When a teenage boy shoots a young woman dead in the middle of a busy Glasgow street and then commits suicide, Detective Harry McCoy is sure of one thing. It wasn’t a random act of violence. With his new partner in tow, McCoy uses his underworld network to lead the investigation but soon runs up against a secret society led by Glasgow’s wealthiest family, the Dunlops. McCoy’s boss doesn’t want him to investigate. The Dunlops seem untouchable. But McCoy has other ideas . . . My final review of 2017 needed to be something a little bit special, and the good news is that Bloody January by Alan Parks is exactly that. Time for an old school crime novel set during the 1970s in a city with a notorious reputation for violence. I’ve long since held the belief that the best detectives are the ones who are a complete shambles as a human being. Harry McCoy is no exception. He has a childhood friend who is a psychopathic gangster (more on him in a minute), a relationship with alcohol and recreational drugs that borders on a problem, and an easy-going attitude towards organised crime. Peel back the layers and you…

FAMILY IS DUTY. MAGIC IS POWER. HONOR IS EVERYTHING. Magical jade—mined, traded, stolen, and killed for—is the lifeblood of the island of Kekon. For centuries, honorable Green Bone warriors like the Kaul family have used it to enhance their abilities and defend the island from foreign invasion. Now the war is over and a new generation of Kauls vies for control of Kekon’s bustling capital city. They care about nothing but protecting their own, cornering the jade market, and defending the districts under their protection. Ancient tradition has little place in this rapidly changing nation. When a powerful new drug emerges that lets anyone—even foreigners—wield jade, the simmering tension between the Kauls and the rival Ayt family erupts into open violence. The outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones—from their grandest patriarch to the lowliest motorcycle runner on the streets—and of Kekon itself. Now that October is over, I need a bit of a break from horror. Time for a crime thriller with a distinctly Eastern flavour and a razor sharp fantastical edge. Since the end of a war decades past, the power in the vast metropolis of Janloon has split between the clans….

As a new century approaches, Edinburgh is a city divided. The wealthy residents of New Town live in comfort, while Old Town’s cobblestone streets are clotted with criminals, prostitution, and poverty. Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton is no stranger to Edinburgh’s darkest crimes. Scarred by the mysterious fire that killed his parents, he faces his toughest case yet when a young man is found strangled in Holyrood Park. With little evidence, aside from a strange playing card found on the body, Hamilton engages the help of his aunt, a gifted photographer, and George Pearson, a librarian with a shared interest in the criminal mind. But the body count is rising. As newspapers spin tales of the “Holyrood Strangler,” panic sets in across the city. And with each victim, the murderer is getting closer to Hamilton, the one man who dares to stop him. I’ve become quite the fan of the crime genre since I started The Eloquent Page. Over the years, I’ve found that it is mostly historic crime fiction that tends to catch my eye. The Victorian era seems to offer a particularly rich vein of ideas. There are many authors mining this period and creating some wonderful books. The…

Humans, orcs, mages, elves, and dwarves all jostle for success and survival in the cramped quarters of Yenara, while understaffed Watch Wardens struggle to keep its citizens in line. Enter Rem: new to Yenara and hungover in the city dungeons with no money for bail. When offered a position with the Watch to compensate for his crimes, Rem jumps at the chance. His new partner is less eager. Torval, a dwarf who’s handy with a maul and known for hitting first and asking questions later, is highly unimpressed with the untrained and weaponless Rem. But when Torval’s former partner goes missing, the two must consort with the usual suspects — drug dealing orcs, mind-controlling elves, uncooperative mages, and humans being typical humans — to uncover the truth and catch a murderer loose in their fair city. I do so enjoy a good buddy cop movie – Tango and Cash, The Heat, The Nice Guys, the list goes on and on. The premise of The Fifth Ward: First Watch by Dale Lucas couldn’t be simpler, take your favourite buddy cop movie and transpose it to a slightly different setting. Just exactly how would Riggs and Murtaugh fare if they had to…

