Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 20

Last Woman Standing, Amy Gentry

Stand-up comedy is a tough business at the best of times. For Dana Diaz it’s even harder. Chased from the bright lights of LA she returned to Austin, Texas to regroup. It’s been a year and things have started to change. On the eve of the biggest stand up comedy shoot out in Austin; Dana meets a new friend. Amanda works in tech so she is also a woman in a man’s world, she has an agenda of revenge and she wants Dana to help her. As Dana’s star rises, the lines between revenge and murder start to blur because as every good comic knows, on stage you have to kill...

Nowhere Child, Christian White

When a child goes missing it rarely ends well. Sammy Went vanished from her bedroom in Manson, Kentucky when she was just two years old. Everyone thought she was dead.
Kim Leamy is convinced that the earnest American who approaches her in Melbourne has her mixed up with someone else, she’s never even been to America. As she digs deeper, a disturbing truth comes to light along with genetic proof that she is Sammy Went. 
Returning to Manson is the worst thing she could do because all small towns have their secrets...

Burglar. Thomas Perry

Thieving in Beverly Hills is keeping Elle Stowell from getting a real job but her burglary career may be coming to a sudden end. Elle walks in on a blood-soaked murder scene at a wealthy art dealer’s house and there’s a snuff tape with Elle as a walk on and live part at the end so she steals, doctors and returns the tape. Doing that causes Elle to go from thief to target. The police have no leads so she uses her skills to investigate why somebody with a lot of resources wants her dead.

An Anonymous Girl, Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Subject 52 and Subject 5 are very much alike. Both took part in a morality study at NYC and now one of them is dead. As the study gets weirder and the stakes get higher, Jessica Farris is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse, can she avoid a similar fate when she’s already made exactly the same mistakes as Subject 5?

Book Artist, Mark Pryor

Ambassador Taylor is due to attend the opening of an art show at the Dali museum and wants his head of security by his side. Hugo Marston is less than thrilled, he was hoping to have a quiet word with Claudia, his on again, off again journalist girlfriend about the state of their relationship. That is put on hold when an attendee is murdered and the policeman in charge of the investigation not only refuses Hugo’s help, he makes a rapid arrest of someone that Hugo is convinced is innocent.
Meanwhile Tom Green is still chasing paroled felon Rick Colfer and a tip takes him to Amsterdam where Colfer gets the drop on Tom and then comes after a devastated Hugo…  

Ben Aaronovitch updated

My colleague Wendy was living in London for several months this year and when she came back she brought a list of new authors we should try out. Aaronovitch is at the top of that list for me. His first book Rivers of London (Midnight Riot in the US) was the choice for 'London Reads'.

I never thought I'd say the words perfect blend of grown up Harry Potter and police procedural but that's about the size of it. In Aaronovitch's London, magic is a lost art, there is only one magician left, Thomas Nightingale and he's a Detective Inspector with the Met in charge of a department that investigates crimes that don't have a natural cause. West Indian PC Peter Grant comes to Nightingale's attention when he interviews a most unusual witness to a murder, a ghost. Peter becomes Nightingale's apprentice and a whole new world opens up to him, a world of ghosts, vampires, vestigium, magical spells and rivers like the Thames which have their own guardians and diplomatic problems. With enough plot twists and characters that you can't help liking this is a great series to get into if you're a fan of the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler or you grew up with Harry Potter.

The books so far are
Rivers of London (Midnight Riot)
Moon over Soho
Whispers Underground
Broken Homes
Foxglove Summer
Hanging Tree
Lies Sleeping

Comforts of Home, Susan Hill

His last case almost killed him but fate isn't done with Simon Serrailler yet. Most of Simon survived
now he's on sick leave on the bleak island of Taransay where he gets involved with the case of a missing local woman; his visiting nephew Sam was the last one to see her alive. He's also looking into a cold case which has been reignited by the oxygen of publicity. Back in Lafferton, a string of arson attacks is running the police force ragged whilst Simon's sister Cat is trying to settle down with her new husband (Simon's boss) but the unexpected arrival of the family patriarch, Richard could throw a wrench into that relationship and Simon's return to Lafferton and subsequent re-opening of a cold case he feels was mishandled lead to explosive consequences.

Einstein’s Monsters, Chris Impey

Everything you wanted to know about black holes from their original discovery to detection methods to what happens when two gravity wells collide. 
Chris Impey dispels visions of an always-on galactic vacuum cleaner; replacing them with a more elegant, but no less enigmatic inhabitant of our solar system.

Forever and a day, Anthony Horowitz

007 is dead, found floating face down in the harbor in Marseilles. He was investigating a puzzling anomaly in the drug trade and back in London M has to select his successor.
James Bond is about to become a double O.

Forbidden Door, Dean Koontz

The Arcadians use their media to paint rogue FBI agent Jane Hawk as the worst kind of murderer. They also intend to ‘adjust’ Clare and Ancel Hawk to back up their fake narrative. Jane knows nothing of this, she is driving like hell to rescue her five year old son Travis because if he is captured Jane’s spirit and heart will be broken.
Jane’s rescue plan brings some strange bedfellows together, criminals, former law enforcement and an old retired wig maker. What she doesn’t know is that in their haste to flood the remote area where Travis is hidden  with ‘adjusted people’ the Arcadians have made a mistake, one that could play to Jane and her team’s advantage if it doesn’t kill them first.