A Poison Tree by J.E. Mayhew

Review by The Mole

A young girl is found murdered in a park and her shoes are missing. Clearly the killer wanted a trophy. DCI Blake starts to investigate and tries to find out about the shoes. He quickly uncovers a web of intrigue which includes solved murders going back many years. How can he unpick this web to find the killer? Or is it lots of killers? As more murders occur it becomes necessary to find a common link or start looking for multiple killers.

Complex is the word I'd use to sum this up. The more I read the less it made sense - and this is what Blake found.

Blake's mother went missing a couple of years ago as she seemed to wander out the house with dementia. Blake's personal life has, as a result, been in a continuous state of hold while he waits for news. And while he waits he tends for his mother's cat who seemingly has a grudge against him.

But Blake has a team that work with him and they each have their strengths and issues. Playing to those strengths, he has his team conduct their share of the investigation while Blake tries to pull it all together.

I loved this book not just for the plot - which was certainly a challenging one for me - but also for all the characters including the pet psychologist.

The author is a facebook friend of many years and so when I saw him share an invitation to sign up for his newsletter, I signed up. That enabled me to get a free copy of "Tyger Tyger" which is a short book that predates A Poison Tree. I found it so engrossing that I bought this book as a kindle edition so that I could read it on my phone. One day I may meet the author but I won't ask him to sign it!

Publisher: Zertex Crime
Genre: Crime, Murder mystery, Police Procedural.

Watch Her Disappear by Eva Dolan

review by Maryom



When a female jogger is found dead by the river, it's at first assumed that a serial rapist known to be preying on women in the Peterborough area is behind the attack. It's soon discovered though that the victim was actually a man part way through transitioning to become a woman, so the case is passed over to DI Zigic and DS Ferreira at the Hate Crimes Unit, and the perpetrator assumed to be someone who's been violently attacking trans women in the town. But as they begin their investigations, interviewing family and friends, suspicions begin to fall much closer to home ...

Watch Her Disappear is another excellent police procedural from Eva Dolan, featuring Zigic and Ferreira of the Hate Crimes Unit. The whodunnit aspect of the novel is particularly twisted and complex with a variety of suspects and motives presenting themselves, but it also gives an insight into the troubled lives of those who choose to undergo the trauma of sex reassignment, not only the casual bigotry they might meet in everyday life but particularly the reactions of those closest to them. Despite being married for many years, and having three children, Colin Sawyer had opted to become Corinne, to dress and live as a woman and to start the surgery necessary to complete the transition. While some of his family were willing to accept him in his new persona, for others it wasn't so easy, seeing him as an embarrassment and freak.
Zigic and Ferreira have a difficult task ahead to unravel all the various possible leads, with (at least) three possible lines of enquiry, and CID meanwhile trying to claim the case back as 'theirs', believing that the known but impossible to convict rapist is behind the attack. 

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Harvill Secker
Genre - adult, crime

The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne by Andrew Nicoll

review by Maryom

The small town of Broughty Ferry is a gentile, refined place - not like the city of Dundee "that sink of iniquity and depravity" just a few miles further along the coast - so its inhabitants and police force are especially shocked when Jean Milne, an elderly spinster, is found murdered in her own home, the victim of a frenzied attack. Alerted by the postman who notices Miss Milne's mail hasn't been moved for several days, if not weeks, Sergeant John Fraser is one of the first upon the scene and starts to gather evidence and witness statements, but, determined to resist the interference of the Dundee police, Broughty's Chief Constable Sempill calls in a renowned investigator from Glasgow, Detective Lieutenant Trench, a man who very quickly decides the frenzied attack must be the work of a foreigner or a maniac. The facts gathered quickly lead to a supposition that Jean Milne had a younger man, assumed to be her lover, staying with her at the time of her murder - and soon the hunt is on for him.


