Letters From a Murderer by John Mathews Review

Title: Letters From a Murderer

Author: John Mathews

My Rating: 5/5

Part of a series? This is book one of the Finley Jameson & Joseph Argenti series.

Genre(s): Mystery, Historical fiction, Crime, American literature.

Description/Blurb:

New York, 1891. A prostitute is found brutally murdered. The victim bears the same hallmarks as a notorious recent killing spree in England. Could it be that killer has crossed the Atlantic to fresh killing grounds? Or is this simply a copycat murder? Fear spreads through a city already rife with cut-throat gangs, corruption and vice. Aristocratic English pathologist, Finley Jameson, is teamed up with Joseph Argenti, a streetwise New York cop, to solve the case. But as the body-count rises and the killer taunts his pursuers in open letters, Jameson and Argenti find themselves fighting not just to prevent yet more victims, but also to save the city’s very soul.

My review: 
I know this is jumping right into things but I need to say it, I really hope the author carries on with this series. The plot is based on the notorious murderer 'Jack the ripper', a mystery that has gripped people since the time of the murders in Victorian London, so it's something a lot of readers will go into already being comfortable with the setting. The idea of the ripper going to the U.S. and carrying on with his work isn't exactly a new one but Mathews explores it well. The author provides the reader with well fleshed out characters and the reader gets to see parts of the story from the points of view of different characters, allowing the reader to know more about events than the characters but not enough to get too far ahead and sit around waiting while the characters play catch up.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to fans of literature set in the 1800’s particularly those who also enjoy mysteries. Fans of Conan Doyle may also find this book to be of interest. The answer to the riddles aren't obvious and at many points in this novel the characters find themselves having to face more than one adversary and question exactly what can be trusted. All in all a good read, there’s nothing in there likely to give you nightmares so I’d suggest this one as a good bedtime read. 

The Hard-Boiled Detective Series by Ben Solomon Review

Ok, I know I don't normally put a whole series up as a review, and  I'm not really doing it here either as I'll be reviewing "No. 3: Simeon Von Runck" rather than the series itself but as the series is an on-line subscription rather than a traditional book it makes sense to use the series as the post title rather than the story itself.

I know I probably explained that really badly so pop along to thehardboileddetective.com if you want to find out more about how that manages to work.

Title: No. 3: Simeon Von Runck

Author: Ben Solomon

My Rating: 3.5/5

Part of a series? Yes, this is part of the The Hard-Boiled Detective on-line sbscription series.

Genre(s): Retro detective, Crime. 

Description/Blurb:

The Hard-Boiled Detective Statement Series goes back to the school of old-school detective fiction. There isn’t really a set time period so in your head it could be anything from the 1920’s to the 1950’s as you follow the cases of the P.I. who “seeks truth, justice, and sometimes a living”. The stories are the detective’s statements to the police, in his own words of course.

No 003: Simeon Von Runck: "Have you ever planned a murder?" That's one hell of an opener. And it makes for one hell of a party game. Or is it a game?

My review: 

My first thought after reading this short story was, ‘well I’m guessing “Sometimes my line of work calls for it” might just be out detective’s catchphrase’ I admit that’s not the most useful first thought when I’m trying to write a review but the P.I. does say it a couple of times, it might even turn into some sort of joke.

Anyway, this was quite a good little story, it wasn’t dark or ‘heavy’ and it’s easily readable in a lunch break if you feel like escaping a little. The detective was the stereotypical old style detective though, with all of the language and mannerisms you’d expect from a 1940’s movie policeman, so bear that in mind if you’re thinking of taking out a subscription. If you don’t like that sort of character then this series really isn’t for you. However if you are the type who enjoys old timey detective novels where the crimes are of the traditional type rather like a condensed version of Sherlock Holmes where the clues are easier to spot and follow, then these stories might just be for you. So basically at times it feels a bit corny, but this story was a bit of good fun that could be easily read to assume yourself on a commute or lunch break.

