now and you can also find me on Riffle (which is way better than goodreads imho)