Smoke is a story of a young woman’s strength in the face of misogyny and extensive corruption in her department in the LAPD. Returning to the small community of Jasper after becoming a whistle blower, Alex Markov takes a demotion to be able to remain a detective. False evidence and manipulated videotapes planted by the detectives in her former department ensure an internal investigation is hanging over head. So, although she has returned to the place in which she grew up, potentially a safe haven, the past is not behind her and as we see as the story cleverly unfolds, the future is tainted, still, with the insidious tentacles of the LAPD corruption syndicate.
I started to read this novel and was thrown slightly by the author’s style of writing. It seemed a bit unusual, a bit choppy and I felt a bit discomforted. However, I read on as the story itself was turning out to be, at first, quietly gripping then wildly gripping and the writing style contributed greatly to this!
Smokeis set against the backdrop of the California bush fires. This novel starts with a tragic, accidental death as a result of the wildfires sweeping through the town. However, further investigation reveals the death was murder. Alex pulls at this first thread that unravels a web of corruption entrenched in the town’s core. Things meant to stay hidden are revealed. As she gets closer to the truth more lives are taken to avoid the exposure of those responsible. Alex can turn a blind eye, which is tempting, or expose it all knowing it could crush her and those she loves.
An excellent read!
Reviewed by Alison Logie
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Brissenden is an author and journalist. His first book of fiction – The List was published in 2017. A second thriller – Dead Letters also features the Federal investigator Sidney Allen was published in March 2021.
Michael was a journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for 35 years. He was posted to Moscow, Brussels and Washington and worked in Canberra for many years in various roles – including as the Political Editor for the daily television current affairs program – The 7.30 Report, as the ABC’s defence and security correspondent and as the presenter of the ‘AM’ Current Affairs program on ABC radio. From 2017 to 2021 he was a reporter with the ABC’s investigative television documentary program – Four Corners.
Michael has also written non fiction. In 2012 American Stories: Tales of Hope and Anger. The book was a personal account of a country on edge that chronicled the undercurrents of division and anger that surfaced during the first term of the Obama presidency. Divisions that would later be exploited to such devastating effect by Donald Trump.
He has contributed to a number of essay collections over the years and written for The Bulletin, The Canberra Times and New Matilda.
Before he turned to journalism and writing Michael dabbled in art and music. He has a degree in Visual Art from the Sydney College of the Arts and continues to believe he might one day master the double bass.
Ann Cleeves takes us back 34 years to the first book in her ‘Inspector Ramsay’ series. Macmillan has reissued A Lesson in Dyingwhich is just over 200 pages in length.
Jack Robson, the caretaker of Heppleburn primary school, telephones the police advising he has found Harold Medburn, the headmaster, hanging from the basketball hoop in the playground. Many of the teachers, parents and villagers enjoying themselves at a Halloween party in the school hall intensely disliked and feared ‘viper-tongued’ Medburn.
Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay from the Northumberland police, still grieving over a recent divorce, is assigned to investigate. He does a rushed investigation, decides Medburn was murdered, and arrests the dead man’s widow. Jack Robson disagrees. He and Patty, his daughter, set out to find the real murderer.
This cosy crime mystery is a quick read, has an underlying sense of despondency, and one credibility lapse that’s difficult to overlook.
Ramsay comes close to being downgraded to counting the paper clips in police headquarters. It’s Jack Robson and his daughter who save Ramsay’s career. Ann Cleeves must’ve been relieved as she was able to write a further five books in the series. All have become collectors’ items.
Reviewed by Clive Hodges
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon in the UK. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
BOOKS
In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her ‘Shetland’ series. In addition, she has been short listed for a CWA Dagger Awards – once for her short story The Plater, and twice for the Dagger in the Library award, which is awarded not for an individual book but for an author’s entire body of work.
On 26 October 2017, Ann was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association, the highest honour in British crime writing.
Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007. A television adaptation of The Long Call, the first in Ann’s Two Rivers series set in North Devon, was broadcast in October 2021. Thirteen series of ‘Vera’, the ITV adaptation starring Brenda Blethyn, have been shown in the UK and worldwide: series 12 ended on an amazing 50th episode, based on Ann’s novel The Darkest Evening. A fourteenth series is promised for 2025. There have also been eight series of ‘Shetland’, based on – or inspired by – the characters and settings of her Shetland novels, and two further series have been announced, filming in 2024 and 2025.
She was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List, “for services to Reading and Libraries.”
