A Cold Dark Place (Cold Justice #1) by Toni Anderson.

Serial killer time yet again in America. This time we have a rookie detective by the name of FBI Special Agent Mallory Rooney plus Former CIA assassin Alex Parker. These hetrosexuals meet when their work brings them together. They put their heads and bodies together as they solve some crimes and fall in love with each other. A Cold Dark Place is a crime thriller with some romance thrown into the story.

I found the plot of A Cold Dark Place to be okay although not exactly original. Have one character who used to work for the CIA and you can assume some dodgy underhand dealings. Alex Parker is your typical flashy glamourous male, another loud mouthed American. He has little respect for the law and his morals are shady. Mallory Rooney is a highly attractive woman who went against her parents wishes to work for the FBI. I did not relate to either of these two lead characters. Oh and the romance blossomed between them which resulted in lots of vanilla sex which became a bore to read.

Okay, people all over the world become attached to their digital devices. However, wherever Alex or Mallory went, they always had their laptop computers with them. These laptop computers were so integral with their lives and the plot, every movement involved them picking up their laptop computer before walking away. This became tiresome during A Cold Dark Place because nearly every scene involved picking up a laptop computer before Alex or Mallory did anything. Nose running, pick up a laptop computer before blowing on a tissue - only joking but you get my point. Thankfully in the heat of passion, Alex did NOT splash his laptop computer screen with semen!

I did however enjoy the rivalry between police departments and the hunt for the officer involved who was leaking information. Although towards the end the action became quite comic strip in nature, I really liked the final telephone call and felt that conversation could so very easily happen in real life.

Would I bother with the other books in the Cold Justice series? No thank you, I was happy to dip my toe into the series but there are other series in the crowded Kindle Store that I think will be more rewarding for me. A Cold Dark Place for me was simply an okay 3 star read.

Tuesday Falling by S. Williams.

Tuesday is 17 years old and she lives below the streets in tunnels around London. Tuesday has attitude by the shed load and this thriller sees her deal with the bad guys in her quest to right some wrongs and to help others.

I really, really enjoyed this novel. I found it very engaging and it was great to enter another world. Woven into this story was the concept of the possibility of a society living underground in London whom the ordinary population living above the surface are blissfully unaware. The reader then enters another world where the usual rules of our society no longer apply. But Tuesday regularly comes above the surface and boy, does she kick some arse! There is no messing with Tuesday, she clearly has a wonderful skill set and can get the job done. Tuesday Falling is not a sweet, sugary, girly, cup cakes and perfume novel, this girl has attitude. I found it an outstanding read as I could escape into another world, rather than more of the same.

Chasing after Tuesday to keep her actions within the law, are DCI Loss and DI Stone. As DI Stone says “What we have here is some whacked-out ninja super emo, roaming the streets, killing bad guys, and fucking with our heads.” There is some dark humour spread around this novel too, for example poking fun at smartphone users.

Characterization is spot on, not only with Tuesday but also with DCI Loss, DI Stone and Five. I found Tuesday Falling to be a thrilling story and a pleasure to read. It was very entertaining and fun to read. It was so refreshingly different to other British crime thrillers. The writing style was very adult and this whole book gave me such a buzz. Tuesday Falling is a debut novel but the writing quality is top of the class. The plot is very good indeed and I liked the ending. Tuesday Falling is one of my best reads this year and gets the top score of 5 stars from me.

In The Dark (DI Adam Fawley #2) by Cara Hunter.

Okay, this is the second in the DI Adam Fawley series but it can be read as a standalone. You do not need to know what happened in the first book. This is a good move by Cara Hunter. Yes, the old characters from the first novel who work in or for Thames Valley Police are carried forward and as I had just finished Close to Home, this continuation simply added further pleasure to my enjoyment of this book.

In The Dark is a police procedural set around Oxford. A young woman and a small child are found trapped in the cellar of an old house. DI Adam Fawley and his team at Thames Valley Police are on the case to solve this mystery.

