All the Reviews

Hoddle Street, Peter Haddow

This was published some considerable time ago, but for some reason in the last few weeks I've been drawn towards some True Crime books. This was a particularly harrowing read, all about the events of Hoddle Street in 1987 - told as short snippets from the viewpoint of many of the people involved - the dead, the injured and the police desperate to get the manic situation under control. I think it was that method of telling the story that made it all the more stark. Excellent book to give you a true feeling for how the unimaginable and unexpected affects everyone.Read Review

Spider Trap, Barry Maitland

The bodies of two young girls are found, shot and discarded in an old abandoned warehouse in the Cockpit Lane district in Brixton, London. Nearby the activity of the police investigation sparks the interest of a young schoolboy who is obsessed with a school myth about "Brown Bread" and an abandoned wasteland near the warehouse and his school. Nobody really knows what "Brown Bread" is, but the whole school has known for years that it's hidden on that bit of wasteland. The problem is that the wasteland reveals 3 skeletons and they don't seem to be the "Brown Bread" that everyone's been ... Read Review

Immediate Action, Andy McNab

Published after Bravo Two Zero, in IMMEDIATE ACTION McNab takes us back to his early life. He starts, albeit briefly, with being raised by his adoptive parents after being found as a baby on the steps of Guy's Hospital.

In McNab's very matter of fact style he relates how, as a juvenile delinquent, he decided he had a choice between jail and a nothing much of a life, and the Army. After fighting against the IRA in South Armagh McNab decides that the SAS is where he wants to be and he goes in for "Selection" as the process is known. Selection is a gruelling physical and ... Read Review

Mr Clarinet, Nick Stone

In Nick Stone's debut book, MR CLARINET, ex-cop, ex-PI, most recently convicted of manslaughter, Max Mingus is contacted whilst still in jail by the desperate father of a child kidnapped in Haiti. Despite offering millions of dollars as a reward, Allain Carver, part of the powerful and rich elite of Haitian society, has to pester Mingus in jail and after release, to take up the search for his son. Mingus has a reputation of getting to the bottom of kidnappings and disappearing children, and of taking those searches very much to heart. Carver has been trying, with various other PI's ... Read Review

Maigret and the Wine Merchant, Georges Simenon

When prosperous wine merchant Oscar Chabut is shot dead outside a fashionable bordello he has just been visiting with his mistress and secretary, Maigret finds that extra-marital behaviour in Chabut's social group is pretty much the norm. Chabut seems to regard sexual conquest as a means of exerting power and maintaining his self-esteem, and has in the course of his business, created rather a large cast of enemies. Hints of blackmail, anonymous telephone calls and letters and glimpses of a shadowy figure tracking Maigret complicate the case Maigret is struggling to come to grips with ... Read Review

A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil, Christopher Brookmyre

DS Gillespie suspects they are not dealing with the sharpest pencils in the box when she's called to the discovery of two partially disfigured, roughly hidden bodies in the forest. The reputation of the killers is not enhanced greatly when they leave the receipts for all the gear they bought for disposing of the bodies behind, but the whole thing moves further into the surreal for Gillespie when she can identify both the victims as locals and people she knows all too well from her own school days.

A TALE ETCHED moves between school days in the 1970's and the current ... Read Review

Hell's Kitchen, Chris Niles

From the book:

"Cyrus - is a millionaire recluse. Oh and a serial killer. His first victims are Gus and Susie Niedermeyer, a newly married couple who knew apartment hunting in New York would be hell, they just didn't think it would end their short lives.

Tye - is a beautiful young woman from London, who imagines she can trade her cover-girl looks for a free stay in a downtown loft.

Quinn - is a writer who's out of ideas and running out of luck. He wants to keep a foothold in Manhattan without losing his shirt - and his girlfriend.

... Read Review

Thud!, Terry Pratchett

The origins of the Battle of Koom Valley between the Trolls and the Dwarves is obscure and the subject of much debate, but every year, the anniversary celebrations of the battle spark off tensions between the two communities. This year, this celebration, tensions are rising in Ank-Morpork.

Dwarf extremists are undermining (literally) the city and the Watch is starting to fall apart. When extremist leader Hamcrusher is murdered deep underground in the mines, seemingly by a Troll, Vimes must hold together the Watch; investigate the murder; prevent an outbreak of war between ... Read Review

Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab

BRAVO TWO ZERO is the identifying sign given to an eight-man British Special Air Service patrol that was sent into Iraq to find and destroy a major land-line telecommunications link and Iraqi Scud missile launchers during the Gulf War.

Andy McNab is the leader of the ill-fated, and some would say doomed from the start patrol, which is landed right into the middle of a major Iraqi troop staging area, on foot, backed up with radio frequencies that wouldn't work and up against it from the start. When they are seen by a local child who reports them to the Iraqi army then ... Read Review