In July 2023, during the opening ceremony for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, Ann was presented with the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award, in recognition of her impressive writing career.
Burn the witch. History doesn’t repeat but it often rhymes, as they say, and in Scottish author C S Robertson’s terrific standalone thriller the rhyming echoes from the past involve witchcraft, and how women who stand apart from ‘normal society’ have been persecuted throughout the centuries; sometimes fatally, often by their closest neighbours.
Twice a day Marjorie Crowe walks the same route through and around the village of Kilgoyne, determinedly keeping on track even when that means walking through a pub where she can face stares and jeers. She’s the village metronome, the ‘weird old lady’ living on the outskirts that some kids taunt, and others are fascinated by. How old is Marjorie, and is she a retired librarian, a former pharmacist, or a witch? When local teen Charlie McKee is found hanging in the woods, the village begins to turn on Marjorie. Then social media. Burn the witch. Then another youngster goes missing … Marjorie can’t explain her actions or trust her own recollections. Is she a victim, or a monster?
Robertson deftly draws readers into an unsettling, character-centric crime story that dips into the occult while being horrifyingly plausible: Internet pile-ons akin to historic lynch mobs and fears of anyone different, or anything that’s not easily explained. Vignettes about real-life Scottish women accused of witchcraft in centuries past are a poignant reminder of how easily distrust is stoked into persecution, how those in power may abuse it, and the ubiquitousness of misogyny. History doesn’t repeat, but rhymes. Burn the witch.
An unusual, terrific crime thriller.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
Due November 2024 in paperback
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A former journalist, Craig Robertson had a 20-year career with a Scottish Sunday newspaper before becoming a full-time author. He interviewed three Prime Ministers, reported on major stories including 9/11, Dunblane, the Omagh bombing and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
He was pilloried on breakfast television, beat Oprah Winfrey to a major scoop, spent time on Death Row in the USA and dispensed polio drops in the backstreets of India.
His first novel, Random, was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA New Blood Dagger, longlisted for the 2011 Crime Novel of the Year and was a Sunday Times bestseller. He has been both longlisted and shortlisted for writing prizes.
He now shares his time between Scotland and California and can usually be found on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic.
In this second novel in the ‘Inspector Ramsay’ series, Ann Cleeves takes us back 33 years. Alice Parry is killed in her own backyard and the detective inspector investigates the murder.
Mrs Parry, a widow with no children, lived in a large home north of the village of Brinkbonnie. She was secretary of the Women’s Institute, organiser of the Village Horticultural Society and founding member of the Save Brinkbonnie Campaign. She was respected for her good works, yet she was killed on the Eve of St David’s Day.
Her two nephews, Max and James, and their families are staying for a few days. The house is able to accommodate the seven visitors comfortably. It is Max’s son, nine-year-old Peter who finds Mrs Parry’s body. Unfortunately, Inspector Ramsay postpones interviewing the child until later … much later.
As Ramsay investigates with the help of Detective Sergeant Gordon Hunter, village disputes are unearthed, family secrets tumble out, and another murdered body is discovered.
Ramsay is an ordinary chap who happens to be a policeman. Envy and jealousy surface as he interviews family members. He misses his ex-wife who is starting to offer gestures of friendship. He’s not a social animal and doesn’t make an effort to be friendly with his work colleagues. We get hints of why his wife left and found someone else.
Murder in My Backyard is a police procedural that takes a while to set the scene but, eventually, Ramsay gets results and we realise how cleverly the author has directed our attention away from a very plausible solution.
Reviewed by Clive Hodges
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon in the UK. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
BOOKS
In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her ‘Shetland’ series. In addition, she has been short listed for a CWA Dagger Awards – once for her short story The Plater, and twice for the Dagger in the Library award, which is awarded not for an individual book but for an author’s entire body of work.
On 26 October 2017, Ann was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association, the highest honour in British crime writing.
Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007. A television adaptation of The Long Call, the first in Ann’s Two Rivers series set in North Devon, was broadcast in October 2021. Thirteen series of ‘Vera’, the ITV adaptation starring Brenda Blethyn, have been shown in the UK and worldwide: series 12 ended on an amazing 50th episode, based on Ann’s novel The Darkest Evening. A fourteenth series is promised for 2025. There have also been eight series of ‘Shetland’, based on – or inspired by – the characters and settings of her Shetland novels, and two further series have been announced, filming in 2024 and 2025.