I really enjoyed reading In The Dark. I thought the plot was very good indeed. I liked the strong characterization of ALL the characters involved, whether they were members of the public or the Police. Like the first book, parts were of content from broadcasters and the public using social media. I loved that breaking-news-story feel of this novel. There was lots of finger pointing and many, many leads for the police to follow. The ending was really good and I loved it when the full story was told from the point of view of the young woman who had become trapped in the cellar and another central character.

I thought In The Dark was a big improvement on Close to Home, which I voted 4 stars. The time-line of In The Dark was linear and did not jump backwards and forwards like Close to Home. You did not know more than the Thames Valley Police as the story progressed. Although DI Adam Fawley’s son Jake was mentioned yet again, it was not a distraction this time!

In The Dark has jumped up a gear from Close to Home. Well done Cara, I can find nothing wrong with your novel, so In The Dark gets the top score of 5 stars from me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Viking Penguin UK for giving me a copy of this book on the understanding that I provide an honest review.

Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1) by Cara Hunter.

8 year old Daisy Mason disappears from her family home in Oxford whilst her parents are hosting a BBQ party in their garden. Daisy appears to have vanished into thin air right beneath her parents noses. Detective Inspector Adam Fawley and his team at Thames Valley police start an investigation to find her.

Close to Home is a regular British Police Procedural Crime Thriller that is very easy for the reader to drop into. Although DI Adam Fawley is the main police character, he is part of a team and ALL the other police officers take a full part in this story. There is a diverse range of characters throughout this novel and they are all developed rather well.

I did however have some frustrations with the format of this book. The story floated backwards and forwards in time with the beginnings of each chapter clearly labelled as xx days before the disappearance OR the current day and date. You were then getting background and information that the police had no knowledge of, so you were at times ahead of the police. You are drip fed the story of DI Adam Fawley’s son Jake, tiny piece by tiny piece and this is not essential to the plot but is a distraction. As the story unfolds, things develop to show that every single character may have been responsible for the disappearance of Daisy Mason. Totally ignored is the assumption of innocent until proven guilty and every character is made out to be the bad guy. It would have been nice to have characters who were really nice people and did not raise any suspicions of foul play.

Still, I enjoyed reading Close to Home and accepted the way Cara had chosen to tell her tale. I simply went with the flow and let this story carry me along. I tried not to think who the bad guy was and gave all the characters the benefit of the doubt. Then there was a trigger point towards the end when I thought, ah! I think I know what is going on here and earmarked one character as the bad guy. I am pleased that within the mountain of information thrown at the reader, I was able to spot the 2 vital clues and identify the bad guy!

All in all I think Close to Home is a GOOD 4 star read. It is not outstanding but is purely entertaining in the who-done-it sense of reading pleasure. I really liked that Cara used real locations in and around Oxford, where I spent some time in the 1980’s, rather than use fictional settings.

The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths.

The Dark Angel is the 10th novel in the Dr Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist, series of books. This time Ruth travels to the Liri Valley in Italy for a working holiday to look at some bones, meet up with an old friend, fellow archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli and to spend time with her daughter Kate. Ruth also takes along her friend Shona, plus her son Louis.

The Dark Angel is like meeting up with old friends. The characters from previous Ruth Galloway novels are carried forward. This novel gave me a familiar warmth as the old characters made their way into the story. It gave me the same feeling I get when I watch Gogglebox on Channel 4 television. Real people whose characters you get so in tune with, you can imagine they are your own friends and family.

The Dark Angel is similar to the other Ruth Galloway novels. It is a character led mystery and NOT a gritty crime thriller. Oh, there is a murder later on in this story but that just adds to the mystery!

I found The Dark Angel to be a lovely, warm, entertaining read. I really enjoyed reading this book and I was very comfortable with all the characters. Elly strongly develops all of her characters and her story is very engaging indeed. I developed a relationship with her characters as though I was the fly on the wall. The emotions generated by the story is similar to that excellent long running drama series on ITV television called Cold Feet.

I liked how Elly wove the issue of housing mobility into her story. Her characters made their point of view about what it is like to move away from your original home into another region or country. The Dark Angel is a novel centered around relationships, relationships between people, the area where they live and the history of the local area.

