Peter Grainger is the best author I can name who doesn’t have a Wikipedia page.
His 2024 book ➙ The Late Lord Thorpe: A DC Smith Investigation — is as brilliant as all of the rest.
DC Smith is one of my favourite characters of literature.
Dry British wit. I laugh out loud.
No gun shots. No car chases. No profanity. No sex, please, we’re British.
Instead you get a meticulous procedural. The slowest of slow burns.
This is DC Smith’s third investigation with the Diver and Diver Associates agency. He works for them part time, being retired from the police.
They have been asked by a member of Norfolk’s aristocracy to look into the tragic death of her younger brother, Freddie, the late Lord Thorpe of the title.
The inquest verdict was of misadventure, but it isn’t long before Smith begins to suspect there has been a serious miscarriage of justice.
This book is only available on Kindle and Audio. I highly recommend it.
Several weeks have passed since Richard Jury was left bereft and guilt-ridden after the tragic accident of Lu Aguilar. Now she lies in a coma, and Jury wants to stay near her.
Instead, he has been tossed a case outside of his jurisdiction, in the village of Chesham, where a beautiful young woman has been murdered in the grounds of a pub called the Black Cat. And the only witness to the murder is … the black cat. …
Given her gown–Yves St. Laurent–and her shoes–Jimmy Choo, Jury wonders, Was she rich or wed to riches? She carries no identification, and no one in the village has a clue as to who she is.
Then in London, another murder, another beautifully-got-up woman, this time shoes by Louboutin. And then a third. Jury is stumped: he knows these killings are connected, but if this is a serial killer in London, why commit a murder in Chesham?
The book is average. But it’s impressive to see how great writers can improvise into someone else’s plot.
The private eye is Perry Christo, a divorced dad and one-time NYPD homicide cop who’s been running on fumes (and parental guilt) since a corruption scandal cost him his career, his marriage, and, most importantly, time with his beloved daughter Nicky.
So when a loaded Upper East Side matron Julia Drusilla offers a load of cash for what seems like a no-brainer wandering-daughter job Perry jumps at the chance.
But tracking down the 20-year-old heiress Angel isn’t quite the slam-dunk he expected—it turns out everyone has a different reason for finding the troublesome party girl—or making sure she’s never found. …
I started by asking a bunch of writers if they were willing to participate in the project and for a good cause – in this case, donate their royalties to a charity of my choosing, (again, I was calling the shots). I chose Safe Horizon, an organization that helps victim of violent crime and abuse. I figured that writers who made money writing about crime (often violent crime) should want to give something back – and every one of these writers enthusiastically said YES. …
Mark Billingham Lawrence Block CJ Box Ken Bruen Alafair Burke Stephen L. Carter Mary Higgins Clark Marcia Clark Max Allan Collins John Connolly James Grady Bryan Gruley Heather Graham Charlaine Harris Val McDermid SJ Rozan Jonathan Santlofer Dana Stabenow Lisa Unger Sarah Weinman Introduction by Lee Child Afterward by Linda Fairstein
The 15th book (2016) in the Charlie Parker series is not his best.
Too long. Too slow.
The most interesting characters are Charlie’s sidekicks/bodyguards, Angel and Louis. They are not given enough time in this book. Nor is lawyer Moxie Castin.
John Connolly is an excellent author. But his story telling skills are far inferior to Stephen King, for one example.
Connolly writes gritty crime fiction with supernatural elements. Much violence.
In this book, one of Charlie’s clients is killed.
His investigation leads him to weird, creepy, cult-like group who call themselves the Cut.
Now age 84, he’s determined to finish his William Warwick series.
Nothing Ventured (2019)
Hidden in Plain Sight (2020)
Turn a Blind Eye (2021)
Over My Dead Body (2021)
Next in Line (2022)
Traitor’s Gate (2023)
An Eye for an Eye (2024)
William begins his career, after leaving university in 1970, as a constable on the beat. You follow the lives of William, his friends, family, colleagues and adversaries over five tumultuous decades, until William finally becomes Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in 2022, not without many setbacks along the way.
He first becomes a detective in the art squad, and through his career moves through drugs, murder, royal protection, Olympic Games security and finally counter terrorism – with several triumphs and a few disasters in between.
A backdrop of colourful characters, including his remarkable wife Beth, The Hawk, his boss, Inspector Ross Hogan, his closest friend, and often the cause and sometimes the solutions of his problems, Princess Diana, The Crown, and Miles Faulkner, a brilliant and resourceful criminal who dogs his path and chance of promotion at every opportunity.
An Eye for an Eye is a drama revolving around a potential arms deal between Saudi Arabia and Great Britain. William is now Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintendent.
The arms deal is complicated by a murder — and international intrigue.
Meanwhile, villain Miles Faulkner has been released from prison, intent on ruining the lives of William and his wife Beth.
Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.
Córy Doctorow might just be the smartest tech pundit. And he’s incredibly well spoken.
I started the sequel — Homeland (2013) — but only made it about 30% through the audiobook.
The start at the Burning Man festival was entertaining. But I found it increasingly too geeky. The decision whether or not to release leaked data was not a compelling enough plot to keep me going.
Jeffery Deaver is probably my favourite author these days.
Especially his Lincoln Rhyme series, a quadriplegic detective, and NYPD Detective Amelia Sachs.
This 2024 book is NOT Lincoln Rhyme. It’s intended to launch a new series featuring Carmen Sanchez, a tough Homeland Security agent and Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert.
The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favour — and she drags him into investigating a series of murders across Southern California.
Deaver Fans like it. But, for me, this book was inferior to his usual work.
There are some plot holes.
And a lack of fact checking. One character is a Rhythmic gymnast on scholarship in the NCAA. There are no scholarships for Rhythmic gymnasts.
She has been obsessed with a large number of fires in which a single person always died, including one involving her sister.
Local authorities, finding no foul play, ruled all these fires were accidental. …
… a preliminary investigation is launched by the FBI …
The New York Journal of Books provided a positive review, saying, “Invisible is a difficult book to read because of the sheer horror and mayhem, but it’s even tougher to put down.”
Rick McCharles 