Based on a true unsolved case of 1912, this story gives an interesting glimpse into police methods in an almost 'modern' setting within the context of a compelling whodunnit read. The hunt for the murderer takes Sempill to London and Antwerp, following clues, conducting identity parades, and checking alibis - you might be tempted to think it unrealistic and far-fetched if the story weren't based on police records from the time! To a regular crime reader, it's obvious that the police haven't attempted to follow up on all of the clues but instead spent too much time trying to make evidence fit their sole suspect. Nicoll's interpretation of the 'ignored' evidence is interesting but even so I wasn't quite convinced with his version of events. That wasn't anything to disrupt my enjoyment of the novel though.
Nicoll does an excellent job of capturing the feel of a small early twentieth century town, the pride its police force has in being at the forefront of modern methods and techniques - the use of fingerprints, telephones and telegrams to aid their investigation - and its use of the press to inform, misinform and seek witnesses. In some ways, I wish it hadn't been a 'true crime', but that there could have been further investigations for Sergeant Fraser and Detective Trench. 

Maryom's review -  4 stars
Publisher -  Black and White Publishing
Genre - historical crime

Tastes Like Fear by Sarah Hilary

review by Maryom

DI Marnie Rome and her team have been searching for missing teenager, May Beswick, for twelve weeks, so when a girl is spotted leaving the site of a car crash, their first hope is that it might be her. But this girl, covered in scratches and dressed only in a man's shirt, has disappeared too, seemingly walking on auto-pilot, into the path of traffic but away again without harm. Following the trail of this unknown girl leads Rome and her DS, Noah Jake, into the world of homeless teens living rough on the streets and a sinister man who offers help and shelter but only on his increasingly controlling terms.

I've been saying this here and there on social media since I first read this, but it's worth saying again - I think Tastes Like Fear is Sarah Hilary's best book yet! It's written in a way to entice the reader in - alternating the investigation from Rome and Jake's point of view with first person insights into the world of the 'rescued' girls, using dialogue to set the scene, forward the plot and reveal character, and, of course, delivering a tense, tightly-plotted story-line.

With a mystery girl appearing and vanishing like a figment of imagination, not quite on page one but nearly, I was hooked immediately. Following the twists and turns of the team's investigation I was variously chilled, intrigued, shocked, and frequently surprised - for the shadowy world where runaways live almost in plain sight is one in which people are rarely what they seem to be; not only the man known as 'Harm', who is menacing and believable enough for the reader to feel the fear he radiates, but other characters as well. (I'm not going to list the others for fear of spoilers, though most parents won't be surprised to know that their teens keep all sorts of secrets from them)

Hilary's special knack has always been to get inside the head of her, frequently warped, characters, and she does that again here, entering the mindset of the teenage runaways, looking for somewhere to belong and call 'home', and 'Harm' who offers this to the girls; she presents even the villain as a believable complex person, for whom at times, it's possible to feel understanding if not quite sympathy.

As you'd expect, the villain's true identity is kept a closely guarded secret till the end, although, in retrospect, the clues leading to it were there all along, so it doesn't spring out as a total, unbelievable, surprise.

This is most definitely a series that goes from strength to strength, so I'm definitely looking  forward to what the author has in store for Marnie Rome and Noah Jake on their next appearance.

Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Headline Publishing
Genre - adult, crime, police procedural,

A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George

 review by Maryom


"Inspector Lynley investigates the London end of an ever more darkly disturbing case, with Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit.
The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge?
Following various career-threatening misdemeanours, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter with bestselling feminist writer Clare Abbott and her pushy personal assistant Caroline Goldacre gives her a connection to the Cambridge murder, Barbara begs DI Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime."