For over five years, the Four Monkey Killer has terrorized the residents of Chicago. When his body is found, the police quickly realize he was on his way to deliver one final message, one which proves he has taken another victim who may still be alive. As the lead investigator on the 4MK task force, Detective Sam Porter knows even in death, the killer is far from finished. When he discovers a personal diary in the jacket pocket of the body, Porter finds himself caught up in the mind of a psychopath, unraveling a twisted history in hopes of finding one last girl, all while struggling with personal demons of his own. With only a handful of clues, the elusive killer’s identity remains a mystery. Time is running out and the Four Monkey Killer taunts from beyond the grave in this masterfully written fast-paced thriller. A shift of genre and a change of gears this week, from historical fantasy to some crime fiction. J D Barker’s latest, The Fourth Monkey, promises an edge of the seat thriller with the darkest of hearts. A notoriously elusive killer has finally died after managing to evade capture for years. The only problem? His…

Kat Murphy is a private detective tortured by demons. Real ones. She is serving a death sentence in Lost Angeles, the dark and depraved city in Hell where a beast known as a Torment forces her to relive, night after night, the moment she killed her lover and put a bullet in her own skull. Kat longs to make amends for her sins. So when the city’s Chief Administrator hires her to retrieve a stolen box with a mysterious power, offering to call off her Torment in return, she gets the chance to do just that. But if Kat has learned one thing, it’s that every case has a wrinkle. As she trawls drug dens, casinos, and fighting pits in search of the thief, she discovers that both box and city contain secrets darker than she could ever have imagined. And with time running out, Kat must choose between her own desire for peace and the fate of the world above in Hell’s Detective, the electrifying new mystery from award-winning author Michael Logan. I’ve been a fan of Michael Logan’s writing for a while now, I can heartily recommend his magnum opus Apocalypse Cow and its sequel World War Moo….

THE PAST In wartime Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled behind the National Theatre, a rough and dangerous area of the city known as ‘the shadow district’. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer. THE PRESENT A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man’s home reporting the shadow district murder that date back to the second world war. It’s a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood. A MISSING LINK Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? How are these cases linked across the decades? Will Konrad’s link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of wartime Reykjavik to rest? It has been a while since I have read any crime. In fact, I’ve checked and I haven’t read or reviewed any so far in 2017. Time to remedy that oversight. Over the last couple of years, I’ve developed a taste for the occasional crime thriller…

In Paris, 1888, the city prepares for the Exposition Universelle and the new Eiffel Tower swiftly rises on the bank of the Seine. One August morning, the sunrise reveals the embellished corpse of a young man suspended between the columns of the Pantheon, resembling a grotesque Icarus and marking the first in a macabre series of murders linked to Paris monuments. In the Latin Quarter, occult scholar Remy Sauvage is informed of his lover’s gruesome death and embarks upon his own investigation to avenge him by apprehending the cult known as the Eighth Day Brotherhood. At a nearby sanitarium, aspiring artist Claude Fournel becomes enamored with a mesmerist’s beautiful patient, Irish immigrant Margaret Finnegan. Resolved to steal her away from the asylum and obtain her for his muse, Claude only finds them both entwined in the Brotherhood’s apocalyptic plot combining magic, mythology, and murder. I do enjoy a bit of historical crime fiction, especially when there is just a hint, the tiniest suggestion, of something supernatural about the proceedings. The Eighth Day Brotherhood promises exactly that. The debut novel from Alice M. Phillips features a series of despicable murders, an enigmatic cult and a frantic race against time. What more…

Two children have been abducted on their way home from school. After several weeks, they are still missing and no one knows whether they are alive or dead. The police are certain that ruthless local gangster Vince Formosa is behind the kidnapping, but without proof their hands are tied. Forced to resign following an accidental death in police custody, former Detective Inspector Sep Black knows he s been set up. But how can he prove it and stay alive in the process? Convinced that Formosa has a mole within the police, Black sets out to expose the traitor, clear his name and wreak revenge on the man who brought him down. In order to do so, he must go undercover and find the missing children. But even the best-laid plans can sometimes go awry . . . Dead or Alive is the first book featuring the character Detective Inspector Septimus ‘Sep’ Black. When he is first introduced a suspect has died while in custody, and the finger of blame is pointing firmly at Sep. Needless to say, appearances aren’t always what they seem, and there is far more going on than first appears. The good inspector could probably be best…

