Shooting Elvis

DI Charlie Priest, and DS Dave Sparkington have been called out to what appears to be a suicide by electrocution.  However, after studying the way the wires were wrapped around the thumbs of the victim, it appears that they have a murder on their hands.

As Priest's team delves further into the background of the victim, it is discovered that he was a convicted killer, who had served his time.  Only, it appears that the victim isn't the killer; the killer still is languishing in jail.  Was he killed simply because he resembled the jailed killer?

Sometime after this a small-time criminal is murdered.  Although the killing is in a different fashion, Priest wonders if the two are linked.  A psychiatrist is called in, and he is of the opinion that the two cases are linked.

Priest is thrown for a loop one evening when his girlfriend doesn't return from a run. The search team finds one of her shoes along the edge of her running route.  Fortunately she escapes from her attacker with only a few bruises.  Priest is taken off the case when his friend, a doctor, is brutally murdered, but for what reason?

Author Stuart Pawson maintains an electrically charged pace through the whole of this murder mystery;  this is a book that you will not want to put down.

Never End

A serial rapist is on the loose in Gothenburg.  The first girl he attacked has survived, but he killed the second one.  For Erik Winter and his team, it brings back memories of a previous rapist.  It reminds Winter of a similar case five years earlier.  Just shortly after the second attack, one of Winter's team members, Fredrik Halders, loses his ex-wife in a hit and run accident.

There is a commonality in the two rape victims who died.  They had both been strangled, and both had been wearing a belt, which was missing.  Sure about the commonality, Winter digs deeper.  He discovers photos of the two dead girls taken in exactly the same place.  But how does the third victim tie in?

Another young woman is murdered.  She managed to call her home using her mobile phone before she was killed, so the police have the sounds of her murderer on her answer machine.  A technician is able to eliminate the noises surrounding the voice and determines that the murderer is saying "Never again."  But, what significance does that have?

Author Ake Edwardson pulls together an exciting story that starts off very slowly, and maintains that pace for a major portion of the murder mystery, but has an adrenalin filled rush as it drives to the climax.  A very good, and thoroughly enjoyable read.

The Arsenic Labyrinth

Journalist Tony Di Venuto has asked DCI Hannah Scarlett to re-open the case of Emma Bestwick, who has been missing for ten years.  An anonymous caller has informed the journalist that Emma won't be coming back.  Scarlett discusses the case with her retired colleague, Les, Bryant, who is contracted to work on cold case files.  They decide to reopen the case.

A short time later, the mysterious voice tells Di Venuto where the body of Emma can be found.  Scarlett's superior tells her to go ahead with the search for the body.  The search team is surprised and shocked when another body is found nearby Emma's at the bottom of a mining shaft.

Not long after this, Scarlett is informed of another body found nearby in the lake.  This one is recently dead, and he is known to the police.  On top of that, he had been released from prison just shortly before Emma disappeared.

It is Scarlett's historian friend, Daniel Kind, who puts a name to the second victim.  He discovers it in a journal that he was reading for research into the Lake Distrct.  However, that doesn't solve the murder of Emma.  Author Martin Edwards has a few twists and turns up his writing sleeve before the story ends.  A good, quick read.

Death at the Jesus House

It is 1910 and a murder has occurred at an almshouse outside London.  Sir Peregrine Fishborne is not impressed with the inspector in charge, one Albert Fletcher, so he requests the help of Sir Francis Powerscourt.  There is an unusual mark on the chest of the victim that draws the attention of Powerscourt and Fletcher.

While the investigation is just starting, Fletcher receives a telegram from Fishborne that another murder has been committed in a school he is responsible for in Norfolk.  This victim also has the same imprint on his chest.  Peregrine wants Powerscourt to immediately investigate that murder, too.  Powerscourt finds an Inspector Grime in charge of the investigation.

It isn't long before a third victim turns up.  This one is a member of the governing body of the almshouse and school and he also has the same mark left on his chest. Powerscourt meets a third inspector, one Miles Devereux.

Meantime, Johnny Fitzgerald, discovers that William Monk, warden of the almshouse might be fiddling with the wills of the inmates.  At the same time, Powerscourt finds out that the company in charge of the three venues, plus others, could be sold in the near future, making a lot of money for the owners.  It appears that is the leaders of the opposition are the ones who were murdered.

