Book Review : The Word Is Murder By Anthony Horowitz

Diana Cowper walks into a funeral directors to plan her own funeral..... 6 hours later she's been strangled to death.  The case is immediately passed to detective Daniel Hawethorne a man of almost sherlock holmes levels of eccentricity and genius .
Every good detective needs a good partner or sidekick and Hawthorne's sidekick is..... Anthony Horowitz himself , albeit a fictionalised version.  the two characters are hilariously mismatched but i think that's the reason it works so well.  Hawethorne is the genius detective and the fictionalised Horowitz is comically out of his depth.

Horowitz putting a fictionalised version of himself in his own book works rather well the idea being that the fictional Horowitz follows Hawthorne around while he tries to solve one of the most baffling murders i've ever read about.

I consider it a badge of honour that i can read crime novels and try to guess who the murderer was and getting it completely and utterly wrong, happily with the word is murder i got it wrong  my money was on the father of the children that Diana Cowper mowed down in a tragic accident , killing one and leaving the other severely disabled. Or was it the famous son ? Or even the funeral director himself?  Hawthorne soon realises that Diana Cowper had no shortage of enemies. 

There is a fair bit of name dropping in the word is murder but it hasn't been overdone, the scene where Horowitz takes a meeting with stepehen spielberg, only for Hawethorne to barge in   is particularly amusing, as is the scene at Cowpers funeral where an alarm clock playing a  children's nursery rhyme goes off from inside the coffin, i may be going to hell for laughing at that as much as i did.
Overall the word is murder is the most original and  ridiculously entertaining thriller i've read in a long time and i cant wait to see what Horowtiz has in store for the next book in the series.

Also worthy of a mention is the brilliant Narration from Rory Kinnear .
Verdict : Cracker

Book Review : Hell To Pay By Rachel Amphlett

The Kay Hunter books are something of a rarity for me, a series i've been reading right from the start . The books only seem to get better with every installment

The first three books were  stand alone thrillers with a sub storyline about an investigation that went wrong when crucial evidence went missing.

That story line has run alongside the main plot of the first three books but in hell to pay Amphlett brings it to centre stage . Cleverly tying it in with a grisly car accident at the begining ,when the team find something in the boot of the car that really shouldnt be there...... a body.

Kay's tormenter throughout the previos books is  a gangster , the menacingly named Jozeph Demiri. A nasty bastard who deals in everything from strip clubs and drugs to selling snuff movies on the dark web.

What follows is a near breathless game of cat and mouse between Hunter and Demiri culminating in a terrifying seaside showdown that really makes you question if Hunter will get out of this one alive.....

Hell To Pay is a cracker of a thriller and it does a nice job of tying up the storyline that’s been running through the previous book

 Kay Hunter is now right up there with my two favourite detectives, John Rebus and DCI Alan Banks . I wonder what would happen if those three found themselves having to work together.....

Hell to pay is one of my standout books that I’ve read this year so far  . The other one being the new James Bond novel. If that isn’t high praise I don’t know what is.

Verdict 

Cracker

Book Review : Sleeping In The Ground By Peter Robinson

Book Review : Sleeping In The Ground By Peter Robinson

 The 24^th DCI Banks novel starts with  a wedding and a funeral. Banks is attending the funeral of his first love , Emily leaving him in a bit of a sombre mood . Back in Eastvale meanwhile a beautiful local model called Laura Tindall is getting married ,then an assassin opens fire and the man banks and co think pulled the trigger is later found dead in his basement , having apparently committed suicide.......

 Naturally its not quite the slam dunk that banks and the team were hoping for as it seams that the dead suspect Martin Edgeworth may not have committed the atrocity at all , so the question that plagues Banks is if he didn’t do it who did?

Elsewhere banks finds finally finds out why Emily dumped him after an old friend of theirs reveals all,  wont but lets just say it rocks him a bit and makes him reconsider his whole life

So, whats the verdict then ? well Sleeping In The Ground starts well but it goes down hill after 150 pages or so because , well? Not a lot happens really , its not boring it just bogs down a little . that said though the last 100 pages or so more than make up for it , the final act takes place in an almost monsoon like rainstorm with new recruit Gerry Masterson going after a gun wielding maniac all by herself with no back up. its masterfully written and easy to on screen.

All in sleeping in the ground is an enjoyable entry to the Banks series and is worth a read . and it serves as proof that after 24 Banks novels Peter Robinson is near the top of the crime writing game, which as a fellow Yorkshireman makes me very, very happy

Vedict : Good

Reacher Ranking

Ranking: The Jack Reacher Books

This post has been some time in the writing as it was going to be a ranking of all 22 Jack Reacher books but that proved to be way too difficult  , so here’s a more reasonable top 5:

1: Bad Luck and trouble

Bad Luck And Trouble sees Reacher reunited with his old army buddies to get revenge after one of their old unit was thrown out of a helicopter. From start to finish its classic Reacher, small wonder it’s the world’s second favourite Reacher book and is , apparently the next in line to be made for the big screen. Bring it on.