The author has a couple of samples up on the Hard-Boiled Detective website if you want to sample some of his work.

Dukkha Reverb by Loren W. Christensen Review

Title: Dukkha Reverb: A Sam Reeves Martial Arts Thriller

Author: Loren W. Christensen

My Rating: 2.5/5

Part of a series? Yes, this is book two of the Sam Reeves series. 

Genre(s): Thriller, Martial arts.

Description/Blurb:

Up until six weeks ago, Sam Reeves, a respected Portland, Oregon police detective, martial artist, and teacher, had a good life. That is until a series of unimaginable events turned it upside down some good, some very, very bad. Still reeling from this maelstrom of fate, Sam takes a leave of absence and heads to exotic Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam seeking refuge with his family, and to reflect on his deadly past. Sam is captivated by the contrast of beauty and struggle of a country still recovering from war, and by the warmth of his newfound family his father Samuel, wife Kim, half sisters, and the beautiful enchanting Mai. But the grief-crazed mob boss, Lai Van Tan, seeks revenge against Samuel who he holds responsible for the death of his son. Ever the protector, Sam Reeves joins the fight to thwart Lai Van Tan s deadly attacks on the family. Dealing with a crazed mob boss is difficult enough but when the family learns that Lai Van Tan s people have kidnapped 27 young girls to be sold into the sex trade, and that the corrupt police and government won t help, Sam, Samuel, and Mai, along with a bizarre group of seemingly old and disabled Vietnamese soldiers with unique fighting skills, join forces to rescue the young girls. Enraged, Lai Van Tan strikes back with a fury that tests the mettle of these warriors. Before it s over, the family is forced to defend themselves again and again, including in a warehouse full of life-sized Buddha statues. The results well, if you re going to fight the bad guys you might as well make them really mad at you.

My review: 
Before reading this I'd never found myself reading a martial arts thriller before, I didn't even know a lot about the genre itself and I'm slightly ashamed to admit this but pretty much all of my (extremely limited) martial arts knowledge comes from watching films, so I apologise now in case my ignorance insults somebody.

This book had considerably less violence than I expected, that's not saying there was no violence as this book has its air share of fights, murders and distressing content at times, but the author concentrates on more than the violence, and he would be forgiven for doing so in a thriller book, instead he focused more on the chi, state of mind and energy required in a fight. This did lead to the book feeling a bit like a fantasy at times due to the frequent talks around chi, moving faster than the eye can follow, 'mind reading' and other skills displayed by Samuel and 'Sifu'. Other elements were a lot more realistic, Sam's post traumatic stress following the events of the previous book (which I have not had the opportunity to read) showed that the main character was in fact a human being, the post traumatic stress as well as adding some realism to the novel also allowed the reader to learn enough of the key elements if the previous book to understand this one without having read the first book in the series.

I loved the authors description of the traffic in Saigon, it was so easy to imagine the close shaves that I found myself gripping my e-reader a bit too tight whilst reading these passages almost as if I was gripping some car part for dear life. I didn't have such an intense reaction to the fight scenes despite them being equally as well written but it is much easier for me to imagine crazy traffic which I have experienced  than mortal combat, which I hope to steer well clear of.

Anyway, back to the point. I would recommend this to somebody who is interested in martial arts and interested in thrillers as they would perhaps appreciate the more spiritually components more than myself. I'd also recommend this to somebody who fancies a bit of escapism, there are plenty of points where you could easily put the novel down for a few hours making this a suitable read for a commute.

The Infernal Republic by Marshall Moore Review

Title: The Infernal Republic

Author: Marshall Moore

My Rating: 4/5

Part of a series? No

Genre(s): Fantasy, Anthology. 

Description/Blurb:

A lonely demon in a remote corner of Hell oversees a divine but rigged typing contest. A sentient house in San Francisco decides to become vacant once again... by any means necessary. A supernatural first date in Hong Kong goes hysterically, horribly awry. How did this become my life? And... now what? These questions recur throughout The Infernal Republic as a cast of characters you'd either love or run from confront the unlikely and surmount the impossible. The Infernal Republic is the new collection of short fiction from Marshall Moore, the author of The Concrete Sky, Black Shapes in a Darkened Room, and An Ideal for Living. 

