The symbol of a pentagram haunts the search for a killer whose esoteric calling card leaves detectives struggling for more meaningful clues as the death toll rises and 666 soon becomes the symbolic number of death as the 999 calls begin to assume the numerical mirror image of the devil. The series of murders has … Continue reading “Evil Intent by Jane Isaac”
Category: Book Review
Book review section
Primary Obsessions by Charles Demers
Mental health and its often misunderstood impact on the affected individual/s is brought under the microscope in this tragic murder plot which sees the troubled Sanjay stigmatized by common misconceptions, seemingly fuelled by intellectual apathy, and as a result becomes compartmentalised into a metaphorical and literal dark room, with no exit……… The driven and indefatigable … Continue reading “Primary Obsessions by Charles Demers”
The Exile And The Mapmaker by Emma Musty
The Exile and The Mapmaker share the pain of loves lost in a story that weaves the despair of fading memories with the hope of reconciling the past with the present, before all that is left are emptiness and regrets. Nebay is the Eritrean refugee, desperate to be re-united with his sister yet mourning the … Continue reading “The Exile And The Mapmaker by Emma Musty”
Pressure Chamber by Nir Hezroni
A calculating psychopath, with a messiah complex, emerges from the shadows of Tel Aviv and unsuspectingly provokes a (sub-conscious) battle of wills between himself and a forensic scientist whose professional focus occasionally blurs as she seeks to confront the personal demons that inhabit the darkest recesses of her childhood memories. While awake Daphne relentlessly bears … Continue reading “Pressure Chamber by Nir Hezroni”
The Ash Museum by Rebecca Smith
The dying embers of an Indian empire, that had forcibly inducted its indigenous population into a Victorian template of social hierarchy, turns the microscope of these inherent inequalities onto the trauma suffered by a mixed race family unit torn apart by the death of the white patriarch and the subsequent inability of a blinkered western … Continue reading “The Ash Museum by Rebecca Smith”
The Colour of Thunder by Suzanne Harrison
The brooding presence of Hong Kong’s impending typhoon season casts a seemingly impenetrable shadow over the lives of three friends whose pasts areso intertwined that they are unable to escape from the deadly secrets that bind them. Jonny, Brian and Phil have cultivated a network of deceit, shrouded beneath a cloak of corporate well-being and … Continue reading “The Colour of Thunder by Suzanne Harrison”
“Evil Is” by MJ Martin
The deliberately truncated title of this harrowing account of “family life”, in the bleak landscape of 1950’s Aberdeenshire, appears to reflects not only a lack of closure for the infant victims but a social welfare vacuum into which all adult morality has disappeared. This is the deafening silence of a collective guilt captured by Frances’s … Continue reading ““Evil Is” by MJ Martin”
Helen and the Grandbees
Undercurrents of abuse and its inevitable impact on mental health run like a negative charge through this south London story of fear, isolation and gradual re-birth as Helen endures a seemingly interminable emotional blackout before the lights flicker into life again as she is re-united with her daughter and grandchildren. Up until this point Helen … Continue reading “Helen and the Grandbees”
Soldier Boy by Cassandra Parkin
Cassandra Parkin gives added poignancy to Liam’s desperate attempts to hold onto any semblance of normality as she peels back the mental scars of a soldier whose fight to keep his family unit intact appears to have already been lost to the battle fields of Afghanistan. Emma’s solitary battle to overcome the invisible enemy trapped … Continue reading “Soldier Boy by Cassandra Parkin”
You Don’t Know Me by Sara Foster
A breathless romance in the heat of Thailand proves an unwitting catalyst for the re-opening of a Pandoras box of family suffering that begins to consume any hopes of long lasting happiness for Noah. The magnetic pull of Alice is a subconscious conduit to the past as her flame haired allure bears an inescapable resemblance … Continue reading “You Don’t Know Me by Sara Foster”