Vintage Crime edited by Martin Edwards

 

This is an anthology of short stories by authors who are members of the Crime Writers’ Association and published by Flame Tree Press. Unusually for anthologies, this is a celebration of crime writing down the ages and so the stories are taken from across a span of time, from classic to more contemporary.

 

The stories vary in length too and cover the full gamut of genre – spy thriller, through noir, to locked door mystery – and place, from London to Egypt. There are some distinctly weirder stories too. All in all, there’s a good range here, and this is a great read that you can dip into and out of.

 

This is a great selection of stories, well selected and put together. They’re included in date order (earliest to latest) but the reader has to refer to the notes at the back to know this. I quite liked that because it meant you came to the stories without any preconceptions (unless you flicked to the back to check first, of course).

 

A great read and highly recommended.

 

4 out of 5 stars

 

 

The Hunted by Gabriel Bergmoser

Simon is a middle-class young man who dreams of adventure and discovering the real, authentic Australia. He’s lived his life in comfortable suburbia and he wants to see the world as it is, outside of his privileged bubble. So he’s taken himself on a road trip, just him, driving across the outback. In a bar one night he meets Maggie, a young woman with secrets and a backpack full of cash. What she’s running from, or where she’s running to, is a mystery. Simon’s brain knows he should just walk away, but she’s attractive and his heart (or perhaps another part of his anatomy) stops him from doing so and he invites her along. 

They end up in a remote township (was it an accident? did Maggie lure Simon there?) and it is here that the novel takes a dark turn. I won’t give too much away, but this book has been compared to the horror films Wolf Creek and The Hills Have Eyes, so you kinda see where it’s going.

This is a novel told on two timelines which cross over somewhat. There’s before things go bad (the build-up), and then the after. In the latter, the survivors end up at a gas station run by Frank, a man with a past that might just rival Maggie’s. This is also a novel that’s demarcated almost straight down the fifty per cent mark. The first fifty-per cent of the novel is a slow, inexorable build-up of tension. This is achieved in both timelines, the before being the build-up, the after being the survivors at the gas station preparing for the final onslaught. Then at the fifty per cent mark, the author takes his foot off the brake in both timelines and utter mayhem ensues.

This is a brilliant, brilliant novel. It’s expertly plotted and crafted, while the characters have a real heft. In particular, Maggie, who’s akin to a female Rambo. Again, I’m wary of giving away spoilers, but this is one woman the bad guys will wish they had never crossed. 

I’m going to end this review before I give too much away, but I can’t recommend this book enough. If you like horror or thrillers, if you like a heroine who could give  Mad Max a run for his money, then this books is for you. 

5 out of 5 stars

 

To The Lions by Holly Watt

 

Casey Benedict is an investigative journalist at the Post, a broadsheet to rival the Times or Telegraph (the author is a former journalist who worked for The Telegraph). One night she overhears a conversation in a club which appears to indicate that rich and powerful men are travelling to somewhere in the third world to shoot refugees for sport. So begins her investigations. With her colleagues, Miranda and Ed, she finally firms up the story and locates it as occurring in Libya. They then have to try and get inside the network to expose it.

This is a novel that has been compared to Le Carré or Gerald Seymour, and I can see that comparison. It’s a story plucked from the headlines, at least as far as the refugee crisis is concerned (and the international corruption that goes with it) and could just as easily work with the protagonists being employed by the intelligence services. 

As it is, the author is a former foreign correspondent for the Telegraph and she clearly knows her stuff. I must declare an interest here, in that I too was a journalist for a good twenty years, albeit in current affairs television. While our paths never crossed (the author was a print journalist, while I was television production) I feel that we’re similar in having a love/hate relationship with our jobs. 

The author clearly believes in journalism at its best, and hence her heroes who save the day and expose dark deeds to sunlight are reporters. There’s perhaps a bit of wish fulfilment here as the Post has admirable funds, while the reality is that budgets aren’t what they once were. Finally, there’s a sense of disdain. Her hero Casey is willing to do whatever it takes to get the story, and while she's on the side of the angels (she’s no tabloid hack just after the latest celebrity tittle-tattle) she does grapple with the ethics of it and doesn’t always act admirably. I have a lot of sympathy with this, for I myself had similar conflicts of faith when working in television. Of course, this is all similar again to Le Carre and Seymore whose characters are often disgusted with the world of espionage and it’s grubby compromises.

To The Lions is a well-plotted novel and well worth a read. The author’s written a sequel and while the story in this novel is sown up for the most part, there are some satisfyingly unfinished threads. For example, not all the villains get their comeuppance. Personally, I don’t like a plot which ties up too neatly, so this is fine by me and I wonder if some of these will tick over into book number two?

4 out of 5 stars

Hinton Hollow Death Trip by Will Carver

Evil comes calling to the small town of Hinton Hollow, quite literally. It stalks the streets and visits the residents, infecting them, prodding their insecurities, nudging at their secrets and desires and coaxing out the malevolence suppressed within. It forces them to show their real selves and act in ways they might not otherwise. Except they might very well because the wickedness already resides deep down inside.

This is an unusual novel in that it is narrated by Evil itself, a dispassionate though omniscient narrator. Evil is frustrated with humanity, a reluctant actor whose actions are in direct relation to those of its subjects. If they are good, it can be proportionately so, its wickedness so much less. If they are bad, as they so often are, it must up the ante. Humans are bad, awfully so, and so Evil has no choice but to provoke the people it touches to ever greater depths of depravity

This novel follows on from the events of the author’s previous title, Nothing Important Happened Today, and Detective Pace who’s returned to his home town of Hinton Hollow from London features strongly. I have to confess that I hadn’t realised Nothing Important Happened Today was the second in the series, and Good Samaritan was a previous outing for Pace (so at some point I’ll have to read that novel). Pace is a flawed character who has done wrong through weakness despite his best efforts, and Evil torments him in Hinton Hollow Death Trip as a consequence.