Sixteen years. That’s how long Clyde Barr has been away from Colorado’s thick forests, alpine deserts, and craggy peaks, running from a past filled with haunting memories. But now he’s back, having roamed across three continents as a hunter, adventurer, soldier of fortune, and most recently, unjustly imprisoned convict. And once again, his past is reaching out to claim him. By the light of a flickering campfire, Clyde received a frantic phone call for help from Jen, the youngest of his three older sisters. Then the line goes dead. Clyde doesn’t know how much time he has. He doesn’t know where Jen is located. He doesn’t even know who has her. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her. Tagging along with Clyde on this strange, desperate, against-all-odds rescue mission is a young woman named Allie whose motivations for hurtling into harm’s way are fascinatingly complex. As the duo races against the clock, it is Allie who gets Clyde to see what he has become and what he can be. Time for another debut novel and this time out we’re into the realms of the old school thriller. When we first meet Clyde…

It is 1837 and the city streets teem with life, atmosphere and the stench of London. Sarah Gale, a seamstress and mother, has been sentenced to hang for her role in the murder of Hannah Brown on the eve of her wedding. Edmund Fleetwood, an idealistic lawyer, is appointed to investigate Sarah’s petition for mercy and consider whether justice has been done. Struggling with his own demons, he is determined to seek out the truth, yet Sarah refuses to help him. Edmund knows she’s hiding something, but needs to discover just why she’s maintaining her silence. For how can it be that someone with a child would go willingly to their own death? Over the last few years, I’ve been reading more and more crime fiction. The crime novels I’ve enjoyed most have been those that blend history and crime together. The latest addition to this list is The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola. The first narrative thread follows the young lawyer assigned to check the validity of the court’s ruling. Edmund Fleetwood is a rarest of men in Victorian society. He is entirely driven by the need for fairness and a sense of justice. One of the most interesting elements…

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes. Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety… and save him from a gruesome death every now and again. An imaginative, irreverent and addictive reimagining of the world’s favourite detective, Warlock Holmes retains the charm, tone and feel of the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle while finally giving the flat at 221b Baker Street what it’s been missing for all these years: an alchemy table. Reimagining six stories, this riotous mash-up is a glorious new take on the ever-popular Sherlock Holmes myth, featuring the vampire Inspector Vladislav Lestrade, the ogre Inspector Torg Grogsson, and Dr. Watson, the true detective at 221b. And Sherlock. A warlock I’m a huge fan a Sherlock Holmes. I always have been. From…

The writing’s on the wall for Harry Kvist. Once a notorious boxer, he now spends his days drinking, and his nights chasing debts amongst the pimps, prostitutes and petty thieves of 1930s Stockholm. When women can’t satisfy him, men can. But one biting winter’s night he pays a threatening visit to a debtor named Zetterberg, and when the man is found dead shortly afterwards, all eyes are on Kvist. Determined to avoid yet another stint in prison, Kvist sets out to track down the only person who can clear his name. His hunt will lead him from the city’s slums, gangster hideouts and gambling dens to its most opulent hotels and elite nightclubs. It will bring him face to face with bootleggers and whores, aristocrats and murderers. It will be the biggest fight of his life. Time for some crime. I’ve read and enjoyed quite of a lot of Scandinavian crime fiction. I’ve also read and enjoyed quite of lot of historical fiction. The promise of a novel that successfully combines the two certainly piques my interest. Clinch is the debut novel from Martin Holmen featuring ex-boxer Harry Kvist. Kvist remains a bit of an enigma throughout. Though there are…