 First off, I'd better admit this is the first DI Lynley novel I've read. I've seen him - and side-kick Havers - on TV though, so I felt confident enough to jump into the series this far through and be able to pick the personal story line up without any worries. And it felt just like catching up with old friends - apart from a little oddness about hair-colouring (TV's Lynley is dark-haired, the books' version fair), Lynley and Havers are as seen on TV; he's upper class, debonair, slightly restrained in everything he does; she's scruffy, over-enthusiastic and likely to be led astray by that enthusiasm.
The story doesn't start with a dead body but about three years before, when William Goldacre finds himself driven to suicide - so the reader gets to know a lot about the characters who will eventually find themselves being questioned about murder. His family are certainly an odd bunch of people, all with seemingly twisted relationships, and dominated by the mother, Caroline, who through a combination of flattery and lies manipulates her husband, ex-husband, two sons and daughter-in-law into doing actually what she wants; only William's girlfriend seems able to resist her. This same mix has managed to gain Caroline a foothold in Clare Abbott's life - moving up from cleaner, to PA - where she tries to exercise the same control. Clare isn't so easily won over though.... I don't know if this is typical of Elizabeth George's story development but it certainly worked well here. I liked getting to know the characters well and get a feel for what might lie behind the mysterious death of Clare Abbott and, at times, would have liked to point Havers in the right direction rather than have her flounder about missing things that seemed apparent to me! That aspect aside, I really enjoyed it.


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Hodder & Stoughton
Genre - adult fiction, crime

The Defenceless by Kati Hiekkapelto

review by Maryom

Sammy is living rough on the streets in northern Finland after his asylum application was turned down. It's not easy, particularly during the long cold winter, but back in Pakistan he believes he faces death due to his beliefs so he's hiding out, living very much hand to mouth and turning to drugs to help get him through the days. Dropping by his friend/supplier's flat, he finds himself dragged further into trouble .... but oddly it's trouble that could lead to a positive outcome for him....

 When an old man is hit by a car late at night, it's at first assumed to be just another traffic accident, but Senior Constable Anna Fekete isn't so sure. Starting with the car driver's claim that the man was already lying in the road, things don't quite add up - and the more facts the police uncover, the less things make sense. Meanwhile her colleague Esko is trying to prevent the spread to Finland of a notoriously violent street gang, The Black Cobras...and somehow through the shady world of drug dealers and illegal immigration the two investigations seem linked.

I'll start with the important bit - I loved this! It's more than just a crime novel, but examines the issues that might lead to the crimes - why people might turn to crime or drugs or why people might be driven to leave their native country and seek asylum elsewhere - without for a minute letting up on the riveting story-telling.

There was something about it that made it feel, to me at least, more like real-life than a lot of crime novels do. It has a wonderful twisty plot with a multitude of threads running round each other, and even the smallest detail comes back as an important part of the investigation. There's the atmospheric setting of Finland in 'Spring' with temperatures still well below zero, deep snow still lying on the ground and the sea frozen enough to ski on! The characters are real fully-fleshed out people - from Sammy trying to dodge deportation to Esko with his offensive in-grained racist attitude. Anna herself was once a refugee, from Hungarian-speaking Serbia, and although she's lived in Finland most of her life she still feels a certain level of displacement, and of not quite belonging to either her old home or her new one.
This is the second of the Anna Fekete series but I had no trouble jumping in and catching up with her story so far, though I don't think too much about the previous story The Hummingbird has been given away. Kati Hiekkapelto might just be my new favourite Nordic Noir writer - I'm certainly looking forward to reading more by her.




translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

 Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Orenda Books
Genre - Adult,crime, nordic noir, police procedural

No Other Darkness by Sarah Hilary

review by Maryom

Digging away in his back garden, preparing the ground so his children can grow vegetables, Terry Doyle discovers a gruesome secret - a bunker left over from the cold war, and in it the remains of two small boys. So starts one of DI Marnie Rome's most distressing cases.....
The boys appear to have starved to death, having been deliberately incarcerated and left to die, maybe as long as five years ago. The first task for Rome and her sergeant Noah Jake is to identify the bodies, then begins the search for what appears to be a very cold-blooded killer. After all, who else would condemn two small children to such a terrifying ordeal.....

