Police Procedural Archives

Book review: Framed in Death by JD Robb

December 9, 20252 min read

Framed in Death by JD Robb was a score from a local second hand book store. Although I was a religious reader of the series I haven’t received a lot of recent In Death books for review so my reading (from book 53 and on) has been a bit hit and miss. So I was surprised to stumble over Robb’s very-recent 2025 offering. I always find it fascinating what Robb (Nora Roberts) envisages for our future… some of the books’ inclusions have already come to life (AI etc) but others (flying cars, off-planet prisons)… not yet. Though of course we do have 30+ years to catch up.

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Book review: What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham

July 18, 20252 min read

What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham is the 19th in the series featuring Detective Tom Thorne (and Nicola Tanner). I was a latecomer to the series, kicking off with book #13 in 2015. I was relieved a few books ago when Tom broke up with this then girlfriend and fellow cop Helen and moved on with a new love interest. For reasons I now cannot remember I was not a fan of Helen. And wouldn’t you know it… he’s back with Helen here. A reunion I somehow did not share in my review of book #18 The Murder Book, though I didn’t bemoan the fact so maybe whatever irked me about her has dissipated a little. She’s left the police now so perhaps the career move has made her less-irksome in my eyes.

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Book review: We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter

July 2, 20253 min read

I very much enjoyed We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter so was even happier when I discovered it’s actually labelled North Falls #1. Slaughter does such a great job developing the characters and their lives, so it makes complete sense not to waste fabulously rounded creations on just one book. In fact, part-way through the novel it felt a bit like I was really embedded in the lives of the Clifton family and community of North Falls as if we’d been hanging out for years. It meant I was somewhat surprised when just over a third of the way through I discovered the unfolding plot (where I was happily ensconced) had been in the past and we move forward twelve years into the present.

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Book review: The White Crow by Michael Robotham

June 21, 20253 min read

The White Crow by Michael Robotham is the second in the Philomena McCarthy series, featuring the young cop from a family known to dabble in organised crime. Again it’s the antics of her father and uncles that put her career in jeopardy but at the same time, when the so-called rubber hits the road, Edward McCarthy will always put his daughter ahead of his own safety and any money to be made from nefarious means. And I must confess I’m a sucker for soft-hearted bad-guys.

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Book review: The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan

May 26, 20252 min read

The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan sees the return of detective Cormac Reilly along with his partner Peter Fisher, who I recall featured prominently in the last book in the series The Good Turn. Here McTiernan again throws in several plots for the price of one, mostly unconnected but all as intriguing as the main investigation involving a body in a bog. And no, NOT a typo with me erroneously typing BOG instead of BAG, and… also not something I have the chance to say often! (Also googles ‘bog’ to check exactly what it means.)

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Book review: Burning Mountain by Darcy Tindale

May 3, 20252 min read

One of the things I really liked about her debut novel, The Fall Between was that it reminded me that most crimes are committed by those who are desperate or stupid rather than psychotic or plain evil. Burning Mountain by Darcy Tindale, the second in her series featuring Detective Rebecca Giles, is very much the same. It’s centred around an eighteen year old mystery—the disappearance of a teenage boy—but features those involved in the past and present and reminds us that mistakes or idiotic actions can have unexpected, and dire, repercussions.

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Book review: The Secret Room by Jane Casey

May 1, 20252 min read

The Secret Room by Jane Casey is the latest in the Maeve Kerrigan series and though I’m an intermittent reader of the series I loved the previous book (A Stranger in the Family) which left us hanging. Here, we have one case involving the locked-room death of the young attractive wife of a wealthy man, murdered while at her weekly tryst with her lover; and another featuring Josh Derwent (Maeve’s boss and erstwhile will-they / won’t-they love interest) coming under suspicion after his girlfriend is beaten.

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Book review: Whole Life Sentence by Lynda LaPlante

April 12, 20252 min read

I stumbled across Whole Life Sentence by Lynda LaPlante on my iPad while looking through books that were free as part of my Prime TV subscription. I completely missed its release last year but have read and enjoyed the series a lot. I picked that book nine, A Taste of Blood was nearing the point that (Young) Jane Tennison (reintroduced as a naïve, young—and rare—WPC!) becomes the crustier version we meet in Prime Suspect in 1991, before seeing a tweet by the author confirming book ten would be the last.

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