There is a new game afoot among crime fiction afficionados. Especially those who believe there’s nothing to match the rapidly expanding sector known as tartan noir. It is called Spot the Join. Or Find the Seam. Even Detect the Author. Or any of the many possible similar phrases. My own variation on this theme is…
Author Adele Parks is a tease. Relentlessly so. At least, judging by One Last Secret (paperback, HQ/Harper Collins, 2022) it seems she simply can’t help herself. She never stops. Just when you think you know what is going on, she drops another bombshell and lures you into reading on . . . and on ….
PERSONAL reasons had me well disposed in favour of this book well before turning a page. It was something I was silently rooting for, willing it to success. Thus the disappointment that descended well before reaching the thrilling finale was all the deeper and saddening. It was, in the words of a phrase rarely heard…
NEARLY choked on my afternoon cuppa. Spluttered and dribbled before disaster was eventually averted. Yorkshire’s finest it was, too. You know, the brew that guy with the accent as broad as the Dales is forever chuntering on about. Seems that the much adored novelist and regular tea drinker Jane Austen (pictured) has fallen foul of…
Living, coping and observing in the age of Covid #7 Jan 2021: I HAVE been on a bit of a downer. Today, however, I am showing a degree of positivity by using one of the slightly less pessimistic of the several D-words available to describe the recent state of mind and body. Yesterday the temptation…
CONFUSION continues to await avid readers of two popular series of crime fiction tales centred on Britain’s south coast. They can be left flummoxed, not so much by the intricate plotting but rather by the naming of the two main characters. One wonders whether there is mutual admiration or deep rivalry between the books’ authors,…
I HAVE been renewing acquaintance with an old friend. As always, it was a rewarding and compelling page-turning experience. It was also thought provoking, making me wonder yet again why so few Australian crime writers make it on to the international stage. Rather than becoming household names they are too often relegated to being the…
BRITISH readers’ love affair with all things dark, murderous and mysterious shows no signs of waning. Crime continues to come first choice among public library users, with children’s books a valiant second and daylight to all other genres. Thrillers, mysteries and crime fiction take eight out of the ten top places in the British Library’s…
It has been like waiting for a train when unaware that there has been a derailment further down the line. You wait in hope. At first, quite patiently, unconcerned. It will be coming soon. Gradually other emotions creep in. A slight anxiety, morphing into concern. What’s gone wrong? The train should be here by now….
As I was saying before … Before what? Before when? Why did I come into the kitchen? What am I doing here? Well, as I was saying … What was I saying? Something about … er … Hell, let’s start again. There’s this problem I’m having with memory. I hear mention of such terms as