I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison.
I love the character of VI Warshawski: tough, brave, capable, and utterly loyal to her friends. VI (as she is known) is the archetypal ‘tart noir’–a female investigator in the mold of the hardboiled noir detectives but with empathy, vulnerability, and great style. VI can pack a punch, handle a gun, and is tenacious to the point of stubbornness, often at great personal risk, yet we also see her moments of self-doubt, her humanity, and her compassion towards others.
Meeting an anonymous client on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. Especially when the client lies and tells V.I. Warshawski he's the prominent banker John Thayer, looking for his son's missing girlfriend. But V.I. soon discovers the real John Thayer's son - and he's dead.
As V.I. begins to question her mysterious client's motives, she sinks deeper into Chicago's darker side: a world of gangsters, insurance fraud and contract killings. And while she must concentrate on saving the life of someone she has never met, it becomes clear that she is in danger of losing her own.
I lived in Australia for several years and loved visiting historic buildings with their wrap-around verandas, pressed-tin high ceilings, and old-world grandeur. Greenwood’s books, set in 1920s Melbourne, remind me of those buildings. Her heroine, investigator Phryne Fisher, epitomizes 1920s glamour.
She’s wealthy, educated, sexy, and self-assured, and conducts her investigations in a dazzling array of sumptuous outfits. But what I like most about Phryne is her ability to talk to anyone, whether that’s the grandest society hostess or the roughest docker.
In this book, she’s investigating a series of murders in a theatre and also finds herself drawn to Melbourne’s Chinese community. She moves easily between worlds, often kind, always shrewd, never flinching.
From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Ruddy Gore, the next historical mystery featuring the unstoppable, elegant amateur sleuth. Can Miss Fisher use her theater ties to take care of a phantasm haunting a Gilbert and Sullivan show?
"The appeal of this story is the glimpse it provides into the 1920s theater world and the opportunity it affords to observe Phryne and Lin Chung's romance from its inception."―Booklist
Perfect for Fans of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear
Inspired the Netflix show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Movie Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears Currently Streaming on Acorn…
Enter a captivating world where science fiction and thrilling suspense converge. After plummeting from the roof of Helix Unbound, Amanda awakens to a life devoid of memories. Desperately longing to fit in, yet sensing she harbors an extraordinary secret beneath her seemingly ordinary facade, she explores the unfamiliar world in…
I love the character of Kinsey Millhone because she’s so human and relatable. Her life is messy; she gets herself caught up in situations where she knows she ought to let things drop but just can’t let them go, and she has a kind heart. She also has the endearing quality of being self-deprecating and not taking herself too seriously.
This book is set in the 1980s, and I enjoy seeing Kinsey’s legwork to solve her case without the benefit of mobile phones or the internet. I also love her relationship with her elderly neighbor and how protective she is of him when she feels that new people in the neighborhood are taking advantage of him.
X is the New York Times number 1 bestseller and thrilling, twenty-fourth book in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series from Sue Grafton.
In hindsight, I marvel at how clueless I was . . . What I ask myself even now is whether I should have picked up the truth any faster than I did, which is to say not fast enough . . .
When a glamorous red head wishes to locate the son she put up for adoption thirty-two years ago, it seems like an easy two hundred bucks for private investigator Kinsey Millhone. But when a cop tells…
Although I love a good murder story, I also enjoy fiction about other sorts of crime.
In this book, Manchester-based private investigator Kate Brannigan has two cases to solve: a series of art thefts and a case of industrial sabotage that leads to two murders that seem at first glance to be unconnected. Kate is determined to solve the case, even if it involves using unorthodox methods to do so.
I love her range of skills, from Thai boxing to going undercover to staking out a suspect. I find Kate a very likable character: funny, sarcastic, conflicted about her love life, and with a backing group of friends she genuinely cares for.
The fourth riveting thriller in the Kate Brannigan series, from No.1 Sunday Times bestseller Val McDermid.
'The Queen of Crime is still at the top of her game' Independent
When a Monet is stolen from a stately home, Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan goes head to head with organized crime as she hunts the thieves through Europe.
Meanwhile, someone is leaving a trail of bodies across the Northwest. As Kate confronts some harsh truths in her own life, the case stretches her love and loyalty to its limits.
Nine Stories Told Completely in Dialogue is a unique collection of narratives, each unfolding entirely through conversations between its characters. The book opens with "God on a Budget," a tale of a man's surreal nighttime visitation that offers a blend of the mundane and the mystical. In "Doctor in the…
When I first read this book, I wanted to be the protagonist, Sam Jones. Sam is bold, confident, and very sexy, has numerous vibrant, arty friends, owns a wardrobe of fabulous outfits, and is never far from trouble.
She’s a sculptor who turns unofficial investigator when a dead body turns up at the theatre where she’s been commissioned to create a series of mobiles for a stage production.
When not solving crimes, her life is a round of making art, complicated love affairs, drinking cocktails, and going out clubbing. I love her dry wit, strength, and self-deprecating humor.
Sam Jones is back! Lauren Henderson's sexy, streetwise artist-cum-detective returns in Freeze My Margarita, the sequel to her enormously popular Black Rubber Dress.
A chance meeting in a fetish club with an old friend from art school leads to a new sculpting job for Sam: creating a series of mobiles for an avant-garde production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Plunged into the strange world of theater, Sam mingles with a bizarre, vexing, but often amusing cast of characters, including the appalling Helen, the girlfriend of Sam's best friend Janey, and Hugo, an enigmatic and acidly humorous actor with a wry…
My book is a dual-timeline crime thriller featuring private investigator Eden Grey. When one of her clients dies in mysterious circumstances, his last words being “Paternoster,” Eden Grey is drawn into the shady world of a centuries-old secret society. Her investigations lead her to a world of people smuggling, art theft, and murder, and connections to two skeletons found on the grounds of a prestigious school.
But Eden also has problems closer to home, as her past as an undercover agent who helped to put away a ruthless gang starts to close in on her. She must use all her skills, intelligence, and courage to save the lives of two kidnapped schoolgirls and her own.
Return to Hope Creek is a second-chance rural romance set in Australia.
Stella Simpson's career and engagement are over. She returns to the rural community of Hope Creek to heal, unaware her high school and college sweetheart, Mitchell Scott, has also moved back to town to do some healing of…
David Fletcher needs a surgeon, stat! But when he captures a British merchantman in the Caribbean, what he gets is Charley Alcott, an apprentice physician barely old enough to shave. Needs must, and Captain Fletcher takes the prisoner back aboard his ship with orders to do his best or he’ll…