She was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List, “for services to Reading and Libraries.”
In July 2023, during the opening ceremony for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, Ann was presented with the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award, in recognition of her impressive writing career.
Afew years ago, king of LA crime writing Michael Connelly recommended Ivy Pochoda’s Wonder Valley, a multi-layered and multiple perspective California tale full of characters that tore at your heart and soul. I was impressed. Like Connelly, New York born and bred Pochoda takes readers into the grit beneath the glamourous So-Cal veneer.
Pochoda followed with These Women, a remarkable mystery about the loves and deaths of LA sex workers, and now brings us Sing Her Down, another ferocious read about violence and women. Florence ‘Florida’ Baum is incarcerated at Arizona women’s prison, and according to her former cellmate ‘Dios’ Sandoval, she isn’t the innocent victim of circumstance she claims to be. Dios embraces the darkness that can also live within women, and wants Florida to admit her true self. After an early release during the pandemic, a deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues, and a female LAPD officer is on their trail while dealing with her own questions about male control and female rage.
Pochoda gives her tale of women on the margins, victims and victimisers, a real frontier feel. Sing Her Downis a compelling novel that traverses stark landscapes: prison, desert, global pandemic, and homeless encampments. Modern life veering towards Mad Max. Powered by sharp prose and insights, this thrilling tale of two indelible women on a collision course is hard to put down and even harder to forget.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street and most recently These Women which was a The New York Times best thriller of 2020.
These Women was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The Edgar Award, the California Book Award, The Macavity Award, and the International Thriller Writers Award.
Wonder Valley won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and France’s Le Grand Prix de Litterature Americaine.
Visitation Street won the Prix Page America in France. Her books have been widely translated. Her first novel, The Art of Disappearing was published in 2009.
Before Vera, before Jimmy Perez, and even before Inspector Ramsay, Ann Cleeves had Molly and George Palmer-Jones as amateur sleuths.
Molly Palmer-Jones arrives to visit her elderly aunt, Ursula Ottway, and finds her lifeless body lying on a well-used Chesterfield in the drawing room. Ursula’s doctor decides to order tests and a post-mortem. There is no obvious reason that would explain her death.
In a small community, gossip flourishes and Molly soon learns that Ursula had threatened to report the local squire and Member of Parliament, Marcus Grenville, to the authorities and the Press for using illegal baits to kill vermin on his estate. If found guilty, Grenville could wave good-bye to his parliamentary career. Before she could do so, however, she died.
George suggested to the police that toxicology samples taken during the post-mortem should be tested for phosdrin, the poison used in the baits.
Meanwhile, Molly has heard that Ursula was widely trusted and a good listener. People confided in her. Our intrepid investigator wondered if a villager had had regrets and had decided to silence the aunt. With Ursula gone, people start confiding in Molly.
Another Man’s Poison is a complex tale of secrets and lies. It is skilfully crafted with well-rounded characters and short chapters.
Reviewed by Clive Hodges
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon in the UK. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
BOOKS
In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her ‘Shetland’ series. In addition, she has been short listed for a CWA Dagger Awards – once for her short story The Plater, and twice for the Dagger in the Library award, which is awarded not for an individual book but for an author’s entire body of work.
On 26 October 2017, Ann was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association, the highest honour in British crime writing.
Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007. A television adaptation of The Long Call, the first in Ann’s Two Rivers series set in North Devon, was broadcast in October 2021. Thirteen series of ‘Vera’, the ITV adaptation starring Brenda Blethyn, have been shown in the UK and worldwide: series 12 ended on an amazing 50th episode, based on Ann’s novel The Darkest Evening. A fourteenth series is promised for 2025. There have also been eight series of ‘Shetland’, based on – or inspired by – the characters and settings of her Shetland novels, and two further series have been announced, filming in 2024 and 2025.
She was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List, “for services to Reading and Libraries.”
In July 2023, during the opening ceremony for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, Ann was presented with the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award, in recognition of her impressive writing career.
Michael Brissenden is an author and journalist. His first book of fiction – The List was published in 2017. A second thriller – Dead Letters also features the Federal investigator Sidney Allen was published in March 2021.
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon in the UK. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
A former journalist, Craig Robertson had a 20-year career with a Scottish Sunday newspaper before becoming a full-time author. He interviewed three Prime Ministers, reported on major stories including 9/11, Dunblane, the Omagh bombing and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street and most recently These Women which was a The New York Times best thriller of 2020.