Marsh Heirs by Rufus Miles.

Let's run back to the 80's and imagine we are in Suffolk, hiding around an old country estate that has been handed down from generation to generation. Welcome to Marsh Heirs, a very British black comedy.

Forget that we are now living in 2019, this black comedy is a HOOT! It is told very much in the style of the successful television comedy Benidorm. Forget Political Correctness, this is how people talked in the 80's AND how old people talk and think now.

I really enjoyed this book AND found it VERY easy to relate to. It is all about old people behaving badly and should simply be viewed as a bit of fun. I told my wife (who is 7 years older than me) about this book and she did not find it funny and told me NOT to talk like that. Words and phrases that I use every day are used repeatedly in this book YET she declares I should NOT use them! Oh well, I found this book awfully British and at 60 years of age thought it was a GOOD read.

I think that the character development of these elderly people is VERY good, especially Freddie's trips across the marshes. The dialogue between the characters is SPOT ON and it is how our generation talk and think.

Okay, Rufus has taken a few risks with his novel but lighten up folks, this is labelled a black comedy on the cover. Old people DO have views on sex AND skin colour BUT don't call us perverts or racists. At least we enjoy the life we have AND believe the same as the murdered British MP Jo Cox when she said "We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us."

The whole theme of this book is one of community and what binds us together.  Although there have been critics of this book, please simply read this story as a black comedy and enjoy it for what it is, a fun 4 star read.

Marsh Heirs was written in 2011 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Evil Beneath by A.J. Waines.

Juliet Grey is a psychotherapist working in London. She receives a text message from a withheld number that starts a voyage of discovery for her.

I found this crime thriller to be an okay read. There were plenty of codes that became clues for Juliet to decipher from anonymous text, email and voice messages. There was a good range of suspects who fit the frame. There was plenty of detail that pointed to each suspect. But a lot of things were convenient for Juliet and the plot. There was no need for Juliet to stick her nose into the police investigation. It was unrealistic how Juliet could work alongside the police in the solving of the murders.

The writing of the story made for a cosy read but as it went on became a little tiresome. When the police thought the bad guy may have gone away I would have been happy for the book to end as unsolved crimes. I found it a little tiresome towards the end but ALL the loose ends were tied up in the epilogue, which is good. One guy I had big suspicions about did not have ANY part to play in the crimes and this book was GOOD at misdirection.

Although I found the plot AVERAGE, I did enjoy the extra bits concerning Juliet's day job and the inclusion of a character with Asperger's. It was good to see our world from a different mindset. All in all, I found this book to be a 3 star bread and butter read.

The Evil Beneath was written in 2013 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Girl in the Bed of Snakes by RJ Law.

Claire Foley goes off with Dominic on a little adventure. What could possibly go wrong after being charmed by this wealthy man?

The Girl in the Bed of Snakes is a short thriller of just 34 pages. At the end it asks "Get Claire Foley's whole story in the full-length novel. (All you need is an email address!)"

This short novel got off to a bad start, I could not connect with Claire or Dominic. Page after page droned on and on with scene setting where nothing significant happened. Character development of Claire and Dominic was extremely shallow. This reading experience was like being a passenger on a bus in an unknown city watching but not understanding the other passengers who boarded or alighted.

I found very little meaning in this novel and the dramatic ending made no sense. It all seemed like a little teaser for the full novel. But it did not tease me as I found it a bore. I thought the writing quality was VERY POOR and the plot PUERILE.

Will I bother to get the full novel? No chance! On the strength or rather the weakness of this taster, I will not waste my time reading such low grade, childish rubbish. This wannabe author gets the minimum score of 1 star from me as I have read more interesting bus timetables in my life.

The Girl in the Bed of Snakes was written in 2019 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

Mind The Gap! By Kim Guinan.

Mind The Gap! is a psychological thriller set mainly in London. Gemma Atkinson and her best friend Carly Rogers both have boyfriend trouble, follow them as they sort out their relationships.

I enjoyed reading this novel, it has a great tension running right from the start. The story plays on your mind as you quickly develop your doubts about ALL the characters in this book. All along you have bits and pieces from the nameless bad guy and as you read further ANY character could be them.

Kim's writing quality is good deploying an adult, extensive, intelligent and varied vocabulary. She uses lovely turn of phrases like "get a wriggle on".

Mind The Gap! is a strong character driven novel and her character development is spot on. I found the plot development to be good and it was lovely that there was not one big plot but three smaller plots involving the characters making this novel like a television drama series.

I found Mind The Gap! to be a GOOD read that fits squarely in the psychological thriller genre. I think that Kim shows great potential and her book gets 4 stars from me. I loved the ending to her novel but Transport for London may not feel the same way!

Mind The Gap! was written in 2019 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

What No One Noticed by Sandra Robert.

Can Detective Ted Guttenberg help solve the cases of missing women who are sadly later found dead?

This crime thriller is set in America and Ted is an old school cop who uses his skills to catch the bad guy. The theme of this novel is reflected in the title and revolves around the concept of hidden within plain sight. This bad guy hangs about unnoticed and then abducts the victim. This story is told from two angles, the police and the bad guy.

Sadly Sandra has not had her novel proof-read, the typos and wrong words greatly reduce reading enjoyment as your brain deciphers what Sandra is trying to put across.

The fun had by the bad guy is quite graphic and I was quite surprised that a female author could write in such a randy old man way. Oh the bad guy does like to tickle the victims!

I found the plot quite average but the chase given by Detective Ted Guttenberg went on for a very long time. This drawn out investigation was quite dull and it was easy to begin to lose interest and imagine the bad guy had simply got away and was hiding somewhere else in plain view.

I found What No One Noticed to be an okay 3 star read, let down by lack of proof-reading and a so-so plot with a no-special-techniques routine criminal investigation.

What No One Noticed was written in 2019 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

The Brighton Maverick by Scott Chadwick.

This debut novel centers on people living and working in Brighton. It includes their business and personal lives as they make their way through life.

I was disappointed by The Brighton Maverick and feel that it does not work as a book. I did not get any reading pleasure from this novel which I found to be like your average television soap opera. It has a big mixture of characters ticking all the boxes for diversity. Young and old, gay and straight.

I plodded through this dull story and found nothing bright to spark my interest. My whole reading experience was like having the television on when my wife is engrossed in one of her many soap operas. Yes, relationships develop around a weak plot but nothing to excite the reader. The only snippets of interest were paragraphs about retail and how shops work.

I finished reading The Brighton Maverick and was relieved to be able to move onto another book. I was just glad it was over and consider this dull novel to be a POOR 2 star read.

The Brighton Maverick was written in 2014 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

Beneath the Watery Moon by Betsy Reavley.

Annabel is 23 years old and has been discharged from Redwood hospital in Suffolk where she had treatment for manic depression. Can she turn her life around, maybe a holiday in Southwold can help?

The cover promises “A psychological thriller with a stunning twist” but I was neither thrilled OR found anything stunning, never mind a twist. I found Beneath the Watery Moon to be a tiresome drag of a book. I very quickly lost any empathy for Annabel and when a gardening tool came into “play”, I could not care about her anymore. I thought this debut novel was a dreadful read and if ALL books were of such poor quality, then I would take up another hobby.

I found the shifts between dreams and reality were frustrating. The writing was dreary and became a drag. Betsy rambled on and on about nothing, making your head feel like cotton wool. The story lacked focus, the plot was amateur and the ending was bad. I think this book is RUBBISH and is a book to be AVOIDED.

I vote Beneath the Watery Moon the minimum score of 1 star and I shall not bother reading another of Betsy’s books.

Beneath the Watery Moon was written in 2014 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.