Mike Stafford
Mike Stafford is an irascible Yorkshireman currently domiciled in Worcester. As an Energy Analyst, his daily life provides the perfect motivation for escapism into literature; he both reads and writes it with great enthusiasm. His book collection extends to crime fiction, philosophy, political treatises, biography, 20th Century classics and a hearty chunk of Stephen King’s oeuvre. When not indulging in these, he can be found despairing of the fortunes of his beloved Sheffield Wednesday.
God, No!, by Penn Jillette
Reviewed on November 6, 2011
In the interest of full disclosure, I am both a staunch atheist and an ardent fan of Penn and Teller. As such, there was an extremely high likelihood of my enjoying God, No! In this book, Penn Jillette (the louder, larger half of the world-renowned magic/comedy/skeptic duo), provides his own non-theistic version of the Ten [...]
Eva Braun: Life with Hitler, by Heike B Görtemaker
Reviewed on November 4, 2011
Despite the passage of nearly seventy years since his death, there remains a taboo around Adolf Hitler’s personal life. Some commentators are still more comfortable seeing Hitler as a monolithic monster, devoid of humanity. For them, Eva Braun presents a problem. A young, attractive and apparently vivacious woman who enjoyed an unremarkable childhood, she was [...]
A Means of Escape, by Joanna Price
Reviewed on October 31, 2011
A Means of Escape is the debut novel from Glastonbury’s own Joanna Price, and indeed marks the maiden literary voyage of publisher Aston Bay Press. It also constitutes the opening salvo of a planned series featuring DS Kate Linton, and her boss, DI Rob Brown. Price wastes no time, dropping a body in the reader’s [...]
The Platinum Loop, by Austin Williams
Reviewed on October 30, 2011
The Platinum Loop is the sophomore effort from American writer Austin Williams. In his first outing, the acclaimed Crimson Orgy, Williams took a comic-horror look at the world of splatter movies, introducing us to two-bit film producer Gene Hoffman. Hoffman returns in The Platinum Loop, which looks at an entirely different type of film. This [...]
The Killer is Dying, by James Sallis
Reviewed on October 25, 2011
James Sallis is no ordinary crime writer. Aside from crime writing, he has produced poetry collections, biographies, and books on musicology. It is perhaps no surprise then, that The Killer is Dying is no ordinary crime novel. Elements of the plot are typical enough; a terminally ill contract killer works his final job, pursued by [...]
In Plain Sight, by CJ Box
Reviewed on October 23, 2011
When only the best crime fiction will do, I reach for a volume of CJ Box. Thankfully, Corvus have spent all of 2011 bringing Box’s substantial back catalogue to British shores, so there are plenty to choose from. In Plain Sight is the sixth in the Joe Pickett series, bringing with it one of the [...]
The Consummata, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
Reviewed on October 21, 2011
When Mickey Spillane began work on The Consummata, Charles Manson was an unknown Ohioan drifter, King Idris was still in power in Libya, and the surface of the moon was still untainted by human boot prints. The sequel to The Delta Factor, Spillane shelved it after much frustration at the cinematic development of its predecessor. [...]
Choke Hold, by Christa Faust
Reviewed on October 18, 2011
If you’re in the market for sex, violence and sleaze, look no further than Hard Case Crime. Aside from boasting work from such luminaries as Mickey Spillane, Max Allan Collins, Lawrence Block and Ken Bruen, HCC’s attention to detail is impeccable. Their covers combine great artwork with bawdy, neo-pulp imagery, the fonts hark back to [...]
All He Saw Was The Girl, by Peter Leonard
Reviewed on October 14, 2011
All He Saw Was The Girl is the third thriller from American author Peter Leonard. That’s Peter, son of Elmore Leonard, owner of a pair of extraordinarily difficult literary shoes to fill. Fortunately for Leonard Junior, critical response to his work thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, even drawing glowing comparisons with his father. Hopes [...]
