by Peter May '[Lockdown] was never published. British editors at the time thought my portrayal of London under siege by the invisible enemy of HSN1 was unrealistic and could never happen - in spite of the fact that all my research showed that, really, it could....... Lockdown was consigned to a folder in my Dropbox, …
Category: detective stories
Rebus 2022
A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin 'John Rebus had been in court plenty of times, but this was his first time in the dock.' So begins A Heart Full of Headstones, my second Rankin read of the month. Unlike Mortal Causes, it is set in the present day during the Covid pandemic, and …
Rebus 1993
Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin 'Big Ger Cafferty was looking good. He was fit and lean and had purpose to his gait. A white t-shirt was tight across his chest, flat across ths stomach, and he wore faded work denims and new-looking tennis shoes. He walked into the Visiting Room like he was the visitor, …
A Song for the Dark Times
by Ian Rankin 'The face was turned away from him, the body twisted and still. Rebus knew a corpse when he saw one - and knew a likely crime scene, too.' Rankin's John Rebus stories are always fun to read, and this one is no exception. Of course, Rebus is now officially retired, but he …
Strike Five
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (a JK Rowling pen name) 'She stopped moving before they had finished with her. She'd have screamed, of course, she couldn't have failed to scream, but there was no soundtrack.' The mystery at the centre of Troubled Blood, the latest novel by the creator of Harry Potter, is a forty-year-old …
How long is long?
Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George A Review Once upon a time, when I was reading lots of crime fiction, detective stories were relatively short. The crime, the investigation and the solution were wrapped up in two to three hundred pages. Much has changed. Compared to the works of Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. …
A Good Hanging
A Short Story Collection by Ian Rankin 'To be honest, if you were going to see Christ anywhere in Edinburgh, the Hermitage was perfect.' [from 'Seeing Things'] It's been a while since I read one of Ian Rankin's detective stories - Westwind isn't a detective story! - so I enjoyed dipping into these tales from …
The Body in the Bog
Broken Ground by Val McDermid A Review Published in 2018, Broken Ground is a police procedural set in Edinburgh and the Highlands of Scotland. Thus I couldn't resist delving into it. ' "I need you over here. This body that's supposed to have been in the ground for seventy-four years? He's wearing a pair of …
Before It’s Too Late
by Jane Isaac A Review 'A wet sponge touched my nose. I threw my eyes open. It was not a sponge. I shuddered, darted back. A rat.' It is always good to read a novel set in places one knows quite well. Before It's Too Late is one such story, a police procedural thriller based …
One Day At A Time
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton A Review 'As with Bell, my skin prickles when I see Ravencourt in the mirror. Some part of me remembers my real face and is perplexed by this stranger staring back.' This novel was a 'left-over' from my recent holiday. Having been warned that it was …
Bookheathen Scribblings 