To the Dogs by Louise Welsh
Review by Annabel For Welsh’s ninth novel, she stays in Glasgow and it is a thriller, but this is not a third outing for her reluctant crime-solving auctioneer Rilke (cf:…
Argylle by Elly Conway
Review by Annabel Let me explain. This Thursday, a film called Argylle reaches our cinema screens in the UK; you may even have seen the trailer (IMDB link here). This…
Psalms for the End of the World by Cole Haddon
Review by Annabel It took mere seconds to say yes please to a review copy of this book – I read the words ‘1962’ and ‘physics’ on the publicity blurb…
Westwind by Ian Rankin
Paperback review by Rob Spence It comes as a bit of a shock to realise that Ian Rankin has now published well over thirty novels since his début in 1986,…
Cari Mora by Thomas Harris
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies The day my review copy of Cari Mora arrived I spent the afternoon strolling on Morecambe’s splendid promenade. The view across the Bay from the Naples…
To Kill the Truth by Sam Bourne
Review by Rob Spence We live in an age of fake news, propagated by politicians, celebrities and media organisations. Perhaps we always have – from the tricks of Elizabethan propaganda…
Star of the North by D B John
Reviewed by Annabel Very few westerners get to visit North Korea, and DB John is one of them – he’s seen the public face of this secretive country from the…
The Extremist by Nadia Dalbuono
Review by Marina Sofia You might be forgiven for expecting this book set in Italy to be translated from Italian, given the Italian sounding name of the author. In fact,…
The End of the Web by George Sims
Reviewed by Harriet No, the title doesn’t refer to a predicted end of the internet. This is a 1976 novel, written before such things were even invented. It’s taken from…
Running Blind by Desmond Bagley
Review by Annabel I’m delighted that the vogue for republishing the best thrillers from the 1960s onwards as exemplified by the books of Lionel Davidson (see here and here!) has…
The Girl in Green by Derek D. Miller
Reviewed by Gill Davies In the past, I have hesitated to read a novel that uses dreadful contemporary events as its plot and thematic focus, in case it feels exploitative…
Nothing Short of Dying by Erik Storey
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies Erik Storey’s début novel, which bids to inaugurate a series, comes garlanded with approving quotes from established authors Lee Child and Jeffrey Deaver and has been…
The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson
Reviewed by Harriet Is there no end to these amazing novelists who appeared to have sunk without trace and are now being revived for our pleasure and instruction? Lionel Davidson…
Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Harriet This is the third of Eric Ambler’s newly reissued novels I have read in the past few months, the other two being The Light of Day and A Kind of…
A Kind of Anger by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Unquestionably the best thriller writer ever’, says Graham Greene on the cover of this new British Library Crime Classics title, one of three they have recently published…
The Light of Day by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Annabel Ambler was one of the great British thriller writers and his works are ripe for reappraisal. They had gradually become out of print until Penguin brought out…
Fever City by Tim Baker
Reviewed by Annabel I was only three when JFK was assassinated, remaining blissfully unaware of the events that etched themselves into the psyches of everyone old enough to understand what…
The Good Liar by Nicholas Searle
Reviewed by Gill Davies This is Nicholas Searle’s first novel. He apparently began it while a student of the on-line Curtis Brown Creative Writing School, and they rushed to buy…
The Dark Inside by Rod Reynolds
Reviewed by Gill Davies This is the first novel by Rod Reynolds, a British author who is working comfortably within the conventions and settings of American crime fiction. I was…
The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagerkrantz
Reviewed by Harriet Reading continuations of series by celebrated dead authors is always going to be a bit of a gamble. I’ve had some less than great experiences, notably with…
The Lady from Zagreb by Philip Kerr
Reviewed by Linda Boa Well, after a short break, during which the ubiquitous Philip Kerr wrote Research and Prayer, Bernie Gunther has returned by popular demand for his tenth outing. To be honest, I think this…
Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson
Reviewed by Harriet I must admit that I’d never heard of Lionel Davidson before this novel came my way. I now know him to have been a celebrated writer of…
Spy Out the Land by Jeremy Duns
Reviewed by Rob Spence Don’t read this book. Don’t, that is, unless you have read Jeremy Duns’s previous three Paul Dark spy thrillers, because this continues the story from where…
Gray Mountain by John Grisham
Reviewed by Harriet I first discovered the novels of John Grisham over a decade ago, and had a terrific splurge, which I remember enjoying tremendously. Then things moved on and…
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