My review: 
I know that I've reviewed Marshall Moore's work before (feel free to take a look at the review for Bitter Orange) so I did go into this book with a couple of preconceptions as I did enjoy reading his novel Bitter Orange but I've tried to only consider this collection of short stories in this review.  

Each of the stories in this collection could easily stand alone on their own merit. Although they vary in length with some being just over a page long while others are long enough to be divided into chapters, they were all well written (and edited). The stories flowed easily with no hang ups on grammar or unusual word choices and each story felt drastically different from the last.

This collection does have quite a few dark undertones to it and would probably be best appreciated by somebody with a slightly dark or twisted sense of humour. Some of the studies (betting on whether somebody will commit suicide and a superpower that can mess with the less than sanitary bodily functions are just some of the milder examples in my opinion) could be considered bad taste or offensive, but as you can tell by the rating I still found this collection perfectly enjoyable as a whole.

The only reason I didn't give this 5/5 was because not all of the stories were to my taste and I found myself wanting to skip over a couple, such as the one where a man hears a ‘shark’s’ voice in his head, it did have an interesting concept and I'm sure others would name it as their favourite story in the collection but it just wasn't the sort of story I would choose to read if it wasn't in the collection.

My Name is Dee by Robin Wyatt Dunn Review

Title: My Name is Dee

Author: Robin Wyatt Dunn

My Rating: 1.5/5

Part of a series? No

Genre(s): Science fiction

Description/Blurb:

My Name is Dee is a novel for the reader who enjoys noir action, intrigue and dark romance, for the child in all of us who wants to go on adventures, and for the fearful adult too who marvels at the terrifying scale of this universe.
Battling aliens, journeying between dimensions, exploring the
immensity of the human mind, and saving a woman are on the docket for John Dee in this noir adventure. 
He must choose what moral course his life is going to take: can he stand to still wear the grey hat?

My review: 

If I’m honest I have to say that I found this book difficult to read, which is probably why it’s taken me the best part of a month to read this. I found myself needing to go back over parts to make sure I was reading it properly and it was page 30 before I found myself really understanding what was going on.

The story itself was great, full of action and I loved the author’s take on magic. It was quite interesting to see magic as a more subtle force rather than the in your face form (think Harry Potter style spell casting when I say this) seen in quite a lot of books at the moment.  It seemed to be the writer’s style that wasn’t to my taste rather than anything else. Dunn would often change settings so fast that I was left unsure about whether that part was a flashback or if it really was a change of location, this left the piece feeling really disjointed, though this may have been a reflection of the main characters rapid descent into madness as he comes to terms with what he has done in his life. In a way the writing style reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ though ‘My Name is Dee’ felt more disjointed and didn’t have the same satirical air.

Although I wasn’t overly fond of this book I would still recommend it to a sci-fi fan who enjoys the whole disjointed writing style thing because I found the story itself to be very good. I really wouldn’t recommend anybody with a short attention span or somebody who prefers to speed read to read this though as I found that it does require a thorough read through.

Where the Dead Men Go by Liam McIlvanney Review

Title: Where the Dead Men Go

Author: Liam McIlvanney

My Rating: 4.5/5

Part of a series? Yes, this is the second book in the Conway Trilogy

Genre(s): Crime, Mystery, Glasgow, Journalism

Description/Blurb:

After three years in the wilderness, hardboiled reporter Gerry Conway is back at his desk at the Glasgow Tribune. But three years is a long time on newspapers and things have changed - readers are dwindling, budgets are tightening, and the Trib's once rigorous standards are slipping. Once the paper's star reporter, Conway now plays second fiddle to his former protégé, crime reporter Martin Moir. 

