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…

Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life – and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters, in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he’s a fake and a con man, while others see him as a genuine visionary. But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge. But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies – and, most alarmingly, his former self – Francis seems to have other ideas. When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband’s violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly. As soon as I heard about The Blade Artist, and that Irvine Welsh was bringing one of his most iconic characters back, I knew I had to read it. There was no way I was going to miss out on the return of…

I was dead for 13 minutes. I don’t remember how I ended up in the icy water but I do know this – it wasn’t an accident and I wasn’t suicidal. They say you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but when you’re a teenage girl, it’s hard to tell them apart. My friends love me, I’m sure of it. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t try to kill me. Does it? I enjoyed my recent dalliance with crime, so I decided it was time for a little bit more. In order to mix things up however, I decided that rather than go with another traditional tale, I’d try reading a novel with more of a modern, psychological bent. At first glance, Natasha appears to have it all. She is unquestionably the most popular girl in school, she has friends who would do anything for her and she is on the fast track to great things. It was easy to imagine that there would be many who would want to be near her or even be exactly like her. So why then, would someone want her gone? If she is so universally popular, who has it in…

Please note A Fever of the Blood is a direct sequel to The Strings of Murder and it is likely that if you haven’t read this book first then this review may contain something akin to minor spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you in advance. New Year’s Day, 1889. In Edinburgh’s lunatic asylum, a patient escapes as a nurse lays dying. Leading the manhunt are legendary local Detective ‘Nine-Nails’ McGray and Londoner-in-exile Inspector Ian Frey. Before the murder, the suspect was heard in whispered conversation with a fellow patient – a girl who had been mute for years. What made her suddenly break her silence? And why won’t she talk again? Could the rumours about black magic be more than superstition? McGray and Frey track a devious psychopath far beyond their jurisdiction, through the worst blizzard in living memory, into the shadow of Pendle Hill – home of the Lancashire witches – where unimaginable danger awaits… I do like to throw the odd crime novel into my reading list, and I have to admit, historical crime tends to be my personal favourite. In particular, I have a soft for anything set in the Victorian era. This time period feels like…

A plane crash in the Arizona desert. An explosion that sets the world on fire. A damning pact to hide an appalling secret. And one man bound to expose the truth. He is Solomon Creed. No one knows what he is capable of. Not even him. When Solomon Creed flees the burning wreckage of a plane in the Arizona desert, seconds before an explosion sets the world alight, he is acting on instinct alone. He has no memory of his past, and no idea what his future holds. Running towards a nearby town, one name fires in his mind – James Coronado. Somehow, Solomon knows he must save this man. But how do you save a man who is already dead? When it comes to thrillers, I’m always looking for a novel that will keep me on my toes. I want fiction that delivers the unexpected and throws me the odd curveball or two. Simon Toyne’s latest, Solomon Creed, is a great example of how a thriller should be. An inscrutable main protagonist stumbles into the middle of a tricky situation and has to not only to survive, but also learn something about his own mysterious origins. Between Creed and…

In these three novellas of blackly comic crime and creature horror, you’ll go slumming with well-endowed dwarf porn stars, killer badgers, redneck mama’s boys, morbidly obese nymphomaniacs, dumbass dog-nappers, trailer trash Jesus freaks, diarrheic Jack Russell Terriers, not-so-wiseguys, mob-movie memorabilia collectors, junkie blackmailers, and giant man-eating Burmese pythons. After a couple of science fiction tales I was has a distinct hankering for something a bit more down and dirty, something a bit criminal.  Black Cat Mojo by Adam Howe delivers exactly that. Be prepared, things are about to get proper freaky…  OF BADGERS & PORN DWARFS To pay back a gambling debt and avoid being castrated, washed-up dwarf porn star Rummy Rumsfeld (of Snow White spoof Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Up Your Ass We Go) must overcome a geriatric pederast, redneck pornographers, a morbidly obese nymphomaniac with serious personal hygiene issues, the ghost of his religious zealot mother, a dwarf-eating badger, and George Lucas. Poor old Rummy Rumsfeld. What is a washed up midget porn star to do when the jobs have dried up and his fondness for beating on the Giants has gotten out of control? His only option is a job that has the potential to clear his debts….

