Publication date: 2005-03-03
RRP: £16.99
Price: £2.95
Review Blood Eagle / Random House Audiobooks:
Creator: Tim Machin
Publication date: 2004-12-31
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £16.99
Price: £9.99
Review The Final Detail (CD) / Orion:
Creator: John Nettles
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2003-01-17
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £9.99
Price: £9.49
Review Lie Down with Lions / Macmillan Audio Books:
Edition: preloaded audio player
Publication date: 2007-07-01
RRP: £16.99
Price: £11.21
Review Indelible (Mi-vox pre-loaded audio player) (Mi-Vox Pre-loaded Audio Player) / audiobooksonline.co.uk:Karin Slaughter's reputation grows apace, and Indelible sports all the customary fingerprints. Over the space of a handful of novels, the author has built a reputation as one of the key crime novelists at work today. What's her secret? In some ways, Slaughter's work is a refining of the Southern Gothic idiom that has been the bedrock of so much atmospheric work in the past, but Slaughter's way with the form is entirely her own, and despite the lashings of atmosphere, she never forgets that a crime novelist has to be rigorous in the arena of plotting-and that's her strongest suit. Medical examiner Sara Linton and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver take a trip from the pressures of Heartsdale (in the hope of straightening out their relationship), but a detour to Jeffrey's hometown lands them in the most difficult case of their career. Readers are probably growing weary of the inevitable comparison novels like Slaughter's draw with those of Thomas Harris-and rightly so. But the trouble is, such comparisons are right on the nail for Slaughter. She may not quite have the older writer's authority, but she is undoubtedly skilled at creating a delicious, unsettling tension in the reader-as is very much the case in Indelible. And she's careful, too, to ensure that the relationship between Sara Linton and Jeffrey Tolliver isn't sidelined by the accelerating tension-that relationship is moved on considerably here. The fulsome praise on the jacket from such fellow scribes as John Connolly and Michael Connelly is more than professional courtesy here-they're fully justified by the work on offer. -Barry Forshaw.
Dewey code: 152.41
RRP: £9.99
Price: £13.95
Review Why Do Fools Fall in Love: Experiencing the Magic, Mystery and Meaning of Successful Relationships (Wiley Audio):
Creator: Colin Buchanan
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2007-03-05
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.99
Review The Death of Dalziel / HarperCollins Audio:It's not so much Reginald Hill's productivity that is amazing (although producing novels for nearly four decades is impressive enough); it's the unassailable quality of his writing that takes the breath away. With barely a misstep over the years, Hill's chronicling of the abrasive (but, of late, more accommodating) relationship between his mismatched coppers, the no-holds-barred Andy Dalziel and the more nuanced Peter Pascoe, has been non-pareil, with the author's plotting every inch a match for his spot-on characterisation (and not just of his detective duo - there have been many sharply observed players introduced into the dramatis personae over the years). Of course, a title like The Death of Dalziel will set alarm bells ringing (as much, one assumes, for Hill's publishers as for dedicated readers), and there's no denying that putting the life of his corpulent copper on the line ratchets up the tension here considerably. We're given a taste of Andy's corrosive wit as he and Peter Pascoe observe a video shop that's under surveillance by the security services for its supposed terrorist connections, but (before the reader has time to draw a breath), there is an explosion, and Dalziel is left lying unconscious, bleeding heavily and covered with debris, his body having shielded his partner from the worst of the blast. And for the rest of the book, while Pascoe tracks down the reasons behind the explosion (he doesn't buy the obvious explanation, i. e. , would-be terrorists have blown themselves up by accident), Hill tries something radically different: we are taken into the consciousness of the critically ill Dalziel in his hospital bed. These sections (discursive, alternately funny and sad) are among the most successful in a very successful book. -Barry Forshaw.
Creator: James Macpherson
Publication date: 2007-02-01
RRP: £13.99
Price: £8.44
Review Mortal Causes (CD: LATEST EDITION) / Orion:
Creator: Boris Karloff
Publication date: 2006-03-13
RRP: £5.95
Price: £5.36
Review Classic Dramas Of Suspense (Csa Classic Radio Drama) / CSA WORD:
Creator: Christopher Graybill
Publication date: 2006-03-08
RRP: £14.99
Price: £9.25
Review The Two Minute Rule (CD) / Orion:
Creator: Derek Jacobi
Publication date: 2006-03-13
RRP: £16.99
Price: £16.14
Review Well-schooled in Murder (Inspector Lynley Mystery) / Hodder & Stoughton:
Creator: Hugh Fraser
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2006-05-05
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.89
Review Mysterious Affair at Styles / Macmillan Audio Books:
Creator: Samantha Bond
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2002-11-22
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £13.00
Price: £4.75
Review Jackdaws / Macmillan Audio Books:
Creator: Colin Buchanan
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2004-06-28
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.38
Review The Torment of Others / HarperCollins Audio:The Torment of Others is a salutary reminder what an asset to British crime fiction Val McDermid is. Her first books with journalist Lindsay Gordon as heroine gave hints of the talent that was to mature so impressively-and the subsequent series with the resourceful private eye Kate Brannigan demonstrated a sharper eye for the harder edges of society. But the best was just around the corner. McDermid's third sequence with clinical psychologist profiler Tony Hill was something of a quantum leap: as well as forging one of the most memorable figures in contemporary crime fiction with mildly eccentric Hill, McDermid added a degree of psychological acuity that made the earlier books seem like warm-ups for the main event. The latest outing for Hill, The Torment of Others, also features McDermid's other richly realised creation, DCI Carol Jordan, and the author carries her familiar protagonists into truly unsettling new areas. This time, Hill is coping with a return to practical clinical profiling after a frustrating spell as an academic. And there's another major complication for him: his ex-partner Carol Jordan is no longer sure she wishes to be in charge of a team after the brutal sexual assault she suffered during undercover work. But she is persuaded to do so-and realises that one of her main tasks will be to create a cohesive unit. A dead woman discovered in a sexual position on a bloody mattress, appears to be the victim of a killer the team knows all about: the monstrous Derek Tyler, who had carried out similarly bloody work two years before. However, forensics have landed Tyler in a mental institution-does this mean that Hill and Jordan are searching for a murderer who is copying the techniques of the psychotic Tyler? While this may not be the best starting point for those new to McDermid, enthusiasts will find all the key elements are firmly and satisfyingly in place. [+]-Barry Forshaw.
