Crime Books

The Darker Side of Paraside . . .

Advantages: A quick easy read. Would make a good television drama.
Disadvantages: Implausible plot. Would make a good television drama.

Lynda La Plante is perhaps best known for her writing of powerful television dramas including Prime Suspect for which she won several awards. To date, she has also written some nine best-selling novels! Although I have watched a few of the television dramas, I have never really been tempted by any of her novels. However, on my recent birthday I was given "Sleeping Cruelty" (La Plante's seventh novel ISBN-10: 0333736532 published on September 22nd ...
...anything new, I started to read . . . The book opens with a rather disquieting prologue. A sinister flashback places a young nanny isolated with two strange children rumoured to have previously set fire to their home and their mother!! A few horrific scenes (including those of a somewhat sexual nature) later, the nanny is woken by a thudding of something being dragged across the roof - the children and their dead father! ""Nanny, will you help us ...

MAFARRIMOND 14.10.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Sleeping Cruelty - Lynda La Plante

Death in Florence

Advantages: The setting
Disadvantages: Weak plot, simplistic characters

...her Marshall Guarnaccia series with Death of an Englishman back in 1981, long before Michael Dibdin. The author Magdalen Nabb is an interesting woman. She was a potter who became disillusioned with her life in the UK and decided to move to Florence with her son, despite not speaking a word of Italian. Once settled, she decided to stay and started a new career as a writer of detective fiction and children's books. Although her main character is Italian, ...
...in Italy, although the focus later changed to Italian lifestyles. The plot An Englishman based in Florence, Mr Langley-Smythe, is found shot through the back of the head. Yet neither his neighbours nor the English community know much about his lifestyle - he seems to have kept himself to himself and there are few clues to the reason for his death. Marshall Salvatore Guarnaccia of the Florence carabinieri is ill in bed with flu, anxious that he is ...

sunmeilan 15.03.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Death of an Englishman - Magdalen Nabb

Was the author drunk when she wrote this?

Advantages: None that I am aware of
Disadvantages: too many to mention

I was very disappointed with this book. After having read the Kay Scarpetta books I decided to buy the books in this series. I was aware that the main character was Andy Brazil in this story and settle down for a good read (so I thought). It was not easy to read and I felt very frustrated with the novel. In a nutshell this book was shoddily written. There seemed too many characters and too many subplots. It was as though the author of this book had ...
...to kill off a few people, just for the sake of it. There was no cohesion and structure. I am a Patricia Cornwell fan and have read all of the Kay Scarpetta books to date, but I could not believe what was happening when I read the Hornets nest. This book is definitely not up to Cornwell's usual high standard. Has anyone ever heard of ghost writers ?? ...

starfly978 19.02.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Hornet's Nest - Patricia Cornwell

BURSTING the BUBBLE

Advantages: An engrossing, historical novel from a master story-teller
Disadvantages: Weak central character

...couple of years ago called SEA CHANGE. Goddard's novels are to a certain extent, formulaic. In most cases, the 'hero' is a man who is down-on-his-luck, and suffering the effects of a mid-life crisis. He invariably encounters an enigmatic woman who then vanishes, leaving him embroiled in an ever-deepening mystery in which the central character, more often than not, stumbles through - rather than actively solves. Our story begins in the year of 1721, ...
...of the South Sea Company. Many important people, up to and including the King of Britain, were thought to have been involved in this Stock Market fraud. At this time, there was a rival claimant to the British throne, one James Edward Stuart - the Old Pretender - who lived in exile in Rome. His followers, the Jacobites, would be interested in anything which would discredit the King and his government. William Spandrel, a penniless mapmaker imprisoned ...

proxam 31.01.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Sea Change - Robert Goddard

Whiteout

Advantages: Easy reading,exciting,good book.
Disadvantages: None

About the author Ken Follett was born in Cardiff, Wales, on the 5th of June, 1949. Throughout his career as a journalist, Ken worked as a general reporter and later on he wrote his first book Eye of the Needle in 1978.Now he has written about 20 thrillers and his books are translated to around 30 languages and are being sold world wide. Whiteout is one of his most successful books. About the book The book is about a secret laboratory ...
...scientist that was creating the vaccine for the deadly virus was found dead. And in the book you read how the people are trying to catch the thieves who stole the virus before they give it to someone or use it.But when the thieves try to run a terrible snowstorm strikes the city and they cant drive with the car and they have to find a place to stay or they will die from the cold. My opinion about the book This is my first book from this author ...

Kotletas 22.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Whiteout - Ken Follett