IRISH CRIME FICTION seems to be on a roll at the moment. With writers like Anthony Quinn, Stuart Neville, Ken Bruen, John McAllister and Sinead Crowley making headlines, it’s not too fanciful to see Ireland – North and South – rivaling its neighbour across the sea, Scotland, as everyone’s favourite setting for moody and intense crime tales. Is there room for one more at the top table of Irish crime? There certainly is, when it’s Jo Spain asking for a seat. Her debut novel With Our Blessing was named as an Irish Times crime fiction book of the year by Declan Burke in 2015, and achieved great critical acclaim.
Now, DI Tom Reynolds and his team return for another sortie against the many-headed monster of Irish crime. This time a government official is murdered in Leinster House, the former ducal residence in Dublin which has housed the Irish Parliament since 1922.
Everyone makes the assumption, that Ryan Finnegan’s death has been orchestrated by one of his political opponents, but before too long, Reynolds is uncovering evidence that points in a different direction altogether. The novel will be available very soon from the usual sources, and it looks from this angle that Jo Spain (below) and her publishers Quercus, have another hit on their hands. You can also keep in touch with Jo by following her on Twitter.
There are just a handful of authors who, when you have their latest book in your hands, remind you of the sheer unalloyed pleasure that can come from reading. For me, that is the best feeling in the creative world, bar none – and that’s from someone who spent most of his professional life teaching and playing music. One of those treasured authors is Val McDermid, who you know is never going to let you down.
TODAY’S DELIVERY brought two books which in different ways could not offer more of a contrast. One is by a writer who has achieved near-legendary status in his own lifetime, is believed to be Bill Clinton’s favourite author, and who has created a handful of truly memorable characters. The other is by an author making his crime fiction debut, but who is no stranger to the world of books and people who write them, as he is a former journalist who now runs a literary agency in London.
Humfrey Hunter certainly knows his way around the London literary scene, and his novel Storykiller is set in the English capital. We meet Jack Winter, a former hot-shot reporter who now puts his knowledge of how to make the headlines to a very different use – that of making them disappear if the client is rich enough. After unwisely accepting a new client, he finds himself in danger of becoming one of the headlines himself – as a corpse. 
Most critics have run out of superlatives to describe the work of Walter Mosley. British crime author 
AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION doesn’t come my way anywhere near as much as I would like. I’m a massive fan of Peter Temple, but new books from him are as rare as hens’ teeth. For snappy, PI-style reads, there’s always Peter Corris and his Cliff Hardy novels. So, it was with great pleasure that I opened the packet from Little, Brown publishers, to find that I was holding a brand spanking new Australian crime story.
fullybooked2017 