This week, Stephen Timmins is recommending Ursula Buchan’s wonderful biography of her grandfather, John Buchan, titled Beyond the Thirty Nine Steps. Stephen is a huge fan of Buchan’s Richard Hannay stories, creating, in his Fortieth Step thrillers, a 21st-century update of Buchan’s characters. Of Ursula Buchan’s books, he says: “Well worth reading if you are, like me, a fan of the great man – or even if you’re not. Full of fascinating information, beautifully written and deeply moving at the end." #diamondcrime
Out today! One of two new releases from Diamond Crime
Check out the link in bio for these and other titles
#diamondcrime #crime #newreleases
Out today! One of two new releases from Diamond Crime
Check out the link in bio for these and other titles
#diamondcrime #crime #newreleases
Now Available From Jennifer Lee Thomson - Detective in a Coma, Volume One: Vile City Follow the link in bio to buy this title from Amazon. Continue reading for a preview!
Glass glinting in the sun, coming towards him. At first, it holds him in a trance. Then he reacts, aims a kick at the guy’s balls but misses. “Shit!”
Suspect’s on him now. Jab, jab, jab. Every cut burns. Broken bottle neck, ripping into flesh. And, he thinks, this is how I die. Bleeding like a pig, in a filthy alleyway, blood mingling with dirt, cigarette butts and takeaway cartons. I used to want to be an astronaut.
“OFFICER DOWN, OFFICER DOWN,” someone barks into a radio.
Static. Voice a long way off. It doesn’t matter anymore.
#diamondcrime #crime #newrelease
Now Available From Jaqueline Harrett - The Nesting Place, Follow the link in bio to buy this title from Amazon. Continue reading for a preview!
SUNDAY
The body was found about the same time as Mandy Wilde was buttering a slice of wholemeal toast to accompany her morning tea. A weak sun was trying to filter through the grey skies and a soft drizzle had started. Typical Welsh Sunday. Satan, next door’s cat, was meowing and pawing at her kitchen window. The unexpected sound of Oasis filled the room. Her ringtone.
A call in the early morning was never good news.
“DI Wilde.” A pause as she listened. “Right. Ring DS Jones and tell him I’ll pick him up outside the station in fifteen minutes.”
#diamondcrime #crime #newrelease
THE FORTIETH STEP - LEGACY by Stephen Timmins - Verified Amazon Review
The action is fast and furious as Mr Timmins pays homage to John Buchan’s books featuring Richard Hannay. A ‘penny dreadful’ in a modern post-Brexit setting featuring grandson John Richard Hannay. A hero who went to Eton, lost his parents at an early age and suffered unimaginable abuse. A wanderer who struggles with relationships. A zany, varied array of characters with some being hilarious stereotypes. I adored Robbi, ex-SAS hard man Dave, city trader Em, despicable ffitch and an almost pantomime villain.
Definite shades of Raymond Chandler with wisecracking Phillip Marlow. Another character straight out of Len Deighton films. One particularly dramatic scene reminds me of Jack Reacher (Lee Child).
This is a page-turning adventure that fizzes from start to finish. It is well written by an author who keeps the pace and suspense throughout. Plenty to look up in a dictionary or Wikipedia – Fibonacci Curve, Feydeau farce, neferetiti, incunabula, omerta, Caesar’s code and Kerkhoff’s principle are just a few…. There are references to Johnny Cash, Shakespeare and Byron ending the story. Sadly, nothing from T S Eliot.
Follow our link in bio to find out more about this title and where to purchase it from.
SIENA by Phil Rowlands. Amazon Review
My goodness, what a story this is!
From the opening page to the end, I was taken on an emotional rollercoaster. The grief written about in the pages of this book actually had me in tears! This is a beautifully written book with grief, murder and revenge at the heart of it.
Wonderful and descriptive writing about Siena, where part of the book takes place. I felt as though i was there, enjoying the history, the food and the Palio.
Follow our link in bio to find out more about this title and where to purchase it from.
ONE FIGHT AT A TIME by Jeff Dowson - “Mystery People” Review
One Fight at a Time is a superb opening to the Ed Grover series. The plot is well-paced and involving, the setting well-drawn, the characterisation excellent. He is both likeable and believable.
In 1950, back in England after liberating Europe and peace keeping in Germany, Ed Grover has one last thing to do before he is shipped back to the US and demobbed. In 1941, caught up in a bombing raid in Bristol, he took refuge in Ellie Morrison’s corner shop. She and her husband showed him warmth and spontaneous kindness, and he is determined to visit and say goodbye.
Bristol is a divided city, with working class people struggling to lead decent lives despite the daily grind of rationing: the respectable wealthy can still obtain smoke salmon and champagne, and the racketeers own nightclubs and ‘stables’ of boxers. I found especially interesting the skill with which the author shows how decent police officers doing their best to investigate murder, can become the enemies of ordinary hard-working people who have never before fallen foul of the law.
One Fight at a Time is a page turner. I recommend it and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.
Meet Our Authors.
Being Published in December, Writer & Former Teacher, Jacqueline Harrett's: The Nesting place
Megan Pritchard is reported missing during a party in an isolated house in the Vale of Glamorgan.
A short time afterwards, her body is found. It looks like an accident, the result of consuming too much alcohol. But DI Mandy Wilde is suspicious. And Megan’s friends are hiding something.
As Mandy and the team dig deeper, they uncover a catalogue of secrets, and reasons why being friends with Megan could be difficult.
A series of disturbing activities come to light, adding lies, blackmail and trolling to a complex murder investigation.
Coming in December from Award-winning crime writer Jennifer Lee Thompson: Detective in a Coma.
DI Duncan Waddell is on the brink of a nervous breakdown – he thinks his best pal DC Stevie Campbell, who’s been in a coma since he was attacked by a suspect, is talking to him.
When office worker Shelley rushes to her boyfriend’s aid after he is attacked, she is abducted. She wakes up in a strange room with no memory of how she got there.
On the case, Waddell finds himself in a desperate race against time to uncover the truth behind the abduction.
To do this, he and his team must delve into the seedy underbelly of Scotland’s swingers’ scene and a world where women are tricked into the sex business and traded like cattle.
Next in The Fortieth Step Series from Stephen Timmins, Revenge
John Hannay’s back.
Out of hospital, married, settled. Until… the letters arrive and the threats start.
Until his new wife, Robbi, is kidnapped, until he discovers the truth about the orphans in the children’s home.
The truth may be nearer, but John still doesn’t know who it is that is playing this deadly game?
Who it is that doesn’t care if the country is destroyed?
Who it is that wants him dead...