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

Book Review : The Time To Kill by Mason Cross

Book review. The Time To Kill By Mason Cross.
The time to kill( titled Winterlong in some countries) is the third entry in the Carter Blake series. Following on from the killing season and the Samaritan. Both of which are brilliant. So , is this the difficult third album? No. Absoloutley fucking not.
Plot:
It's been five years since Carter Blake parted ways with top-secret government operation Winterlong. They brokered a deal at the time: he'd keep quiet about what they were doing, and in return he'd be left alone.
But news that one of Blake's old allies, a man who agreed the same deal, is dead means only one thing - something has changed and Winterlong is coming for him.
Emma Faraday, newly appointed head of the secret unit, is determined to tie up loose ends. And Blake is a very loose end. He's been evading them for years, but finally they've picked up his trace. Blake may be the best there is at tracking down people who don't want to be found, but Winterlong taught him everything he knows. If there's anyone who can find him - and kill him - it's them.
The thing I like most about this plot is that Blake spends most of the time on the run from Winterlong and their  agents. A greedy IT buff named Byrant , who gets dragged into the whole sorry mess when Blake tracks him down.
Blake and Byrant could not be more different so the two of them have an interesting dynamic that starts off with a scepticism and fear on Byrant’s part and then a sort of begrudging respect toward the end.
He also manages to get Blake to open up a little and spill a few details about what he got up to in his winterlong days. Which made interesting reading and makes me wish Cross would write a full blown prequel with Blake before he left winterlong.

As ever with the Blake books the chapters are fairly short making it an ideal beach read , which incidentally is where I actually read the thing.

The action is there’s no other word foe it. Sensational. Especially the Bond film esque train fight sequence.
All in the time to kill builds on the reputation of its predecessors for being a thumping good read.
If Mason Cross delivers belters like this time and time again Jack Reacher is going to have to watch his back.
Verdict. Cracker.

Book Review : Will To Live By Rachel Amphlett

Will to live is the second book in the Kay Hunter series by Rachel Amphlett. Its the follow up to the brilliant scared to death ,one of the best books i read last year.
Plot.
When a packed commuter train runs over a body on a stretch of track known to locals as ‘Suicide Mile’, it soon transpires that the man was a victim of a calculated murder.

As the investigation evolves and a pattern of murders is uncovered, Detective Sergeant Kay Hunter realises the railway’s recent reputation may be the work of a brutal serial killer.

With a backlog of cold cases to investigate and attempting to uncover who is behind a professional vendetta against her, Kay must keep one step ahead of both the killer and her own adversaries.
When a second murder takes place within a week of the first, she realises the killer’s timetable has changed, and she’s running out of time to stop him…
Reading about someone getting hit by a speeding train is not for the faint hearted or the weak stomached especially given the amount of detail the author goes into, but I’ve seen Game Of Thrones so i was fine with it. 
Anyways it makes for an opening chapter that grabs you by the scruff of  the neck and doesn’t let go until right at the end.

This is the second outing for kay hunter and her team and i’m delighted to report that its the exact opposite of a difficult second album.

Its  a brilliantly written thriller that although gruesome in places is also very funny , theres a lot of slightly twisted cop humour in here.
Its no secret that I like police procedural stuff and I have to say that Kay Hunter, just 3 books in is already up there with the likes of  Bosch , Banks and Rebus.

Like most novels of this type its the third act where things really go off , the last 50 pages in particular when Kay and the team are in hot pursuit of their suspect wouldn’t look out of place in a big budget TV show.

Will to live is shot through with twists and turns , as ever i tried to guess who was behind these murders, trying to guess who was sentencing people to death by commuter train and i failed completely.

In conclusion then will to live is brilliant second entry to a jewel of a new series that I hope to still  be reading and enjoying many years from now. 
Verdict
Cracker.

Book Review : The Samaritan By Mason Cross

Book review: The Samaritan by Mason Cross.

The Samaritan is the 2^nd book in the brilliant carter Blake series.

Carter Blake is not a cop or a PI , Carter Blake isn’t even his real name ,with a past in a government black ops unit few have ever even heard of he spends his time now finding people that don’t want to be found, for a fee of course.

Plot:

When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered, LAPD Detective Jessica Allen knows she's seen this MO before.

A sadistic serial killer has been operating undetected for a decade, preying on lone female drivers who have broken down. The press dub the killer 'the Samaritan', but with no leads, the police investigation quickly grinds to a halt.

That's when Carter Blake shows up to volunteer his services. He's a skilled manhunter who shares some uncomfortable similarities to the man Allen and her team are tracking. As the slaughter intensifies, Blake must find a way to stop it . . . even if it means bringing his own past crashing down on top of him.

