Read the Fully Booked appreciation of The Mother’s Day Mystery and share some of Peter Bartram’s excellent gags – and his delightful ability to tell a good story.
https://fullybooked2017.com/2018/11/11/the-mothers-day-mystery-between-the-covers/
Compartmentalising crime novels is something we all do, especially reviewers who need to put tags in their posts, but it really isn’t too helpful, especially when a writer may seem to be firmly rooted in one genre, but in fact is offering something much more subtle. Guy Fraser-Sampson (left) is one such chap with his Hampstead Murders series. Obviously, nothing very dark can happen in the airy tree-lined streets of London’s most expensive and exclusive suburb – or can it? The House On Downshire Hill is the fifth in the series and existing admirers will welcome the return of the Fraser-Sampson repertory company, which comprises the urbane and unflappable Superintendent Simon Collison, and the earnest DI Bob Metcalfe and his former girlfriend DS Kate Willis. The impossibly glamorous Willis once had an improbable ménage à trois with Metcalfe and an eccentric psychoanalyist called Peter Collins, but Metcalfe now has a new girlfriend. Collins is less prominent in this novel and his place centre stage is taken by the enthusiastic (but slightly unworldly) DC Priya Desai.
Is this just a cosy read, and an amiable pastiche of Golden Age crime fiction? I would say not. Fraser- Sampson is unapologetic in his admiration for ‘the way we were’ and astute folk will recognise that he has produced a series of follow-ons to EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books. The House On Downshire Hill however, is not just an affectionate tribute. The writing is elegant and assured, and the characters – particularly the coppers – all have their dark moments. True, there are no scenes of butchery which will make you want to go to sleep with the bedroom light on, but this an entertaining and beautifully written crime novel. It is published by Urbane Publications and is out now.
Follow these links to read reviews of previous books in the series.
The Fully Booked review of Mark Billingham’s The Killing Habit is just a click away:
https://fullybooked2017.com/2018/05/22/the-killing-habit-between-the-covers/
Where would crime fiction readers and writers be without murder? It is the human act which lies at the heart of countless thrillers, police procedurals, serial killer investigations and tales of revenge. Someone more erudite than I will know when the first murder mystery was published, but I suspect it was Poe’s 1841 The Murders In The Rue Morgue. There are not as many actual murders in the Sherlock Holmes stories as one might imagine, and it wasn’t until the twentieth century that corpses became de rigeur in crime novels. Since then,murder has taken may forms in crime novels, from subtle poisoning to vivid and visceral butchery, but I can’t recall a novel which has dealt with the subject of children who kill. In real life that is an infrequently seen phenomenon, so much so that when it does happen the names of the killers tend to live long int he public memory.
Even in harsh socio-political regimes,no-one executes children. So what happens when they have served their time?Here in Britain, we know that they are eventually released, given new identities and plausible fictitious back-stories, and closely monitored in the hope that they can rebuild their lives. This balancing act by the judicial system is the central feature in Lesley Kara’s excellent debut novel The Rumour. A lifetime ago, Sally McGowan stabbed little Robbie Harris to death. She was found guilty, detained,but then released into the community and given a new life. A life, Robbie Harris’s distraught family insist, that was denied their little boy.
In the unassuming Essex seaside town of Flinstead (think, maybe, real-life Frinton or Walton-on-the-Naze) Jo Critchley, single mum to Alfie and estate agent’s gofer,lives in her modest two-up, two-down terraced house. She has moved up from London taking a break from Alfie’s dad Michael, and to be – a couple of streets away – near her mum. Jo is not ‘born and bred’ Flinstead, and it is taking her a while to become part of the school gate sorority. Still, she has joined a local book group, and added her name to the baby-sitting circle. One afternoon as she waits among the throng of chattering mums outside Alfie’s school, she overhears someone sharing the startling gossip that child-killer Sally McGowan is hiding in plain sight amid the modest bungalows and shabby boarding houses of Flinstead. In her anxiety to be accepted and to be someone who should be listened to, she shares this rumour with the women at her book club. And thus her nightmare begins.
As the Sally McGowan story grows legs, wings, and then takes flight, Jo is caught up in a febrile swirl of false accusations and journalistic opportunism. Who is Sally McGowan? Is it the woman who owns the hippie artifact shop? Is it the artist who has made a collage portrait of strips of newsprint reporting on the McGowan affair?
Lesley Kara tells most of the story through the eyes of Jo Critchley. The style is direct,conversational and without literary pretension. Kara cleverly misdirects us for two hundred pages or so until she produces a plot twist which turns the narrative on its head. This is a breathtakingly original thriller, set in a humdrum location, but written with style and verve powerful enough to suck in readers, especially those who love Domestic Noir. The Rumour will be on the shelves from 27th December in hardback, but is available now in a digital edition.
BestDebut BestThriller BestHistorical
STILL TO COME
19thDecember – Best Police Procedural
22ndDecember – Best Humorous Novel
24thDecember – Novel of the Year
To read the detailed review of GREEKS BEARING GIFTS, just follow the link https://fullybooked2017.com/2018/04/01/greeks-bearing-gifts-between-the-covers/
GONE BY MIDNIGHT by Candice Fox
The Australian author has a popular series featuring Sydney based ‘tecs Frank Bennett and Eden Archer, and she has also joined the long list of writers who have collaborated with the prolific James Patterson. Now, however, she has written a standalone novel, set in the Queensland city of Cairns, specifically the White Caps Hotel. Parents out enjoying a meal while their child is left in the hotel room? What could possibly go wrong? Except that this child was not left alone. He had his three brothers for company, but now Richie has disappeared. Controversial PI Ted Conkaffey is asked by the police to investigate what appears to be an impossibility – one boy vanishing from under the noses of his brothers, none of who saw or heard a single thing. Gone By Midnight is published by Century and will be available from 24thJanuary 2019
THE HOUSE ON DOWNSHIRE HILL by Guy Fraser-Sampson
This is the fifth in Fraser-Sampson’s delightful series, The Hampstead Murders, and we are reunited with the investigators from Hampstead police station, led by the urbane and unflappable Detective Superintendent Simon Collison. Although the action is very much present day, Fraser-Sampson’s love of the crime novels of a gentler age shines through as the death of a mysterious recluse and the dark secrets of his past cast a shadow over the genteel Georgian terraces and elegant vistas of London’s most exclusive ‘village’. Published by Urbane Publications, The House On Downshire Hill is out now.
SLOW MOTION GHOSTS by Jeff Noon
The latest book from the Brighton-based novelist, short story writer and crime fiction reviewer takes us back to 1981 and, like many other London coppers, DI Henry Hobbes has had his certainties shaken by the violence and mayhem of the Brixton riots. A murder, however, is as good a way as any of focusing his attention back to normal policing, but this killing is anything but routine. Is there an occult connection? Why has the killing been elaborately staged? The search for the killer impels Hobbes to answer questions about himself and London’s the world he inhabits, and it takes him to places he thought only existed in nightmares.
Also out on 24thJanuary, Slow Motion Ghosts is published by Doubleday.
For more detail about why The Woman In The Woods is the Fully Booked Best Thriller 2018, click on the link: https://fullybooked2017.com/2018/04/17/the-woman-in-the-woods-between-the-covers/
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