Conspiracy, fraud, international intrigue, history, and vengeance are all tied up in the latest murder mystery involving Lord Francis Powerscourt.  However, author David Dickinson does leave the reader wondering about one thing at the end of the novel. A very good read.

A Death to Record

DS Den Cooper has been called out to a dairy farm where a body has been found. Cooper is positive that the culprit is the man who stole his girlfriend, Lilah.  She becomes very antagonist towards Cooper as the boyfriend is taken in for questioning.

Cooper is surprised that nobody seems to have any sympathy for the victim.  Later it is discovered that the victim was involved in wanting to ensure that all badgers in the area be culled because it was thought that they were a source of TB for the cattle.

There seem to be quite a number of potential suspects that Cooper has to investigate, because there are so many people who had bad feelings towards the victim.  He had been a badger baiter and wasn't above antagonising others.

Author Rebecca Tope gives the reader a few surprising twists to the story before bringing  it to its ultimate conclusion.  A good read.

Death Lies Beneath

A minor criminal had been clobbered over the head and then hospitalised.  Unfortunately he had meandered out of the hospital and died.  DI Andy Horton is wondering if there is more to the death than what appears on the surface.  Two of the mourners at the funeral were driving flash cars, causing Horton to wonder how they could afford them, since they were supposedly on benefits.

The morning after the funeral, Horton is called to a salvage yard where the body of a woman has been found.  Surprisingly, Horton realises that he had seen her at the funeral the previous day.  The question that arises is, is the victim connected the criminal whose funeral was the previous day, and if so, what was the connection?

Horton is now assigned a new partner from Europol.  He is surprised when Agent Eames is a woman.  Eames, while examining the victim's clothing, indicates that they are very expensive.  This gives Horton some new theories about her murder.

While checking with the warden of the prison where the first victim had once resided, Horton finds out that the victim had had a picture of the female victim in his cell.  While returning to his office, shortly afterwards, Horton is informed that police divers have recovered a bracelet - with an arm, where the female victim had been found.

Identification of the second remains are of another woman who had disappeared quite a few years earlier.  A potential suspect is identified, but when he dies the question arises, was it a remorseful suicide or something else?

Author Pauline Rowson throws the readers a couple of curve balls before drawing this murder mystery to a close.  A thoroughly good read.

Over the Edge

Charlie Priest's team is investigating an MVA.  It appears that the driver was racing, he was also carrying £500 in twenties and a Glock 38.  The vehicle in question was one of an identical pair of vehicles recently stolen.  The other was found shortly afterwards torched.  Although Priest can't attribute a crime to the death, he is sure that there is a connection to something bigger.

It isn't long after this that a former school mate of Priest's, Tony Krabbe, is murdered by an ice axe.  Krabbe was a mountaineering enthusiast.  Looking further into Krabbe's past points Priest in the direction of a known criminal.  Is there a connection, and if so, how can it be proved?

A few weeks into the investigation a new case surfaces.  Two bodies are found in the countryside.  Both are female and could be illegal immigrants.  As Priest and his team continue the investigation, more crimes seem to pile up on the suspect he has in mind.  It is just a matter of putting it all together and finding the suspect.

Author Stuart Pawson has written an excellent crime thriller in "Over the Edge", one that the reader will not want to put down.  I enjoyed this read, and look forward to the next in this series.

Where Serpents Sleep

It is 1812 and Sebastian St. Cyr has just been picked up by Hero Jarvis, daughter of Lord Jarvis.  She wants him to investigate a young woman, whom Hero believes was well-born, and forced into prostitution.  Unfortunately the said young woman was killed in suspicious circumstances.  The home where she was staying was burned to the ground and several women who were living there also died.

Meantime, Lord Jarvis has assigned his man, Colonel Epsom-Smith, to look into the matter and discretely kill those responsible.  Sir William Hadley, in charge of Bow Street, refuses to allow St. Cyr's friend Dr. Paul Gibson to perform any autopsies, despite evidence showing that the women had been stabbed before being burned.  Will St. Cyr and Epsom-Smith be working together or at cross purposes on this investigation?

As St. Cyr ramps up his investigation, he finds out that Hadley knew the victim.  Meantime Miss Jarvis has done some investigating of her own and come up with a possible name for the victim.  St. Cyr realises that he knows the victim's brother.  Later one evening two highwaymen attempt to assassinate Miss Jarvis.  She kills one and badly wounds the other.