When young women start to be abducted and then murdered and dumped in the Hollywood hills, Blake recognises the killing style and starts to think it could be someone from his Winterlong days.

As the body count starts to stack up Detective Jessica Allen starts to realise she might be out of her depth and accepts Blake’s offer of help, flying in the face of her sceptical partner Detective Jonathan Marzocco, her bosses and the FBI.

The Samaritan flips between the present day and flashbacks to the past which help give us a bit of an insight into Blake’s past, but just enough to keep the mystery there.

What follows is an absolute cracker of a thriller, The Samaritan is every bit as good as its predecessor, The Killing Season. If the next two Blake books are as good as this it won’t be long before Carter Blake is every bit as iconic as that other loveable wonderer with a mysterious past: Jack Reacher.

Verdict : Cracker.

In loving memory - Sir Roger Moore

In loving memory -  Sir Roger Moore

Its more than likely that the world will never agree on who the best James Bond is. But if you ask someone who their favourite bond is chances are you’ll get one name come up. Sir Roger Moore.

That's certainly true of me, as a90's kid Pierce Brosnan is 'my bond' and yet for some reason he just isn't my favourite, don’t get me wrong I love pierce as bond but I prefer Roger Moore. Why? Who knows, I think it’s the fact he quite famously didn’t take Bond too seriously and just embraced it. Even long after he'd left Bond behind. Unlike a certain Scotsman....

It’s for those reasons then and more besides that the news of his death on Tuesday was something of a hammer blow. Celebrity deaths normally just wash over me but Sir Roger's passing? That stings a bit. Which is funny when you consider I never met him as much as I would have loved to.

Now I've got to be honest here as with the other fellas I haven't seen much of Roger's non-bond films or TV shows. In fact, the only one I can think of is cannonball run in which he plays a ridiculous man named Seymour Goldfarb. JR. A man who thinks he's Roger Moore. It’s as ridiculous and brilliant as it sounds and if you haven't seen it I urge you to buy the Blu-ray.

As for my favourite Bond moment from the Moore era? That’s a hard one. Those films are shot through with iconic moments and brilliant one liners that only roger could pull off without looking or sounding like a tit.

There is one that stands out though. And I’ll give you a clue ... “can you swim?” yes, it’s the submarine lotus from the spy who loved me, my favourite film of all time, and I’m not just saying that for the purposes of this post. I mean it.

So How am I going to remember the big man then? The simple answer is I’m going to enjoy watching his bond films over and over again, as well as diving into his non-bond work, reading his books and when I can donate a couple of quid to UNICEF the charity he was an unpaid ambassador for decades.

I’m rambling here so I’ll sign off by saying. Rest in peace sir roger, you'll be missed forever but you will never be forgotten.

Nobody does it better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isAUOa50wdA

Please donate what you can to UNICEF.

Book Title Q+A

A little while ago i was contacted by author Andrea Darby asking me to answer a few questions about book titles . I was included alongside two other bloogers : Sally from http://www.salsworldofbooks.co.uk/and Cleopatra from https://cleopatralovesbooks.wordpress.com/. Im reposting my answers here as i have no reviews to share right now. Thanks again to Andrea for asking me.

Is the title a significant factor when it comes to choosing a book?

Absolutely, but cover art comes first for me I think.

What do you look for in a novel title and what do you see as its function? 

It must be short and snappy; 5 words maximum. Apart from the cover art, the title helps you to form your first impressions of the book and, fairly or not, determines whether you buy it.

What novel titles have particularly impressed you?

 The James Bond novel that came out in 2015: Trigger Mortis, which is obviously a play on rigor mortis and an obscure Only Fools and Horses reference. I like one word titles too; simple, intriguing words like goldfinger, thunderball, scorpius, personal, tripwire etc. Paula hawkins new novel into the water intrigues me aswell

Any titles you’ve not liked?

50 Shades of Grey, sounds like a range of emulsion or something.

Has a book title ever put you off reading a book, or even turning it over to look at the back cover blurb?

No, I always look at the back cover or read a few pages. Even if the title’s awful it doesn’t mean I won’t buy the book.

Have you ever bought a book based on the title alone?

A Wanted Man By Lee Child. That book kicked off my love of the Reacher series and pretty much got me back into reading , so in a not insignificant way A Wanted Man is the reason this blog exists.

My novel is called The Husband Who Refused to Die. What are your thoughts on this as a title?

 It’s intriguing. Good title.

What genre would you assume it to be?

Psychological thriller.

 If you wrote a book about your reading life, what would you call it? 

 The Wanderer