Hinton Hollow Death Trip is not a book for the faint-hearted. This is a challenging read. While Evil does not infect children for they are too innocent, the adults it does can harm them and in Hinton Hollow they do. Whether it be a mother who in a shocking and devastating act fails her offspring, or the man who kills them to prove a twisted point, children suffer terribly within these pages. Animals, too, are innocent but all too often the victim of humanity’s aggression. This novel holds no punches. Children and animals are harmed within this story and while there’s none of the graphic violence and torture that there might be in some serial killer novels (though some of the shooting scenes are brutal) this is disturbing stuff.

This is a great book and an imaginative, in some ways almost experimental, read. It won't be to everyone’s taste, but it’s thought-provoking and original.

4 out of 5 stars

Written in Blood by Chris Carter

This is my first Chris Carter title and is apparently the eleventh in his series to feature protagonist, Robert Hunter, of the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crime Unit. It can be read as a standalone though, as indeed I did, and I had no trouble following the narrative as the story is self-contained.

When Angela Wood, a prolific thief and pickpocket, sees a man being rude to an elderly gentleman in a bar, she decides to teach him a lesson and steal his bag. Later, back in her apartment, she discovers that it contains a journal that records the thoughts and deeds of a highly intelligent serial killer, a man who has been operating undetected for many years. 

She posts the journal to the police anonymously and that is when the Hunter, and his partner Carlos Garcia, become involved. They track Angela down, due to a fingerprint she left on the journal, and take her into protective custody. It isn’t long before the killer is on her trail. He’s super intelligent and manages to stay one step ahead of the police and soon Hunter and Garcia are desperately trying to stop him.

This is a rollercoaster read, full of tension and twists and turns. As with other titles in this sub-genre, the serial killer thriller, it’s quite graphic, with the murders brutal and violent. The author is adept at throwing up red herrings and this is a novel that will keep you turning the page and guessing until the very end.

3 out of 5 stars

The Big Chill by Doug Johnson

This is the second in the author’s trilogy about the Skelf family, and while it’s not essential to read its predecessor, A Dark Matter, readers will be doing a disservice if they don’t. This is both because the back story contained in the first book will enrich the reading of the second and because A Dark Matter is an excellent book in its own rite.

The Skelfs are three generations of women: Dorothy, the elderly matriarch, is an immigrant from California long relocated to Scotland; Jenny, is her daughter, and Hannah, her granddaughter. The three operate a funeral directors and a private investigation service, the former successful, the latter fledgeling and less so. 

In A Dark Matter, Jenny’s ex-husband and Hannah’s father, Craig, was exposed as a murderer. He had killed Hannah’s friend after having an affair with her and getting her pregnant. He later tried to kill Jenny and Dorothy when he was discovered. The book ended with his capture. Events in The Big Chill continue on from there. Craig is awaiting trial and is a destructive presence in their lives. When he decides to change his plea from guilty to diminished responsibility, the disruption gets worse.

As with the first title, subplots run through the novel that originate from either the Skelf’s funeral director business, or private investigation practice, or occasionally, from both. Throughout the narrative, the characters reflect on death, quantum physics (Hannah is studying physics at university) and the quandary that is this thing we call life.

The Skelf books are a mix of cosy crime and something with a harder edge. They don’t shy away from difficult subject matter, but these aren’t noir or the darker crime thrillers that I’m normally drawn to. They are great books though and they have a real heart that has you connect with the characters. The sections that ruminate on death and the quantum universe are engaging too, and certainly, they make you think.

The author has a third novel in the series planned and I look forward to seeing how the Skelf story continues.

4 out of 5 stars  

From Aconite to The Zodiac Killer: A Dictionary of Crime by Amanda Lees

Research is the lifeblood of all writing (well, one of them. Can you have more than one lifeblood? Probably not, but hey). While some writers hate it, others love it. I’m firmly in the latter camp. For what is there not to like? It’s interesting, presuming you’re writing about something that aligns to your interests or you enjoy, and you really should be, and you learn all kinds of fascinating facts.

But how to do one’s research? Well, obviously there’s that vast space known as the internet, but that’s sometimes the problem: it’s so vast. And not everything makes it on there, and some things are obscure and difficult to find and doing so takes time.  So, there’s always room for a few choice books.

One such tome is most definitely Amanda Lees' new dictionary. At 320 pages, it's jam-packed with all manner of information, and while some of it is undoubtedly discoverable online with the right combination of search terms, why bother when you have this little compendium on the shelf nearby?

From famous serial killers to historical and contemporary gang slang, from forensics to poisons with which your antagonist can despatch their victims, it’s all here and more. There’s the terminology of the police and intelligence services, legal terms, and definitions of the myriad subgenres that make up the crime fiction canon.

Arranged as a dictionary (obviously, for that’s what it is) it’s all easy to find and is a wealth of information for the crime writer, writers in general, readers and the lay public.

My personal favourites are the poisons, something I have a perverse fascination in (no, don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer, just a writer) and the author has done an admirable job including a great range. Not just the obvious either - the cyanide and the arsenic - but the more obscure such as aconite, succinylcholine (not strictly a poison, but for us crime writers it might as well be), and my personal favourite, nicotine. Again, the author has done a great job summarising them and explaining how they can be used by our characters to despatch their victims.

This is definitely a must buy and the author has done a great job collating it all and explaining even the most complex subjects as simply as possible so that they’re comprehensible. Not easy when having to aim for brevity too.

A brilliant resource and one that every writer and reader should have on their shelves, do yourselves a favour and get a copy.

5 out of 5 stars