More deaths will occur before St. Cyr solves this murder mystery.  Author C. S. Harris makes the concluding pages quite thrilling.  Quite a good read.

The Dogs of Rome

Arturo Clemente, an animal rights activist in Rome, has just been stabbed to death in his apartment.  Is it a political murder, as his wife is a member of parliament for the Greens?  Commissioner Alec Blume has been sent to investigate.

Because it is seemingly a political murder, several other officers are interested in the investigation.  Blume is sure that his former protege, D'Amico is set upon screwing the investigation up for him.  Blume is sure that the murder is neither random, nor political.  Blume's superior, Gallone, doesn't want him questioning the victim's widow for some reason.  He is determined to pin the murder elsewhere.

Gallone's hunt results in a motor vehicle accident causing injury to Blume and his partner, Paoloni, and the shooting death of another police officer.  Blume and Paoloni are convinced that the man that they were after was not involved in the murder, but now they must go after him for the murder of the policeman.

Despite his injuries, Blume persists in the belief that another man was the killer of the first victim, and he begins to put together his case.

Author Conor Fitzgerald introduces numerous characters right away in this murder mystery, and it takes a few chapters to place them in the reader's mind.  However, Fitzgerald has written an excellent thriller.  This is the first in a series about Commissioner Blume and I am looking forward to reading more.

Death in a Scarlet Coat

Lord Francis Powerscourt and his wife, Lucy,  are forced to stay in Candlesby following a minor motor vehicle accident in which they were involved.  Unbeknownst to them, the earl of the locality has recently died under suspicious circumstances.  The sons of the earl are doing their best to cover up the cause of death.

A few days later, Powerscourt is called back to Candlesby by the local doctor.  He admits to falsifying the death certificate of the earl.  Armed with this evidence, Powerscourt approaches Inspector Blunden, wondering how to proceed.  In further investigations, Powerscourt learns that there are several people who would have enacted the earl dead.  He then enlists the aid of his wife and friend, Johnny Fitzgerald.

The body is exhumed and it is determined that the former earl was brutally murdered.  Now an inquest into the death is required.  The inquest determines unlawful death.  Shortly thereafter, when the new earl is on his way to London to be invested into the House of Lords, he too is murdered.

It takes some time for the Powerscourt team to put together the evidence in this case, which has some interesting twists before author David Dickinson presents the reader with a surprising conclusion.  A good read.

An Unmarked Grave

Spring, 1918 and the world is still at war.  However, another insidious battle is underway within the war; influenza is killing as many as the battlefield.  Sister Bess Crawford has been called into the shed where the dead are kept by one of the orderlies.  There he shows her a body of a man who obviously has died not as the result of a battlefield injury nor the influence, but rather has had his neck broken.  Why is he here and who murdered him?

Unfortunately before Bess can do anything about it, she is struck down by the flu.  She barely survives.  After her recovery, Bess is informed by her family friend Simon Brandon that the orderly committed suicide.  She feels this can't be true.  She and Brandon set out to prove that the two deaths are in truth murders.

Returning to the front to nurse, Bess tries to find an elusive Colonel Prescott, who seems somehow tied up in everything.  While at the aid station, an attempt is made on her life.  How can Bess and her friends solve this mystery if someone is set on murdering her?  Author Charles Todd sets about creating some tense moments for the reader before resolving this murder mystery.  A good, quick read.

A Darker God

Chief Inspector Percy Montacute of Scotland Yard has just been seconded to Athens.  He is unsure just what for.  When he arrives there he finds he is to train the police.  While working in Athens, he runs into his former colonel from The Great War, Andrew Merriman.  Merriman asks him to take part in a play that he is putting on.  During dress rehearsal, Merriman is murdered.  Montacute requests the help of Letty Talbot who prompting the dress rehearsal to take down information from the assembled actors.

The police doctor indicates that Merriman had been stabbed in the heart prior to the rehearsal.  Several hours later, the wife of Merriman is pushed from the balcony of her home.  She is barely able to inform Montacute who is responsible before she succumbs to her injuries.  Montacute arrests her young cousin the following morning.

The following day, acting on an instinct, and information provided, Montacute sends his sergeant ant Letty on what appears to be a random trip.  An attempt is made on their lives, confirming Montacute's suspicions.  However, it still doesn't solve the mystery of who is behind the deaths.

Author Barbara Cleverly has a few surprises up her sleeve before she draws this murder mystery to a close.  A good read.