No Other Darkness is another great thriller from Sarah Hilary. Starting with the hidden bunker, a lot of the story seems set in claustrophobic underground spaces - enough on its own to terrify anyone like me with a dread of such places! Hilary's talent seems to be to discover the darker side of human nature and bring it to life - I found her first book Someone Else's Skin really disturbing because of this. This time the reader is slipping inside the mind of a very troubled woman receiving psychiatric help in prison for her past crimes - her anguish and despair is palpable to the reader, even though the prison psychiatrist believes her to be 'cured'. For me this aspect is something that makes Sarah Hilary books re-readable - although there are the usual number of twists and turns in the plot, the novel as a whole is more than a mere whodunnit.

As this is a second outing for Rome and Jake, we get to hear more about them and their troubled families - I'm not going to disclose anything here, but I think there's a lot more to surface for both detectives.

Just one quibble - does every strong woman HAVE to have an irresistible bad-boy in her past?

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Headline Publishing
Genre - adult, crime, police procedural,

Ruthless by Cath Staincliffe

 review by Maryom

At first an abandoned chapel going up in flames looks like just another case of arson but then a body is found amongst the ashes. Local thugs Neil and Noel Perry, both with previous convictions for arson, were seen in the vicinity but what motive would they have for shooting a harmless homeless guy? And where could they have got the weapon? While DCI Murray's team set to work on door to door enquiries trying to pick up leads, another building in the same area goes up in flames.....

Ruthless fits nicely in-between series 2 and 3 of the Scott and Bailey TV series, as Rachel is settling down to married life, or not, Janet and Ade are back living together but their marriage is definitely on the rocks, and Gill's husband is putting in a most unwelcome appearance. If you're a fan you'll know the set-up, if not the book gives enough back-story to fill you in, without giving too much away. I love the series for its strong female leads - there's not just the odd woman outnumbered in a male dominated department, but a more-or-less evenly split team, including Janet Scott and Rachel Bailey and led by the confident, commanding  DCI Gill Murray - this though is the first of the novels I've read. As I'd expected it very much picks up where the televised story leaves off, following the troubled private lives of the three women while they try to clear up a spate of arson attacks and murder. The plot is twisting, turning and unpredictable, but I think for once the drama in the lives of Janet and her elder daughter Elise might almost overshadow the police investigation.
Helped no doubt by having seen them brought to life on TV, the characters feel like real people that I can relate to, understand the conflict they find between home-life and work, and their desire to do the job to their best ability while still having some semblance of a normal life outside it.

It's definitely a book for fans of the TV series, but even if you've never watched it (why?) give this a read, you won't be disappointed. I really enjoyed it and will be reading more of the Scott and Bailey novels in future.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - adult crime fiction

Crossing the Line by Kerry Wilkinson

review by Maryom

Manchester is suffering from a spate of seemingly unprovoked, unrelated attacks - some serious, others less so. Newly promoted DI Jessica Daniel and her team have seemingly no clues to go on, so how can they ever find the perpetrator?
Meanwhile the anniversary of a police success is coming up - it's 25 years since The Stretford Slasher's reign of terror came to an end with his arrest and imprisonment. The police who helped put him behind bars should all be mighty pleased - shouldn't they?

Although I read the first of the author's teen dystopian series
Reckoning earlier this year, I've jumped into this series at book number 8, which is why this book languished for so long on the 'to review' pile. It didn't prove to be a problem though; if anything piecing together Jessica's backstory was another 'detection' in itself.
The story starts slowly with Jessica and her team rather floundering around with no leads to follow and no connection between the various attacks, but this gave me time to become acquainted with the characters before the action really kicked off. Jessica herself was a character I quickly warmed to - strongly-focussed, using dark humour to get her through bad days, able to hold her own in a male-dominated world.

