REVIEW: THE BANGKOK ASSET by John Burdett

Title: The Bangkok Asset
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 6
Genres: Mystery, Crime
Publisher: Knoph
Release: August 4th 2015
Source: ebook
Pages: 307

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BLURB:
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, John Burdett's tortured Buddhist detective of the Royal Thai Police Force, has thrilled and charmed readers through the author's five previous Bangkok novels. Now Sonchai's back, struggling to come to grips with the latest horrifying technological innovation to make its way to the streets of Bangkok. It's a conspiracy so big that everyone wants in on the action, not the least Sonchai's corrupt boss Vikorn.

In his latest case, Sonchai is paired with young, female inspector Krom. Like him, she's an outsider on the police force, but she is socially savyy and a technological prodigy. In the midst of a typhoon they witness a deadly demonstration of super-human strength from a man who is seemingly controlled by a CIA operative. Could the Americans really have figured out a way to create some sort of super-soldier who is both physically and psychologically enhanced? Are they testing it, or him, on Thai soil? And why is everyone, from the Bangkok police to the international community, so eager to turn a blind eye?

The case will take Sonchai to a hidden Cambodian jungle compound for aging American vets where he will discover exactly how far a government will go to protect its very worst secrets--both past and present. It is also a case that will shake Sonchai's world to its very foundation and may finally force him to confront his lost father.

 

REVIEW: VULTURE PEAK by John Burdett

Title: Vulture Peak
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 5
Genres: Mystery, Crime
Publisher: Knopf
Release: January 10th 2012
Source: ebook
Pages: 285

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BLURB:
Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact—more or less—despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city—and himself—will be a mere starting point.

He’s put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand—an attempt to bring an end to trafficking in human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players that includes an aging rock star wearing out his second liver and the mysterious, diabolical, albeit gorgeous co-queenpins of the international body-parts trade: the Chinese twins known as the Vultures. And yet, it’s closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey: rumors will reach him suggesting that his ex-prostitute wife, Chanya, is having an affair. Will Sonchai be enlightened enough—forget Buddha, think jealous husband—to cope with his very own compromised and compromising world?

All will be revealed here, in John Burdett’s most mordantly funny, propulsive, fiendishly entertaining novel yet.

 

REVIEW: GHOSTMAN by Roger Hobbs

Title: Ghostman
Author: Roger Hobbs
Series: Jack White 1
Genres: Thriller, Crime, Mystery
Publisher: Corgi Books
Release: July 17th 2014
Source: ebook
Pages: 400

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BLURB: I make things disappear. It’s what I do. This time I'm tidying up the loose ends after a casino heist gone bad. The loose ends being a million cash. But I only have 48 hours, and there’s a guy out there who wants my head in a bag.

He'll have to find me first. They don’t call me the Ghostman for nothing...

REVIEW: BANGKOK HAUNTS by John Burdett

Title: Bangkok Haunts
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 3
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Release: June 10th, 2008
Source: ebook
Pages: 368

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BLURB:
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the devout Buddhist Royal Thai Police detective who led us through the best sellers Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo, returns in this blistering novel.

Sonchai has seen virtually everything on his beat in Bangkok's District 8, but nothing like the snuff film he's just been sent anonymously. Furiously fast-paced and laced through with an erotic ghost story that gives a new dark twist to the life of our hero, Bangkok Haunts more than lives up to the smart and darkly funny originality of its predecessors.

 

REVIEW: BANGKOK TATTOO by John Burdett

Title: Bangkok Tattoo
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 2
Genres: Crime, Thriller, Mystery
Publisher: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard
Release: July 11th, 2006
Source: ebook
Pages: 320

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BLURB:
Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in his riveting and smokily atmospheric new thriller.A farang–a foreigner–has been murdered, his body horribly mutilated, at the Bangkok brothel co-owned by Sonchai’s mother and his boss. The dead man was a CIA agent. To make matters worse, the apparent culprit is sweet-natured Chanya, the brothel’s top earner and a woman whom the devoutly Buddhist sleuth has loved for several lifetimes. How can Sonchai solve this crime without sending Chanya to prison? How can he engage in a cover-up without endangering his karma? And how will he ever get to the bottom of a case whose interested parties include American spooks, Muslim fundamentalists, and gangsters from three countries? As addictive as opium, as hot as Sriracha chili sauce, and bursting with surprises, Bangkok Tattoo will leave its mark on you.

 

REVIEW: BANGKOK 8 by John Burdett

Title: Bangkok 8
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 1
Genres: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Publisher: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard
Release: July 13th 2004
Source: eBook
Pages: 375

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BLURB:
A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities.

Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.—is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.

 

REVIEW: THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield

Title: The Thirteenth Tale
Author: Diane Setterfield
Series: -
Genres:Mystery, Horror, Thriller, Gothic
Publisher: Atria Books
Release: September 12th, 2006
Source: Paperback
Pages: 406

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BLURB:

All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.

The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.

 

REVIEW: WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins

Title: Woman in White
Author:  Wilkie Collins
Series: -
Genres: Classics, Romance, Crime
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1859
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 672

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BLURB:
'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

Matthew Sweet's introduction explores the phenomenon of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, and discusses Wilkie Collins's biographical and societal influences. Included in this edition are appendices on theatrical adaptations of the novel and its serialisation history. 