Collusion, by Stuart Neville
Reviewed on October 12, 2011
Collusion is the second thriller from Northern Ireland’s Stuart Neville. Following on from his highly acclaimed debut, The Twelve, Collusion has a lot to live up to. DI Jack Lennon returns, as does paramilitary contract killer Gerry Fegan, and several other characters from The Twelve. Each of them is in their own way still struggling [...]
The Faithless, by Martina Cole
Reviewed on October 10, 2011
The undisputed Queen of British Crime is… well, it’s Agatha Christie, but Martina Cole has spent the last twenty years having an almighty tilt at the title. Having sold 10m books, and recently become the darling of Sky1’s Thursday night programming, Cole writes gangland thrillers that are about as authentic as it gets. The Faithless [...]
The Blackhouse, by Peter May
Reviewed on September 29, 2011
The Blackhouse is the 17th novel from Scottish ex-pat Peter May. May, a screenwriter and prolific author of crime fiction, is embarking on a trilogy with this offering, introducing us to complex and traumatised Detective Fin Macleod. The tale opens with Macleod being dispatched back to Lewis after two decades of absence, sent to investigate [...]
Alphaville, by Michael Codella and Bruce Bennett
Reviewed on September 28, 2011
Alphaville is the true account of one NYPD officer’s career in Alphabet City, the heroin capital of the USA. Having retired in 2003 as a Detective Sergeant, Codella recounts the most action-packed of his years on the force, just after joining up in the mid 1980s, during the height of the crack explosion. The single [...]
The Invisibles Ones, by Stef Penney
Reviewed on September 27, 2011
The Invisible Ones is Stef Penney’s follow up to her Costa Award (nee Whitbread Award) winning debut, The Tenderness of Wolves. While The Tenderness of Wolves took us to the 1860s and the Canadian wilderness, The Invisible Ones takes us back to the Britain of the 1980s, and to the gypsy community. The family at [...]
Quarry’s Ex, by Max Allan Collins
Reviewed on September 18, 2011
If James Brown was “the hardest working man in show business,” then his opposite number in literary terms is Max Allan Collins. Collins, an author of novels, screenplays and comic books, has written more whole series than many authors have written books at all. Of those series, the Quarry books are among the most popular, [...]
Lethal Investments, by KO Dahl
Reviewed on September 16, 2011
Lethal Investments is the fourth English translation of the work of acclaimed Norwegian writer K O Dahl. It opens with the discovery of a murdered woman, Reidun Rosendal, stabbed to death in her apartment block. Dahl’s enduring heroes, Oslo detectives Gunnarstranda and Frolich are charged with investigating her murder, and their efforts are hampered when [...]
Saints of New York, by RJ Ellory
Reviewed on September 13, 2011
Saints of New York is the 8th book from Birmingham-born crime titan R.J. Ellory. The tale opens with Frank Parrish, alcoholic NYPD detective, trying and failing to talk a junkie out of a murder/suicide. From then on, trouble mounts for the beleaguered Parrish, as heroin dealer Danny Lange and his sister are each found murdered. [...]
The Silenced, by Brett Battles
Reviewed on September 7, 2011
The Silenced is the fourth in the Jonathan Quinn series, the creation of California’s Brett Battles. Battles picked up a Barry Award for his second effort, The Deceived, and his breakneck espionage thrillers have won him many admirers, not least Jeffery Deaver, whose gushing blurb adorns Battles’ latest dust jacket. In this most recent addition [...]
The Cut, by George Pelecanos
Reviewed on September 5, 2011
“Never judge a book by its cover,” says the old adage. While this may work as an analogy for prejudice based on physical appearances, in terms of books themselves, the phrase is redundant, and no dust jacket makes this more apparent than that of George Pelecanos’ The Cut. On the rear, Stephen King opines that [...]