There’s a killer on the road… He’s a big rig truck driver who goes by the CB handle White Knuckle, and he’s Jack the Ripper on eighteen wheels. For thirty years he has murdered hundreds of women in unimaginable ways, imprisoning them in a secret compartment in his truck, abducting them in one state and dumping their dead bodies across the country. Dedicated FBI agent Sharon Ormsby is on a mission to hunt down and stop White Knuckle. She goes undercover as a truck driver with a helpful long hauler named Rudy in a cross-country pursuit that will ultimately bring her face-to-face with White Knuckle in a pedal-to-the-metal, high-octane climax on a highway to Hell. Over the last few years, I’ve gotten more and more into crime fiction. Whenever I feel a bit bogged down by science fiction or fantasy, I throw a little crime into the mix just for a change of pace. Special Agent Sharon Ormsby has uncovered a horrific pattern while investigating seemingly unrelated crimes. There is a serial killer at work in the United States using the thousands of miles of highway as their own private stalking ground. Ormsby is tasked with finding the maniac and…

A blackly comic crime novel about a one-man crusade to rid the internet of haters, flamers, trolls and vaguebookers… even if he has to kill to do it. Is there someone online who really grates on you? That friend who’s always bragging about their awesome life and endlessly sharing tired memes, and who just doesn’t get jokes? Look at your Twitter feed: don’t you get cross at the endless rage, the thoughtless bigotry and the pleading for celebrity retweets? Meet Dave, a street fundraiser and fan of cat pictures. He’s decided that unfollowing just isn’t enough. He’s determined to make the Internet a nicer place, whatever it takes. When he killed his best friend’s girlfriend, he wasn’t planning on changing the world. She was just really annoying on Facebook. But someone saw, and made him an offer. Someone who knows what he’s capable of, and wants to use him to take control of the darkness at the heart of the Internet. And now the bodies; the comment trolls, the sexual predators, the obnoxious pop stars are starting to mount up… I remember, way back in halcyon days of 1992, sending my first e-mail. Back then, as a fresh-faced student, the…

Edinburgh, 1888. A virtuoso violinist is brutally killed in his home. Black magic symbols cover the walls. The dead man’s maid swears she heard three musicians playing before the murder. But with no way in or out of the locked practice room, the puzzle makes no sense… Fearing a national panic over a copy Edinburgh, 1888. A virtuoso violinist is brutally killed in his home. Black magic symbols cover the walls. The dead man’s maid swears she heard three musicians playing before the murder. But with no way in or out of the locked practice room, the puzzle makes no sense… Fearing a national panic over a copycat Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey’s new boss – Detective ‘Nine-Nails’ McGray – actually believes in such nonsense. McGray’s tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond reason. And once someone loses all reason, who knows what they will lose next… Over the last couple of years, I’ve started to really enjoy the odd foray into the realms of historical crime fiction. It strikes me that the…

When an Austrian nobleman offers a substantial donation to the University of Oxford, Charles Maddox is called on to investigate the generous benefactor. It is a decidedly mundane task for the increasingly renowned criminal investigator, but Maddox welcomes the chance to trade London’s teeming streets for the comforts of a castle in the Viennese countryside. Comfort, however, is in short supply once Maddox steps onto foreign soil—and into the company of the mysterious Baron Von Reisenberg. A man of impeccable breeding, the Baron is nonetheless the subject of frightened whispers and macabre legends. Though Maddox isn’t one to entertain supernatural beliefs, the dank halls and foreboding shadows of the castle begin to haunt his sleep with nightmares. But in the light of day the veteran detective can find no evidence of the sinister—until a series of disturbing incidents prove him gravely mistaken and thrust him into a harrowing quest to expose whatever evil lurks behind the locked doors of the Baron’s secretive domain. After a terrifying encounter nearly costs him his sanity, Maddox is forced to return home defeated—and still pursued by the horror he’s unearthed. Owing to a string of gruesome murders committed by an elusive predator branded the…

August 1945, Germany. The Allies have won the war. Now they have to win the peace … Silas Payne is a Scotland Yard officer seconded to Germany to help implement the Allied policy of denazification. When a former Waffen SS soldier is found murdered in the cellar of a requisitioned house, Payne begins an investigation that leads him on a tortuous path of discovery through the chaos of post-war Germany and pits him against a depraved killer who will stop at nothing to protect his secret. The central premise behind Werewolf had me hooked right off the bat. The thought that a serial killer was going about their ghastly business using the ending of a war for cover. It seems so blindingly obvious now when I think about it. Confusion and chaos on every street corner, Allied soldiers getting contradictory orders, while Axis forces attempting to flee or surrender. It’s the perfect place to indulge the darkest of acts isn’t it? People are still dying every day, who is going to miss a few more? More to the point, will anyone even care? Silas Payne is more than used to dealing with worst of humanity. He has spent years working…