REVIEW: REAL MURDERS by Charlaine Harris

Title: Real Murders
Author:  Charlaine Harris
Series: Aurora Teagarden #1
Genres: Mystery, Crime
Publisher: Walker & Company
Release: 1990
Source: Paperback
Pages: 175

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BLURB:
Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime—until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims. 

REVIEW: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson

Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
Series: Millennium #1
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Publisher: Norstedt
Release: August 2005
Source: Kindle Edition
Pages: 658

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BLURB: Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there’s always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson’s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don’t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

REVIEW: ALIAS GRACE by Margaret Atwood

Title: Alias Grace
Author: Margaret Atwood

Series: -

Genres: Mystery, Historical, Crime

Publisher:  Doubleday Nan A. Tales

Release: 1996

Source: Kindle/ Audiobook

Pages: 468

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BLURB:

It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.

An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?

REVIEW: IF YOU DARE by A.R. Torre

Title: If you dare
Author:  A.R. Torre
Series: Deanna Madden #3
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Adult
Publisher: Redhook
Release: 2015
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 368

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BLURB:
Equal parts Dexter and 50 Shades, this is the eagerly awaited new novel from A. R. Torre, author of the award winning erotic thriller, The Girl in 6E.

The rules are the same. I can't open the door. I can't leave. I can't kill anyone.

The only difference is, I don't set the rules anymore. Guards in grey uniforms do. It is everything I never wanted and everything I always deserved. I write to you now, from a prison cell. My home for the next twenty to thirty years.

That's the going term for murder.

REVIEW: EMMA IN THE NIGHT by Wendy Walker

Title: Emma in the Night
Author: Wendy Walker
Series: -
Genres: Crime, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release: August 8th 2017
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 320

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BLURB:
From the bestselling author of All Is Not Forgotten comes a thriller about two missing sisters, a twisted family, and what happens when one girl comes back...

One night three years ago, the Tanner sisters disappeared: fifteen-year-old Cass and seventeen-year-old Emma. Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held. But to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter, something doesn't add up. Looking deep within this dysfunctional family Dr. Winter uncovers a life where boundaries were violated and a narcissistic parent held sway. And where one sister's return might just be the beginning of the crime.

REVIEW: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie

Title: And Then There Were None
Author: Agatha Christie
Series: -
Genres: Crime, Mystery, Classics
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: 2004 (first published in 1939)
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 264

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BLURB:
First, there were ten - a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal - and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion.

REVIEW: FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager

REVIEW: WHAT SHE KNEW by Gilly Macmillan

Title: What She Knew
Author: Gilly Macmillan
Series: -
Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Release: 2015
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 512

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BLURB:
In her enthralling debut, Gilly Macmillan explores a mother’s search for her missing son, weaving a taut psychological thriller as gripping and skillful as The Girl on the Train and The Guilty One.

In a heartbeat, everything changes…

Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes.

Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel’s newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-the-year sister. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel too, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion.

As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment. And the greatest dangers may lie not in the anonymous strangers of every parent’s nightmares, but behind the familiar smiles of those she trusts the most.

Where is Ben? The clock is ticking...

REVIEW: UNDER THE HARROW by Flynn Berry

Title: Under the Harrow
Author: Flynn Berry
Series: -
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Release: 26th January, 2017
Source: ARC
Pages: 240

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BLURB:
When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel’s familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder.

Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can’t return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can’t trust them to find her sister’s killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora’s fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.

A riveting psychological thriller and a haunting exploration of the fierce love between two sisters, the distortions of grief, and the terrifying power of the past, Under the Harrow marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.

Review: WOMAN IN CABIN 10 by Ruth Ware

Title: Woman in Cabin 10
Author: Ruth Ware
Series: -
Genres: Crime, Thriller, Mystery
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Release: 2016
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 340

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BLURB:
From New York Times bestselling author of the “twisty-mystery” (Vulture) novel In a Dark, Dark Wood, comes The Woman in Cabin 10, an equally suspenseful novel from Ruth Ware—this time, set at sea.

In this tightly wound story, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

With surprising twists and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another intense read.

REVIEW: IN THE WOODS by Tana French

Title: In the Woods
Author: Tana French
Series: Dublin Murder Squad #1
Genres: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Publisher: Viking
Source: Audiobook

Pages: 429

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BLURB: A gripping thriller and New York Times bestseller from the acclaimed author of Broken Harbor and The Secret Place

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.
Richly atmospheric and stunning in its complexity, In the Woods is utterly convincing and surprising to the end.

Look for French's new mystery, The Trespasser, for more of the Dublin Murder Squad.

REVIEW: BLOOD BANK by Tanya Huff

Title: Blood Bank
Author: Tanya Huff
Series: Vicki Nelson #6
Genres: Fantasy, Crime, Fiction
Publisher: Little Brown
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 336

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SYNOPSIS: It began with a ghost in his bedroom. A tormented soul hungry for vengeance, The sort of nocturnal visitation that even a five-hundred-year-old vampire like Henry Fitzroy found tiresome. It would lead Vicki Nelson, PI, into her most deadly investigation yet.

The wraith is determined that Henry and Vicki track down its killer - and is prepared to use a little persuasion by way of the innocent inhabitants of Toronto to ensure their support. Forced to investigate, Vicki discovers a host of souls in desperate torment and evidence to suggest that trailing the killer will only lead to further deaths - starting with her own.