Book reviews


YOU never know where you’ll end up with author Ann Cleeves. An ongoing anticipatory game for crime fiction fans is guessing where her next book will take us. Or rather, which of her characters will be leading our way. Maybe dour  Jimmy Perez will be donning his monkey jacket to traipse around the wind-blown Shetlands. Perhaps we will be watching heart-of-gold grumps Vera Stanhope jollying her crew over Northumberland’s moorlands and coast. Or, more recently, the rather pallid and low-key Matthew Venn coping with community rifts along the North Devon estuaries and marshlands. Each are distinctive. Each has an appeal,… Continue reading

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There is a new game afoot among crime fiction afficionados. Especially those who believe there’s nothing to match the rapidly expanding sector known as tartan noir. It is called Spot the Join. Or Find the Seam. Even Detect the Author. Or any of the many possible similar phrases. My own variation on this theme is Where’s the Rankin? Any number can play and the rules are simple: obtain a copy of The Dark Remains (Canongate Books, paperback, 2022) and decide where today’s supreme master of Scottish crime fiction, Ian Rankin, takes over from  William McIlvanney, the maestro who inspired Rankin… Continue reading