My Reviews

Reviews of the books on my bedside table.

Review: The Death of Grass by John Christopher

The end of the world is nigh! In John Christopher’s novel first published in 1956 a virus is wiping out grass and crops across the globe and with them the survival chances of millions of people.

Book Review Oxford Menace by Veronica Stallwood

A review of the latest novel from Veronica Stallwood.

Book Review- Dead Centre

The ‘cosy’ British mystery novel, a literary genre, so the stereotype goes, exclusively written and read by spinster aunts, this book is unashamedly part of that tradition and displays many of its virtues.

Book Review: Eye of the Red Tsar

Eye of the Red Tsar Sam Eastland Faber and Faber £12.99 335pp

Book Review: Gently Go Man

A review of a classic British crime novel of the 1960's.

Book Review: The Coroner by M R Hall

This well crafted, thoughtful and at times genuinely thrilling book is one of, if not the, best crime novels of the year.

Book Review: The Haunted

A camping trip to the Scottish highlands turns nasty for an unhappily married couple.

Book Review: The Stonehenge Legacy

Creepy goings on at Stonehenge in a superior debut thriller.

Book Review: Twisted Tracks

A review of the latest book from one of the best kept secrets in British crime writing

The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill

A sniper stalks the women of a quiet cathedral town, the police are baffled and it is a deadly race against time before the killer strikes again.

Review: First Contact

Getting lost in the trackless jungles of Papua New Guinea turns a dream holiday into a nightmare struggle to survive for Mark and Melanie Bridges, remarkably this is only the start of their troubles.

The original special one

A review of Duncan Hamilton's account of his twenty year association with the iconic football manager Brian Clough.

Review The Shadow Collector

The Shadow Collector Kate Ellis (Piatkus, 2013) Lilith Bentley, rumoured to be a witch and implicated in a horrific murder returns to her...

Review The Shadow Collector

The Shadow Collector Kate Ellis (Piatkus, 2013) Lilith Bentley, rumoured to be a witch and implicated in a horrific murder returns to her...

Book Review- Game Set and Murder

Game, Set and Murder Elizabeth Flynn (Lion, 2013) Wimbledon on the eve of the world’s most famous tennis tournament, a setting crying out to play...

Book review; The Dunwich Horror

The Dunwich Horror H P Lovecraft (Penguin Classics, 2010) Halloween is nearly here, there are pumpkins on sale and the neighbourhood kids will soon...

Scarily Suburban

Dark Entries Robert Aickman (Faber and Faber, 2014) Robert Aickman is probably the best writer of ghost stories you’ve never heard unless you’re a...

Book Review The Cipher Garden

The Cipher Garden Martin Edwards (Allison and Busby, 2006) Five years after gardener and lothario Warren Howe was murdered by a mysterious hooded...

Painting a mean city

Stoke-on-Trent is a city with creativity coded deep into its DNA, something The Artist and the City, curated by Jean Milton and Anna Francis...

Things that go bump in the daylight.

The Soul That Screamed Dan Weatherer (Horrified Press, 2013) The debut collection from Staffordshire based horror Dan Weatherer is something of a...

Book Review Last Rites

Last Rites Neil White (Avon, 2012) There is something nasty afoot in a northern mill town where the mills have long since closed down. Someone is...

Book Review The Dying Place

The Dying Place Luca Veste (Avon, 2014) The badly beaten body of a young man is found on the steps of a church in West Derby, Liverpool. Another act...

Book Review- The Orphan Choir

The Orphan Choir Sophie Hannah (Hammer, 2013) Louise has a problem with her neighbour, he keeps playing loud music in the dead of night further...

Despatches from the war against being ordinary.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver (Vintage, 2009) 'That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off. That...

Why are we so sniffy about cosy crime novels?

When I picked up a copy of Deborah Crombie's No Mark Upon Her (Pan, 2011) my expectations weren't high. The cover showed a misty river scene complete...

Book Review- Pop Goes The Weasel

Pop Goes The Weasel M J Arlidge (Penguin, 2014) There's a killer stalking the back streets of Southampton, a latter day Jack the Ripper who preys on...

Book Review Resorting to Murder

Resorting to Murder Edited by Martin Edwards (British Library, 2015) The oldest of the rules for reviewers is that you shouldn't judge a book by its...

Book Review- Funny Girl

Funny Girl Nick Hornby (Penguin, 2015) In the past I have often struggled with the novels of Nick Hornby, his skill as a writer has always been...

Will Power

William Shakespeare His Life and Work Anthony Holden (Abacus, 2016) Just now William Shakespeare is everywhere, hardly surprising in the year marking...

Friends Like These

A Spy Among Friends Philby and the great betrayal Ben Macintyre (Bloomsbury, 2014) Do we need another book about the Cambridge spies? Surely...

Friends Like These

A Spy Among Friends Philby and the great betrayal Ben Macintyre (Bloomsbury, 2014) Do we need another book about the Cambridge spies? Surely...

Book Review: Beneath The Ashes

Beneath The Ashes Jane Isaac (LegendPress, 2016) A young woman wakes up on the kitchen floor, the house she’s in has been broken into and her...

Book Review: The Hunt for the 60's Ripper

The Hunt for the 60’s Ripper Robin Jarossi (Mirror Books, 2017) In the early sixties as London began to swing eight women were murdered, their bodies...

Unleash the hounds

When I was a child in the late seventies the overly sentimental theme song from the cartoon version of Watership Down seemed to be on the radio...
1 likes

Book Review: The Private Lives of the Tudors

A review of Tracy Borman's intimate history of the Tudor dynasty.