88 Killer, by Oliver Stark
Reviewed on September 3, 2011
88 Killer is the follow up to Oliver Stark’s acclaimed debut, American Devil. NYPD Detective Tom Harper returns, aided (as he was in American Devil) by police psychotherapist Denise Levene, as they investigate the particularly gruesome murder of lawyer’s son, David Capske. Capske is found dead, wrapped tight in barbed wire, having been tortured for [...]
Bloodland, by Alan Glynn
Reviewed on September 1, 2011
Bloodland is the third thriller from Alan Glynn, author of The Dark Fields (now known as Limitless since being brought to life on screen by Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper). Where The Dark Fields was, as Glynn calls it, “a pharmaceutical Faust,” Bloodland is a far more complex affair, taking the reader from recession-blighted [...]
Headhunters, by Jo Nesbo
Reviewed on August 29, 2011
Headhunters is the most recent offering from Scandi wonderboy Jo Nesbo. A departure from the Harry Hole series, it is a standalone that introduces us to successful headhunter Roger Brown. Brown is the best in the business; his word is his client’s bond, his recommendations of candidates enjoying a 100% success rate. As if that [...]
The Stranger You Seek, by Amanda Kyle Williams
Reviewed on August 25, 2011
The Stranger You Seek is the opening salvo in a new series from freelance writer Amanda Kyle Williams. Set in Atlanta, Georgia, it introduces us to a spunky new heroine, former FBI criminal profiler Keye Street. Street tears up several of the clichés of the genre. She is Chinese-American and physically non-imposing (coming in at [...]
The Red Coffin, by Sam Eastland
Reviewed on August 23, 2011
The Red Coffin is the sophomore effort from Sam Eastland. Eastland’s debut, Eye of the Red Tsar, introduced us to Finnish detective, Inspector Pekkala. Formerly a personal servant to Tsar Nicholas II, Pekkala returns here in 1939, ten years after the events of the first book, and is now filling a similar role within the [...]
Cop Hater, by Ed McBain
Reviewed on August 20, 2011
What private eye fiction owes to Chandler and Hammett, the police procedural arguably owes to Ed McBain. McBain ranks among the most prolific of crime writers, with his 87th Precinct series weighing in at 55 volumes, functional standalones which form part of a greater whole, a lengthy saga which shifted in mood and tone over [...]
Good as Dead, by Mark Billingham
Reviewed on August 18, 2011
Good as Dead is the latest instalment in the Tom Thorne series, the Sherlock Award winning creation of crime fiction heavy-hitter Mark Billingham. In this outing, Thorne engages in a frantic three-day investigation into the suspected murder of a young man, Amin Akhtar. Akhtar died in a Young Offenders Institute weeks beforehand; the authorities believe [...]
Sweet Money, by Ernesto Mallo
Reviewed on August 17, 2011
Sweet Money is the second in Ernesto Mallo’s Inspector Lascano trilogy. Writing about the era of the Argentine military junta, as former anti-Junta activist, Mallo’s credentials are impeccable. While his first offering, Needle in a Haystack, took protagonist Inspector Lascano on a murder investigation in the dying days of the junta, in Sweet Money, the [...]
Luther: The Calling, by Neil Cross
Reviewed on August 14, 2011
In the normal run of things, first an author enjoys success with a string of crime novels, then is fortunate enough to be approached with regards to a televisual adaptation. The list of detectives brought to the small screen in this fashion is endless. However, DCI John Luther, much like his creator, is not one [...]
Smokeheads, by Doug Johnstone
Reviewed on August 8, 2011
Doug Johnstone has a PhD in Nuclear Physics. However, it’s conceivable he knows far less about the properties of the atom than he does about whisky. As a real ale lover myself, I stand in awe of Johnstone’s knowledge of Scotch, discussed at great length in his new book, Smokeheads. Smokeheads is the tale of [...]
Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis
Reviewed on August 6, 2011
A depressing fact for struggling, unpublished authors; Less Than Zero was first published in 1985, when Bret Easton Ellis was just 21. While Ellis’ peer group gazed into their navels as is the wont of young writers, Ellis was busy putting together a novel USA Today described as “The Catcher in the Rye for the [...]
The Quarry, by Johan Theorin
Reviewed on August 5, 2011
The Quarry is the third book by Swedish author Johan Theorin. A journalist by trade, Theorin has been richly rewarded for his novelistic exploits, winning a CWA Dagger for his debut, Echoes From the Dead, and the CWA International Award for the follow up, The Darkest Room. The story deals with something of a part-time [...]
A Serpent Uncoiled, by Simon Spurrier
Reviewed on August 4, 2011
A Serpent Uncoiled is the second novel from North London’s Simon Spurrier. Spurrier, a man of many talents, is a decorated graphic novelist, screenwriter and writer of prose novels, and with this offering, invites us into a London more sordid and depraved than the worst imaginings of us mere mortals. The protagonist is Dan Shaper, [...]
Burned, by Thomas Enger
Reviewed on August 3, 2011
Burned is the debut novel from Norwegian crime sensation Thomas Enger. Formerly a journalist by trade, Enger has brought his knowledge of the media milieu to bear in creating a new crime series featuring web hack Henning Juul. As is ever the case, the protagonist in Burned is a traumatised figure. The prerequisites are all [...]
Back of Beyond, by C.J. Box
Reviewed on August 1, 2011
“The night before Cody Hoyt shot the county coroner, he was driving without purpose in his county Ford Expedition as he often did these days.” As first lines go, it’s a killer, setting a high bar for the book that follows. That book is Back of Beyond, August’s instalment in Corvus’ year of releases from [...]
C.J. Box
Reviewed on August 1, 2011
C. J. Box is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen novels including the Joe Pickett series. Bookgeeks’ own Mike Stafford caught up with him while he was on a flying visit to the UK…
Ghastly Business, by Louise Levene
Reviewed on July 29, 2011
Ghastly Business is the second novel from journalist and ballet critic Louise Levene. While her debut offering, A Vision of Loveliness, covered the heady days of the 1960s, with Ghastly Business Levene turns her eyes towards the year 1929, and the office of an eminent London pathologist. That pathologist is the gifted but caddish Dr [...]
Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante
Reviewed on July 25, 2011
Turn of Mind is the debut novel from Stanford University creative writing instructor Alice LaPlante. No relation to the UK’s Lynda, LaPlante has worked as a journalist and editorial consultant, and has turned her hand to the examination of Alzheimer’s for her first piece of full-length fiction. The book follows the mental deterioration of brilliant [...]
Out of Range, by C.J. Box
Reviewed on July 22, 2011
In many ways, crime fiction is the child of urbanisation. With city living came the perfect backdrop for criminality, together with changes in the detection of crime, and above all, anonymity. It was Sherlock Holmes who derided London as “that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained,” [...]
50 People Who Fouled Up Football, by Michael Henderson
Reviewed on July 19, 2011
Modern life, as Blur once opined, is rubbish. Worse still, however, is modern football, which has become a grotesque parody of its former self. At least, that is the sentiment of 50 People Who Fouled Up Football, Michael Henderson’s attempt to name and shame those who have had the most deleterious effect on the sport. [...]
London Calling, by James Craig
Reviewed on July 19, 2011
London Calling is the debut novel from London-based journalist James Craig. A smash on Kindle when released in June, it introduces Inspector John Carlyle, a jaded but unyielding cop in the classic mould. Carlyle is a Met man who cut his teeth in the faraway towns of Orgreave and Maltby during the Miners’ Strike, and [...]
Agent 6, by Tom Rob Smith
Reviewed on July 12, 2011
With Agent 6, Tom Rob Smith completes the trilogy that began with the Booker-long listed Child 44. Agent 6 reprises the tale of Leo Demidov, that most jaded of heroes, a former KGB officer long since dispossessed of his idealism. Having paid a high price for his refusal to work for the secret police, Demidov [...]