I enjoyed reading The Dark Angel and I feel exactly the same about it as I did with books 8 and 9. Elly writes her novels really well, high quality and with a warmth that makes you feel part of the story. As with books 8 and 9, I consider The Dark Angel to be a GOOD read and it gets 4 stars from me. I now feel like I have become a fan and you can count me in for book 11.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for giving me a copy of this book on the understanding that I provide an honest review.

Turn a Blind Eye by Vicky Newham.

Turn a Blind Eye is a police procedural set in the Tower Hamlets district of London. This is a debut novel and features DI Maya Rahman, who was born in Bangladesh. A school headmaster is murdered and Maya is on the hunt to find the killer.

I found this novel different to most police procedural crime thrillers. Although it is Maya’s day job to catch the killer, most of this story is focused on the politics of school governance. It will appeal to readers of the Guardian newspaper but I found the droning on about diversity and minority ethnic groups rather dull. I think Vicky overplayed the race card in her novel. Exploring at great length her mother’s use of the regional language of Sylheti quickly became a bore.

The characterization of Maya is good but the focus of the story gets confused when a number of chapters are from the point of view of the teacher who found the dead headmaster. This interrupts the flow of the story and reduced my enjoyment of this book.

The plot was okay but somewhat unrealistic. It was regular “lets point the finger at every character” as they all could have a motive. The police investigation was routine with no surprises. There was the usual obsession with computers, mobile devices and social media.

I think Turn a Blind Eye is an okay, 3 star read. It has a social message but is not an entertaining or thrilling read. It was like spending the day at the Labour Party conference, although Jeremy Corbyn tells a far better tale than Vicky Newham. For lovers of regular crime fiction, Turn a Blind Eye is a disappointment. I feel that Vicky has exaggerated the differences between people of different ethnic backgrounds living in London and that irritated me as her story went on. But it does give you something to ponder, rather than the hunt for the killer.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Harlequin UK/Harper Collins for giving me a copy of this book on the understanding that I provide an honest review.

Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris.

12 years ago Finn and Layla stop in a picnic area in France. Finn goes to the toilet block but when he returns to their car, Layla has disappeared. Bring Me Back is a psychological thriller.

I found this book very engaging. It had my head buzzing from the very start. B.A. Paris tells a great story that gets the reader really involved. You don’t just sit back and enjoy the tale because she puts these little lines of text into her script that make you wonder and question what is going on. There are many lies told within this story and you are forced to consider the many omissions made by Finn.

I liked the format of this book. Most of the chapters were from Finn’s point of view but the odd chapter was from Layla’s side. Each chapter was clearly labelled, some from Finn 12 years ago, some from Finn in current time and a few from Layla to rack the tension further up the torture scale.

The current day tension that Finn is exposed to is extreme. You can feel the psychological pressure he is under. Although he tells a number of lies and uses a lot of omissions to cover his tracks, I did feel a strong empathy for Finn. He was suffering from the stress brought into his relationship with Ellen and I had my head buzzing trying to work out the truth about Layla and her disappearance. I liked how this story forced me to think about why Layla disappeared, was she still alive, could it be this or that.

Although Finn is not married, he is sharing a home and in an adult relationship with Ellen. I liked how B,A. Paris explored the dynamics of adults living together - as though they were married - how they relate to each other and use personal space. I liked how love was explored in the context of comparing past partners to a current partner. I liked how the embarrassing question of “do you fancy my sister, if yes then more or less than me?” was handled. I liked how the issue of partner suitability from a man’s point of view was explored. This is not a romantic thought but how men actually think.

I liked the plot of Bring Me Back and the thinking behind it. I liked how the characters all had their part to play in this story. I liked how each of the characters could be the bad guy behind the Russian Dolls, the emails and the psychological warfare. I got a lot from this book and think it would make a great television series.

I found the writing of this book to be very high quality and it gave me just what I wanted from my reading experience. Bring Me Back is a psychological thriller that is at the top of it’s league and it gets the top score of 5 stars from me. Just for the record, I do NOT fancy my wife’s sister!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin’s Press for giving me a copy of this book on the understanding that I provide an honest review.