But when Moir goes AWOL as a big story breaks, Conway is dispatched to cover a gangland shooting. And when Moir's body turns up in a flooded quarry, Conway is drawn deeper into the city's criminal underworld as he looks for the truth about his colleague's death. Braving the hostility of gangsters, ambitious politicians and his own newspaper bosses, Conway discovers he still has what it takes to break a big story. But this is a story not everyone wants to hear as the city prepares to host the Commonwealth Games and the country gears up for a make-or-break referendum on independence. 

My review: 

I haven’t read the first book in this series which might be why I wasn't hooked straight away but I've got to say that this book really grew on me while I read it. For the first couple of chapters I kept wondering when the story was going to pick up pace but I grew to appreciate the pace of the story telling. The slower pace made the events feel more realistic, the main character/narrator Gerry is a journalist not a policeman so he doesn't have a team of people to help him make discoveries, and he doesn't have access to all of the details. He makes his discoveries slowly; a newspaper story that doesn't make sense, unusual phone numbers, a policeman who hears thing. The reader gets to feel the frustration that Gerry feels at the lack of progress, this helped me connect with Gerry, I could understand why he had to miss a few of his sons’ events, I could see why his marriage fell apart and what could happen to his current relationship without it needing to be spelt out in plain letters.

McIlvanney is quite heavy on the description in parts of this book which I know isn't to everybody’s taste, but as somebody who hasn't yet lived in Glasgow or even a city of a similar size for a reasonable length of time I found the detail helped me with getting to grips with elements of the plot and picturing the locations in my mind’s eye.

All in all this is decent crime novel, and I’d say this book is well worth a read, especially during a holiday or when you’re on a long journey, where you can appreciate the pacing of the plot. Although I haven’t read the first book of the trilogy yet I'm going to tentatively recommend reading it and working through the books as the character and story development were really quite enjoyable once I got into the book properly. 

The Advent of Murder by Martha Ockley review

Title: The Advent of Murder

Author: Martha Ockley

My Rating: 4/5

Part of a series? Yes, this is 'Faith Morgan mystery' book two. 

Genre(s): Mystery, British literature. 

Description/Blurb:

Faith Morgan, former policewoman and vicar of the small English village of Little Worthy, goes to visit one of her parishioners at his farm, only to discover the house surrounded by police cars. A body has been found in the local river and farmer Markham is charged with murder.

Though busy with preparations for Christmas, Faith is called on to investigate when it's found out that the victim is also a member of her congregation--Lucas Kemp, a member of the choir.

Faith's informal inquiries lead her to uncover a hotbed of tensions and romantic rivalries in the choir, questions about drugs, and a run-in with an unsavory uncle--which leads to a dramatic rescue by Ben, Faith's former detective partner and ex-boyfriend.

My review: 

Goodness knows why but throughout this book I kept thinking of ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ and imagining the main character as looking a bit like Dawn French, I can’t even remember what Faith was meant to look like according to the book so it looks like she’ll always be Dawn French to me.

 

I haven’t read the first book in this series but I don’t think that it really held me back, Faith’s connection to each character was well described and although events in the previous novel were alluded to they weren't really a big part in this novel. The author also left me in the dark enough to be able to go back and read the previous novel.

 

The characters in this book where surprisingly realistic, I could imagine meeting most of Little Worthy’s in an English village. In fact Pat reminded me of one of my Brownie pack leaders, so you know. It’s a very middle English novel, mostly wealthy villagers and a nice little parish church.

 

Despite the book having a Christian theme non-religious people can still enjoy this book quite easily. Yes, Faith is a vicar and she does have strong beliefs herself and she does spend a lot of time thinking about church related tasks but the novel itself doesn't preach religion. It’s just a light hearted crime novel set at Christmas time, it also does the job of getting you in a wintry mood even though at the moment for me it’s still summer.

 

I’d recommend this to anybody who enjoys a light mystery with a main character who has a strong resolve to stick to their morals despite this sometimes creating a bit of a dilemma for them.