An enjoyable read with several unexpected twists. The strong female lead, the Manchester setting plus the overall mix of dogged police work and unsettled private life make it rather reminiscent of one of my favourite TV cop shows, Scott and Bailey - so if you're a fan of that, it's time to discover Jessica Daniel.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Pan Macmillan
Genre - Adult, crime

The Dead Ground by Claire McGowan

"A stolen baby. A murdered woman. A decades-old atrocity. Something connects them all..."

review by Maryom

When a new born baby goes missing from Ballyterrin hospital, everyone at first assumes that it's just a one-off incident. Then a pro-abortion campaigner goes missing and is found dead - gruesomely.  She had plenty of people who objected to what she was doing, had even received death threats, but would anyone have actually carried through on them? Could there somehow be a link between the events? With no good leads to follow the police are still stumbling in the dark when another baby is taken...and a pregnant woman goes missing. There must be a link somewhere, but where..
All these baby-related cases are a bit close to home for forensic psychologist Paula Maguire whose personal life is in turmoil with an unexpected pregnancy- and no clear cut answer to the inevitable question Who's the father? 

The Dead Ground is the second of Claire McGowan's "Paula Maguire" thrillers - set in the Northern Irish border town of Ballyterrin where Paula grew up and to which, after years in London, she's now returned as a forensic psychologist working with a special 'missing persons' unit of the local police. I really enjoyed the first of the series The Lost with a strong female lead, and police and personal plot lines that complemented each other. Happily The Dead Ground continues in this way, proving to be another excellent page-turner, even though I guessed the culprit and motive before the police team did - sometimes I wish I could just step into a book and tell the detectives who to question and what to ask!  Paula's personal life and problems again twist round the police investigation - while she tries to come to terms with her unplanned pregnancy everything at work seems centred round babies too!

 Events unfold from Paula's point of view as the investigation progresses, so there's none of the 'getting inside the killer's head' which I'm too squeamish for. Don't mistake this for cosy crime though. The story opens with a particularly disturbing scene of IRA retribution but although the violence is at times gruesome it always seems relevant and necessary to the plot - not merely thrown in gratuitously.

In Paula and the police team she works with, McGowan has created some great, realistic characters; people that I feel I'm coming to know, with their good points - and bad. I'm really enjoying this series and looking forward to the next book, to the un-folding of some of the personal plot line and, most importantly, discovering who the father of Paula's baby is!

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Headline
Genre - adult crime

Paula Maguire Book 1; The Lost

Never Look Back by Clare Donoghue

review by Maryom

A killer is stalking the streets of south-east London - three young women have so far been found raped and murdered, barely a few yards from help, and the killer is getting more confident, convinced the police can't catch him. DI Mike Lockyer, in charge of the investigation, is in desperate need of a break, something, any thing, that will link the victims and put his team on the trail of the killer before he strikes again. His DS, Jane Bennett, thinks she may have a lead - Sarah Grainger has reported a stalker; an anonymous caller has been telephoning her, at first intermittently but building up to a dreadful night of hourly calls, and he may now be watching her house. Could this be the lead, Lockyer is looking for?

Never Look Back is a compelling, tense and, yes, terrifying debut. It starts with an immediate 'bang', in fact two - a prologue with an insight into the killer and his weird plans, immediately followed by a murder in Chapter 1. Admittedly, a crime novel has to start with either a murder or the finding of a body but somehow, told from the perspective of the victim, this one really got to me.
The plot is extremely well constructed without at any point feeling contrived. The police investigation twines nicely around Lockyer's private life - his troubled relationships with his teenage daughter and autistic brother, and a growing romantic liaison -  and all of these threads pull together at the end.  
Never Look Back is the sort of read that gets under your skin and will have you constantly checking over your shoulder as you walk down that deserted street - maybe best read in the safety of your own home.

Maryom's Review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Pan Books
Genre - Adult crime, police procedural