2.Worth Dying For

Worth dying for follows 61 hours in a sort of series within the series with Reacher, trying to get back to his old military unit in Virginia to meet up with his successor Major Susan Turner. He does get there but not in worth dying for or the book after that. Worth dying for is a completely stand alone story apart from the Turner connection.

Like all good Reacher books this one starts with Jack minding his own business when he stumbles across trouble ,a small farming village is being terrorised and blackmailed by the Duncan family who use violence and intimidation to keep people in line . naturally Reacher is pissed off by this and sets about busting the rich family and their thugs heads one by one , but it’s the 20 year old case of a missing young girl that Reacher can’t let go .

3. Personal

When a sniper attempts to assassinate the president if France from an impossibly long distance Reacher knows there are only 4 men who could possibly have done it, 3 are accounted for . 1 isn’t. The main suspect is a man who Reacher put away any years ago and only Reacher can find him. Personal is bit different form the other books in the series as Reacher finds himself in Paris where amongst some almost spy like action there’s a rather sweet scene where Reacher visits his mother’s grave. Afterwards its a hop over the channel for Reacher’s second visit to England for a grand finale in the glamourous English holiday resort of erm, Romford, where Reacher faces down a gang imaginatively named The Romford boys. And his biggest enemy yet . literally.

Its classic Reacher and feels almost like a James Bond novel

4.The Midnight Line

The Midnight Line starts with Reacher stumbling across a tiny westpoint class ring in a pawn shop, Reacher immediately realises it belongs to a woman . he buys the ring and sets about getting it back to its rightful owner .  Naturally , being a Reacher novel it  gets more complicated than that  , the result being one of the best Reacher books In years.

5.  Gone Tomorrow

Gone Tomorrow starts in an unusual fashion Reacher is one a subway train and spots one of his fellow passengers displaying all the signs of a potential suicide bomber , who refuses Reacher’s encouragement to give herself in and decides to explode instead. And that’s just the first chapter. The rest ? its classic reacher and in a refreshing change the main villain is a woman , the fabulously deranged and deadly Lila Hoth.

Book Review : One To Watch by Rachel Amphlett

Book review : One To Watch By  Rachel Amplhlett

One to watch is the third entry in the detective kay hunter series following on albeit indirectly from scared to death and will to live .

Sophie Whittaker shared a terrifying secret. Hours later, she was dead.

Detective Kay Hunter and her colleagues are shocked by the vicious murder of a teenage girl at a private party in the Kentish countryside.

A tangled web of dark secrets is exposed as twisted motives point to a history of greed and corruption within the tight-knit community.

Confronted by a growing number of suspects and her own enemies who are waging a vendetta against her, Kay makes a shocking discovery that will make her question her trust in everyone she knows.

This is the third book in the kay hunter series and it may well be the best yet.

One to watch differs from the previous two books as the killer only strikes once. The poor victim being 18 year old Sophie Whittaker murdered at a purity party . Her murder opens up the proverbial can of worms and exposes a spiders web of secrets .

The main plot revolves around purity pledges and since this isn't something i know a great deal about it was interesting , if a little creepy to read about .

Revolving around a single crime means that you get an entire cast of characters to play the who dunnit game with and as ever i got it completely wrong  and i guarantee you will too.

Alongside all this is the subplot involving kay’s mission to identify and expose the people who very nearly cost her her job after an investigation gone wrong  , in one to watch Amphlett really turns up the wick with this subplot and i can't wait to see where it ends up.

On the whole One To Watch proves to be the exact opposite of a difficult third album , each book is more interesting, twisted,intriguing and funnier  than the last .

I can't  help but feel that One To Watch is the perfect way to describe this rising star of a crime series. All in its yet another home run for Rachel Amplett.

Verdict : Cracker.

Book Review : The Midnight Line by Lee Child

The Midnight Line is  the 22nd Reacher book following on indirectly from the sensationally good Make Me. In the Midnight Line Lee Child shows the world he's properly got his mojo back after a few hits and misses over the last few years. The Midnight Line is more like a  detective thriller than the previous book.

It starts innocently enough   with Reacher finding a tiny little westpoint class ring in a pawn shop.  Reacher immediatley sees that it belongs to a woman and being a westpointer himself  , he knows what she went through to earn that ring and is  intrigued to know what caused her to give it up and determined to give it back to its rightful owner.

Naturally enough it gets more complicated than that and Reacher ends up teaming up with the ring owners sister and private detective Terry Bramall who is the best Reacher ally in years .

Between the three of them they find the rings owner Rose Sanderson an ex army vet badly and gruesomely injured by an IED in Afghanistan .  The book also touches on the issue of injured army vets who end up being drug addicts when they get discharged and the opiod crisis going on in the states at the moment .

The Midnight Line is one of the best Reacher books in years . Better than Night School but not quite as good or violent as Make Me . Lets hope this years book has a few more bar fights . Though in this one Reacher does a pretty straight re enactment of the bar fight in the first Reacher movie
Verdict : Good