Category: Uncategorised

Review: Bryant & May – Oranges and Lemons by Christopher Fowler (2020)

The outspoken Speaker of the House of Commons steps out of his front door one Sunday morning only to be crushed under a mountain of citrus fruit.  Was it a bizarre accident or are some sinister forces at work? The government wants to know because the speaker knows parliament’s biggest secret and that leaking could put the future of the government at stake.

This should be the perfect case for Bryant & May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit. But one is in hospital, the other is missing and the staff have all been dismissed. Is the PCU is no more?

A series of brutal crimes seemingly linked to an old English folk-song threatens the foundations of London society and suddenly the PCU is offered a reprieve and are back in business at least temporary!

If the two elderly detectives do set aside their differences and discover why some of London’s most influential figures are under attack, they might not just save the unit but also prevent the entire city from descending into chaos.

Review: The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths (2020)

DS Harbinder Kaur sees nothing to concern her in the account of Peggy Smith’s death – the death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should absolutely not be suspicious.

But the carer, Natalka, reveals that Peggy had been lying about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her…

The reason to be suspicious is heightened by Peggy career (a ‘murder consultant’ who plotted deaths for authors) and Natalka being held at gunpoint by a masked figure when clearing out Peggy’s flat.

Then DS Harbinder Kaur thinks that maybe there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.

This is the second in the DS Harbinder Kaur series by Elly Griffiths after The Stranger Diaries.

I did find it a bit heavy going at points and found it very hard to finish. I did finish it and the plot is well thought out and you do engage with the core characters but it is not as enjoyable as I have found either the Ruth Galloway books or the Brighton Mysteries of Elly Griffiths.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers on NetGalley.

Review: The Clutter Corpse by Simon Brett (2020)

Brett, Simon – The Clutter Corpse
Kindle & Hardback: 192 pages (February 2020)
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd; (trade paperback & cased), Severn House Digital (Kindle)
ISBN: 978-1780291246 (cased)

Thank you NetGalley and Severn House for the eARC.

This a new character for Simon Brett and I didn’t warm as immediately as I have done to the others. That said she does have a solid character backdrop which provides a good basis for future character and plot development.

This is not as cosy as some of his other mystery series with more dark humour than we are used to.

I would recommend as a good read although, at the moment, I do prefer some of Simon Brett’s other series – especially Charles Paris & Mrs Pargeter.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers on NetGalley.

Hardback: 256 pages (August 2019, UK)
Kindle: 1128 Kb (October 2019, UK)
Publisher: Severn House
ISBN: 978-0727889089 (hardback)

It is November 2038 and Scotland has been reunified – Edinburgh’s thirty-year experiment with supposedly benevolent totalitarianism is over. Despite now being a novelist and retired from the Police, Quint Dalrymple still gets called upon for the investigation of strange cases. An attempted strangling of a young man in Leith by an assailant wearing a bizarre tree-fish costume definitely falls into that category.

Before he can make headway on that case, he is asked by to look into the strange disappearance of the Lord of the Isles – Angus Macdonald (Leader of the opposition in Parliament). He vanished from inside his locked bedroom while his valet was sitting outside with a severed finger hidden in the room.
The discovery of a body arranged in a disturbingly macabre pose links the two cases together and starts to provide worrying links back into some of the darker parts of his past.

As stated in reviews of earlier books in the series, this is a mix of science fiction and crime fiction in that it is set in the future but there is very limited technology which is entirely lower-level than what most people have access to today with the computers, in particular, seeming quaintly archaic.
Once again you can start the series here as there is enough backstory sprinkled throughout the first few chapters to give you both an overview of the milieu and a view into the mind-set and motivation of Quint without it dominating the plot.

The plot, as usual, is engaging and goes at a rate of knots with you understanding the motivation of the characters whilst not agreeing with them. The camaraderie between Davie (his sidekick in effect) and Quint is still there despite their separation on a day-to-day basis before the action starts.

Once again, the denouement does make sense given what has gone before and sets up the scene for future books.

Overall, this is a good addition to the series and I still definitely like to see where Quint Dalrymple goes from here.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers on NetGalley.