Our favourite fatal female returns in a new, standalone novella which brings Frank Westworth’s Killing Sisters series bang up to date. When we last saw the sole remaining killer sister at the end of The Redemption Of Charm, Chastity Weise was watching in horror as her target / mentor / ‘enemy with benefits’ / sparring…
THE ESCAPE ARTIST was originally a three-part BBC drama, deftly edited into two 90-minute movies and it works really well in this format. You can tell it’s an older production, dating back to 2013 or thereabouts, but it’s aging as well as a fine wine. This is top-quality British drama, an intelligent legal thriller with…
Five hard-hitting crime-thriller short stories, previously only available as individual ebooks, can now be enjoyed on proper printed paper in this second collection of novellas from Frank Westworth. The Stoner Stories chart the killing career of ex-military man JJ Stoner who uses sharp blades, blunt instruments and quick wits to discreetly resolve tricky situations for…
Homicide cops talk about the ‘unholy trinity’ behind most murders: greed, lust, revenge. In this hard-hitting collection of 22 noir tales you have all three motives on display, sometimes working in combination with one another. In ‘Gone Fishing’, an unreliable fella cheats on his best buddy with that man’s wife. When the cuckold extends an…
Despite the title, this is NOT part of the American Lucas Davenport ‘prey’ series, penned by John Sandford. Think instead of a contemporary version of the Hunger Games. But more deadly. With adults. Chained together in pairs. Being chased by bad guys with sniper rifles. Set in the Spanish hinterlands. Plus snakes. OK, so nothing…
The clue is in the title. This is Frank Westworth’s tenth JJ Stoner prequel short story, which has been eagerly awaited by fans of his hard man, Stoner. Essentially, these prequels fill in a few blanks in the story related in the Killing Sisters trilogy of novels, A Last Act of Charity, The Corruption of…
It takes real talent to find something fresh in the ‘American police procedural’ genre, but that’s just what author Kris Lackey does in Ten Acre Rock. County Deputy Hannah and First Nation police officer Maytubby share overlapping jurisdictions and a powerful sense of moral indignation. When the rulebook says they should look the other way…
From the blurb – female FBI agent takes over a new field office in Ohio, discovers a new designer drug, bumps heads with her boss, sizes up a jailbird snitch, people get dead all around her – you’d think this is a run-of-the-murder-mill, modern American crime thriller. Think again. Seldom do you find such unspeakable…
Top marks for that ingenious title, which effortlessly evokes the hazy shades of the sultry Floridian Keys where this murder (maybe?) mystery takes place. At the same time, that clever phrase rings big bells with readers of my era who cut our crime fiction fangs on pulp-fiction detective stories like the John D MacDonald novels…
Despite the title, most of the nine stories in this collection are better if you don’t over-think them. They are modern morality tales which consider some of the more challenging aspects of 21st century life in the light of long-established ethical principles. The majority are short and sweet and fairly straightforward; few contained any great…
Some stories are as much about place and people as they are about plot. This is one such story: a love-letter to the Alaskan wilderness and to the people who comprise its variegated population. There’s a genuine threat prowling the backwoods, of course there is, but the author devotes many more words to exploring the…
There were a few good things to come out of the pandemic, and this delightful confection is one of them. Anyone nostalgic for Narnia’s warm cosy glow should be suitably charmed by the author’s deft juxtaposition of sentimental childhood touchstones and the cripplingly ridiculous mid-life crisis of a third-rate actor. A thoroughly unlikeable fellow, protagonist…
I really should know what to expect when I pick up a sci-fi thriller by AG Riddle. After all, I’ve read half a dozen of them and they share a comfortable formula. Half geek: half boy’s own adventure. This means you get thoughtful speculative extrapolation based around solid contemporary scientific concepts – something of a…
Who needs a plan anyway? Everyone on the planet must already be aware of the vast line of Jack Reacher novels, from the very first – Killing Floor – right up to the present day, with authorship duties split between Lee Child (not his real name) and his brother Andrew Child (possibly not his real…
I’ve been a John Sandford fan since the Prey series started in the late 1980s. Back then, Lucas Davenport tracked down gruesomely grisly serial killers and brutally despatched them with grim efficiency – before falling onto bed with any attractive woman who could be extracted from her underwear. Since then Lucas has aged almost gracefully…
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