Death of a Friend

DC Den Cooper has been called out to investigate the death of a man who had bee involved in animal rights.  The post mortem indicates that the victim had been trampled by a horse.  His death followed the death of a woman who was also involved in animal rights.  Are the two deaths related, even though the woman's death accidental?

A prime suspect appears in the form of the husband of the of the accident victim.  His claim to having been stuck in Vietnam is proved false when flight records are checked.  What is the best way for Cooper to approach him?

Later while enroute to interview a witness, Cooper is called to return to the farm because a child he gone missing.  Could this be related to the murder?  Fortunately that is not the case.

Author Rebecca Tope presents a couple of suspects as the story draws to a conclusion, but do the police have enough evidence to charge either of them?  Newly minted DC Den Cooper has his work cut out for him.  Author Tope provides a surprising conclusion to this mystery.  A good read.

The Enemy Within

It is early November and a woman's body has been found under the prepared bonfire by a couple of boys.  DS Monkia Paniatowski has been called by the duty sergeant to investigate.  Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend has also been contacted.  The bonfire explodes into flames just after Woodend arrives.  He is fortunate enough to drag the body free.

Paniatowski discovers from the new pathologist, Dr Shastri, that the victim was suffering from cancer, and many not have had long to live.  She takes DI Bob Rutter with her to the home of the victim.  There they discover that the victim had been on the game for the past year.

Woodend and Paniatowski are convinced that the killer was trying to show the police that he is better than them.  It is possible, in their minds, that he will strike again.  And he does; this time the young woman is laid out beside a prepared bonfire that has been lit before its time.  Dr, Shastri informs Paniatowski that this victim also was suffering from cancer.

A third victim is found beside a blazing bonfire.  The local newspaper editor informs Woodend that is his wife, and she was suffering from cancer, too.  The bonfire had been guarded by two constables who where knocked unconscious, but not harmed in any other way.  Why?  It is while speaking to the editor the following morning that another inspector arrives at the house and arrests the stepson of the editor for all three murders.  Woodend is convinced that this is wrong.  He needs to find the true killer or his job is done.

Author Sally Spencer has written an intriguing murder mystery that provides a few surprises right at the end.  A very good read.

The Road to Hell

DS Alice Rice has just made it through a disciplinary hearing and been cleared of all charges.  Now, maybe she get back to routine.  The following morning, she and DI Manson are called out to investigate a body.  It appears that the woman may have been beaten and raped.

That night she is informed by Manson that her boyfriend has been killed by a hit and run driver.  As hard as it is to accept his death, Rice gets back to work soon after and begins working on the investigation of the murdered woman.  Rice and DC Cairns discover that the victim once worked as a nursing sister.  When tragedy struck her life went downhill.

Sometime later, Rice gets strange, threatening phone calls in the middle of the night.  Following that, while visiting her lover's studio, a brick is thrown through a window getting glass shards in Rice's face.  It is at this time that another body is found.  This time it is a male and he is completely naked.  It doesn't take long to discover that he is a clergyman.

Author Gillian Galbraith has written an interesting police story, that leaves the reader wondering, yet surprised at the twists the author provides at the end.  A good, quick read.

Death on Blackheath

Thomas Pitt, commander of Special Branch, and his right hand man, Sergeant Stoker, have been called by the local police to the residence of Dudley Kynaston, an important naval defense personage, because of blood, hair and broken glass on the stairs of the home.  One of the maids is missing, and the hair matches her hair.  Could this be a threat to Kynaston?

Three weeks later, a woman's body is discovered in a nearby gravel pit.  The face has been badly mutilated.  Could this be the missing maid?  Politics come into play when the prime minister's office directs Pitt to continue the investigation without the help of the police.  Pitt turns to his former superior, Lord Victor Narraway for help.

While collecting evidence, Pitt discovers that Kynaston has been having an affair.  Did the maid know this, and was she murdered for that reason?  Pressure mounts on Pitt to solve the case.  It is Stoker who discovers that the maid has run away, fearing for her life.  Now they must find her and discover the reason for her flight.

To make matters worse, another mutilated body of a young woman is found in the same spot as the other was.  As the investigation continues it begins to appear that there is more to the story of the missing maid than initially suspected.

Author Anne Perry has created a novel full of mystery, conspiracy, hatred and revenge.  Perry closes the story out with intense action.  A good read.