So you’re sitting with your boiled egg, toast and coffee thinking ‘How can I entertain my mind today?’ Ah! plunge myself into a consummately realised 18th-century London of crime, horror and squalor. Excellent. You’ll discover that Tom Hawkins has been luxuriating in the capital’s fleshpots when he’s consigned to the debtors’ prison, Marshalsea. The gruesome murder […]
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Martina Cole (http://www.martinacole.co.uk/) was born and brought up in Essex. She is the bestselling author of fourteen novels set in London’s gangland, and her most recent three paperbacks have gone straight to No. 1 in the Sunday Times on first publication. Total sales of Martina’s novels stand at over eight million copies. The summary of her
Elly Griffiths (http://www.ellygriffiths.co.uk/) was born in London. The inpsiration for her books about forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway came from her husband who gave up a city job to train as an archaeologist. Elly Griffiths lives near Brighton but draws inspiration from the wild Norfolk coast. The summary of her latest detective story is as follows. It’s Brighton in 1950.
Patricia Cornwell (http://www.patriciacornwell.com/) has legions of fans having sold more than 100 million copies of her fiction. Readers relish and appreciate the authenticity of detail in her tales of ‘misbehaviour’. Medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta is her most celebrated creation and she’s been busy again, this being her 22nd mystery. The summary of her latest sleuthing is as
Hugely popular John Grisham (http://www.johngrisham.co.uk/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Grisham) has used his professional experience in law and politics to great effect in his fiction. Many of his works including The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client and A Painted House have made it onto film and television. In this novel from October 2014 Grisham offers a new hero
Val McDermid (http://www.valmcdermid.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_mcdermid) will need little introduction to her many fans or to the readers of these reviews. Her new stand alone book has been published in September of 2014 and the summary is as follows: When a skeleton is discovered hidden at the top of a crumbling, gothic building in Edinburgh, Detective Chief Inspector Karen
As J.D. Robb, prolific author Nora Roberts (http://www.nora-roberts.co.uk/) has published a series of futuristic science fiction police procedurals. These books, all part of the “In Death” series, feature NYPSD Detective Eve Dallas and her husband Roarke. They are set in a mid-21st century New York City. Despite the emphasis on solving a crime in each of the books, the
Ruth Rendell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Rendell and http://literature.britishcouncil.org/ruth-rendell) is a phenomenally successful crime writer. She probes deeply into the psychological background of criminals and their victims, many of them mentally afflicted or otherwise socially isolated. She has (at the last count) 74 titles to her name covering crime novels, novellas, and short stories (some under the pen name of Barbara
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Karin Slaughter (http://www.karinslaughter.com/) has published 16 fiction titles since 2001 and has a dedicated following. She has sold more than 30 million copies of her books, and is published in 32 languages. I wonder if you’ll take to her particular style of crime fiction. The summary of her latest, ‘Cop Town’ (24 Jun 2014) is as