Creator: Belinda Lang
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2002-11-08
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £13.00
Price: £7.33
Review The Ice House / Macmillan Audio Books:
Publication date: 2006-11-16
RRP: £13.99
Price: £7.86
Review Silence of the Lambs / Random House Audiobooks:
Publication date: 2004-09-01
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £14.99
Price: £9.53
Review Garden of Beasts / Hodder & Stoughton:As is the case with many in the US legal profession, Jeffery Deaver decided to switch one moneymaking job for another-and thank God he did (who needs another lawyer?), when he can produce books like Garden of Beasts. His Lincoln Rhyme crime novels, with their doughty quadriplegic investigator, have been consistently excellent, with only a touch of tiredness creeping in recently. Rhyme was a highly unusual protagonist, and the convoluted serial killer narratives were refreshingly innovative in a desperately overcrowded field. In such winners as The Bone Collectorand The Stone Monkey, Rhyme and Amelia (his police colleague) had their work cut out. But it was apparent that Deaver might be sensing imminent burnout when he came up with two new heroes in The Blue Nowhere: cop Frank Bishop and computer hacker Wyatt Gillette. And it seems this change of pace didn't slake Deaver's desire for the new; here he is changing direction again with Garden of Beasts, a period-set thriller that is as utterly different from anything he's written as might be imagined-but quite as adroitly written. The setting is New York in the Thirties, and the protagonist here is hitman Paul Schumann, who ends up in police custody after one of his hits misfires. Schumann is given two options: journey to Berlin to terminate Hitler's associate Reinhard Ernst, or end up in jail for a very long time. Guess which option Schumann chooses? Correct! His danger-fraught journey through a vividly created Berlin, as the preparations for the Olympics transform the city, has the pulse-raising energy of the Rhyme books-particularly as a canny German cop is breathing down Schumann's neck. With its scarifying picture of a burgeoning Third Reich, Garden of Beasts is Deaver on top form; perhaps Schumann might be more fully developed, but few Deaver fans will complain. [+]-Barry Forshaw Jeffrey Deaver's thrillers are united by his fascination with people doing what they are good at. Garden of Beasts is separated in time and place from his modern thrillers, but both of its heroes are supremely competent men. The shame is that they are working against each other. Gun for hire Paul Schumann is offered a chance to avoid the electric chair. All he has to do is go to Berlin for the Olympics and take out Ernst, chief of the bureaucrats who is building German's military might for Hitler. And in Berlin, honest apolitical cop Kohl finds himself on Schumann's trail without any idea of what he is up to. Deaver is as good here at what an intelligent policeman could do with limited forensic resources as he is in his series about contemporary high-tech criminalist Lincoln Rhyme. Ernst, meanwhile, is caught up in the Third Reich's vicious infighting and hard at work at a particularly nasty and inventive scheme. This is a splendidly atmospheric historical thriller that wears its research lightly-it is also endlessly inventive in the twists and turns of its characters' movements through a society built on betrayal and sudden death. -Roz Kaveney.
Creator: Christopher Lane
Edition: MP3 Una
Publication date: 2007-05
Dewey code: 813.54
RRP: £14.92
Price: £12.72
Review Strike Force / Brilliance Audio:
Creator: David Aaron Baker
Edition: MP3 Una
Publication date: 2008-05-20
Dewey code: 813.54
RRP: £15.70
Price: £7.09
Review Odd Hours (Odd Thomas) / Brilliance Corporation:
Authors
- Haskell Barken
- Robert Bloch
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2003-02-04
Dewey code: 813
Price: £14.95
Review Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Murder in Hollywood & Murder with a Twist: Great Mystery Series (Great Mystery) / Media Books Audio Publishing:
Authors
- Lyndon Stacey narrated by Jonathan Keeble
RRP: £25.96
Price: £17.13
Review Murder in Mind ( Unabridged Audio Book) / Whole Story Audio Books:
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Blood Eagle, The Final Detail (CD), Lie Down with Lions, Indelible (Mi-vox pre-loaded audio player) (Mi-Vox Pre-loaded Audio Player), Why Do Fools Fall in Love: Experiencing the Magic, Mystery and Meaning of Successful Relationships (Wiley Audio), The Death of Dalziel, Mortal Causes (CD: LATEST EDITION), Classic Dramas Of Suspense (Csa Classic Radio Drama), The Two Minute Rule (CD), Well-schooled in Murder (Inspector Lynley Mystery), Mysterious Affair at Styles, Jackdaws, The Torment of Others, The Ice House, Silence of the Lambs, Garden of Beasts, Strike Force, Odd Hours (Odd Thomas), Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Murder in Hollywood & Murder with a Twist: Great Mystery Series (Great Mystery), Murder in Mind ( Unabridged Audio Book) |
