I made some assumptions about Find Her by Lisa Gardner when I read the blurb. And worried a little. I imagined the whole thing was going to be pondering the ‘is vigilantism ever okay?’ question, but thankfully it was much (much) more than that.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her mega millionaire hubby Roarke are back in the 42nd (yes, the 42nd!) novel in JD Robb’s In Death series. The fact Robb and our crime fighters are still going strong after 20 years is most certainly a testament to the consistency of Nora Roberts’ writing and her captivating (and slightly addictive) characters.
I’m fairly new to Tami Hoag’s work but enjoyed her last novel Cold Cold Heart, published in January 2015.
I hadn’t realised her latest, The Bitter Season, was part of a series but thankfully it made no difference and I was able to enjoy the book without knowing the characters’ histories. In fact she does a great job, adding context with minimal detail so readers don’t feel they’ve missed out and don’t have to endure four books worth of backstories.
I reviewed Alex Marwood’s The Killer Next Door just over a year ago (and enjoyed it) but the English journalist (who writes under a pseudonym) is best known from her debut novel, Wicked Girls… which I must get to at some point.
Her latest, The Darkest Secret, centres around the disappearance of a child and I must admit the 2007 case of 3yr old Madeleine McCann–who disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment while her parents dined nearby—came to mind as I tore through this novel.
According to Goodreads and my own somewhat-dilapidated memory, I’ve never read any books by France-based Scottish-born author Peter May. This surprised me as he has three series under his belt, a number of standalone novels and has been involved in writing for television in the UK.
Crime is obviously his passion and apparently, when working on a virtual reality-themed novel, he spent a year working as a private detective in Second Life.
His latest novel, Coffin Road came as a bit of a surprise as it grabbed me from the get-go.
There are a stack of series I love: John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers books; Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury/Melrose Plant series; Sue Grafton’s alphabet series’; Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books; and Robert B Parker’s Spenser series. And so forth. And possibly at the top of that list is JD Robb’s In Death series, which I’ve already raved about ad nauseum.
It’d been a while between Tony Hill / Carol Jordan drinks for me on the book front when Val McDermid’s 9th novel in the series arrived in my letterbox.
I’m a huge fan of the series and was a lover of the TV show based on the series (though vaguely recall losing interest for some reason which now alludes me. Was there a change of characters? Or perhaps it just finished?). Anyhoo… I excitedly tuned in for the latest instalment and was (again) forced to change dinner plans so I could read the book in a night!
I really enjoyed Michael Robotham’s 2014 stand-alone thriller, Life or Death. I admitted at the time I had been struggling with his series featuring psychologist Joe O’Loughlin, so the change gave me the respite I was looking for.
I didn’t find O’Loughlin as unlikeable as Nicci French’s Frieda Klein, but I really wasn’t really engaging with his character and couldn’t get a handle on who he was.
However Robotham’s latest (and the eighth in the Joe O’Loughlin series), Close Your Eyes sees a return to the Joe I thought I once knew.