Buried Prey, by John Sandford
Reviewed on July 7, 2011
A Pulitzer-prize winner and prolific novelist, John Sandford, AKA John Camp, is a talented man. Since 1989, his “Prey” series has enthralled readers, and more recently he has been acclaimed for his Virgil Flowers series. In this, the 21st of the Prey books, Sandford revisits the earliest days of his protagonist, Lucas Davenport. With the [...]
The Stand, by Stephen King
Reviewed on July 7, 2011
It is fashionable in the world of literary fiction to denigrate Stephen King. Some would suggest his vast appeal is driven by a bovine yearning on the part of adult children, a hankering after the supernatural and things that go bump in the night. There are those authors who would have us cast out popular [...]
The Sick Rose, by Erin Kelly
Reviewed on July 6, 2011
The Sick Rose is Erin Kelly’s follow up to her hugely successful debut The Poison Tree. It throws together Louisa, a garden renovator on the cusp of forty, and Paul, a young man twenty years her junior, fleeing the danger and tragedy he left behind in his native Essex. Both share dark pasts which inform [...]
Proof of Life, by Karen Campbell
Reviewed on July 1, 2011
Proof of Life is the fourth novel from former police officer Karen Campbell. Much praise has been heaped on the Glaswegian’s work thus far; critics have lauded her character studies and her ability to breath life into the police officer’s milieu. As the story opens, Chief Inspector Anna Cameron (the returning protagonist of Campbell’s work) [...]
The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith
Reviewed on June 30, 2011
When Tom Rob Smith’s debut, Child 44, was long listed for the Man Booker in 2008, it gave crime fiction aficionados something to cheer about. Finally the literary establishment had taken note of something the rest of us had known for a long time – crime fiction can be quality fiction. Sadly for Smith the [...]
The Track of Sand, by Andrea Camilleri
Reviewed on June 29, 2011
Inspector Montalbano is one of Italy’s most enduring detectives. Despite Andrea Camilleri’s advancing years (he turns 86 in September), he remains prolific, and this outing is the 12th appearance by his smart Sicilian hero. The Track of Sand has echoes of the great Conan Doyle’s short story ‘Silver Blaze,’ in that the victim is a [...]
Mozart’s Last Aria, by Matt Rees
Reviewed on June 28, 2011
From the man who brought us the Omar Yussef series comes Mozart’s Last Aria, Matt Rees’ take on the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Where the play (and later film) ‘Amadeus’ sought to pin the blame for Mozart’s death on his contemporary, Antonio Salieri, Rees instead involves the great composer in a much more shadowy [...]
Now You See Me, by S. J. Bolton
Reviewed on June 24, 2011
Well over a century has passed since the autumn of 1888, and Jack the Ripper has lost none of his appeal. By some considerable distance the most famous serial murderer in history, the Ripper has inspired artists across a broad range of media; literature, music, art and even video games. Indeed, study of the Whitechapel [...]
A Rage in Harlem, by Chester Himes
Reviewed on June 21, 2011
There is no more harsh indictment of racism in American literary circles than the marginalisation of Chester Himes. Reading Himes’ work, with all its grimy and gritty brilliance, there is nothing but racial prejudice that can explain his absence from the classically accepted top table of American crime writing. A Rage in Harlem is the [...]
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Blaine Harden
Blaine Harden is an author and journalist who reports for PBS Frontline and contributes to The Economist. He worked for The Washington Post as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. He was also a national correspondent for The New York Times and writer for the Times Magazine.
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Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy: win books and signed posters [closed]
It’s a busy time for Irvine Welsh: not only has he got a new book out, Skagboys, a prequel to his famous and acclaimed Trainspotting, but his 1997 novel Ecstasy has been made in to a major new film, on general release from today. It’s a twisted tale that explores the euphoric highs and the [...]
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