The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham

I've met Fiona Griffiths before, so I already know she's a bit peculiar, that she has Cotards syndrome which means she has a tendency to worry she's not really alive, and struggles to feel the emotions expected in a given situation. This makes her an interesting detective, to say the least. In this book she's a young DC working out of Cardiff when a body is discovered with links to a small case of payroll fraud.      
   The weirdness of the death doesn't immediately seem connected to a wider criminal network, but that is just what it will turn out to be with millions, if not billions of pounds at stake. When another death occurs on the south coast of England, a brutal slaying that screams murder by execution, two police forces join ranks and isn't it just fortunate that Fiona has just done a course in undercover policing.
    National undercover training is the toughest police course on offer and most who attempt it fail. Not our Fiona though and her weird mental condition is probably helpful here; she can always step outside herself, and not being good at connecting with her feelings is for once a good thing.
    The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths is in part a testimony to the life of the under-cover police officer, making it much more than your standard crime novel. Although there's plenty to keep you on your toes, the story is more measured than your usual whodunnit. Fiona has to develop her legend: in this case she is to be Fiona Grey from Manchester, where she's escaped an abusive relationship, is living in a hostel while working as a cleaner. Her caseworker has ambitions for Fiona though, encouraging her to apply for and gain a position as a payroll officer. She finds work at Western Vale.
    We get to know all about this alter-ego, see her find a flat and to come home to find one Vic Henderson in her only armchair. And suddenly Fiona is part of the gang, falsifying payroll data to create bogus accounts which don't particularly seem to be all that lucrative. We can only guess that this is a small part of a much bigger swindle. Henderson is not the boss, but he is in charge of 'security' and becomes Fiona's intermediary with the big boys. They don't exactly hit it off, he's menacing for all his attempts at charm, but there is a whiff of chemistry.
    Fiona Grey is easily bullied, and there's a touch of Stockholm Syndrome in the way she gets on with Henderson. Meanwhile Fiona Griffiths is trying to remember what it is like to be with her boyfriend Buzz, the best thing that has ever happened to her. As the months go on, Fiona struggles to remember who she really is and there is a wonderful tension in the way she has to rally herself to be the police officer she needs to be to wind up the case and see justice served.
    The novel builds up to a tense and exciting showdown where all of Fiona's policing instincts return as well as that mental toughness of hers that can take over when she needs it. It's a great story brilliantly told in that immediate first person, present tense that works so well with a character like this. This really is one of the more promising crime series around and I'll be catching up with Fiona again for sure.
 

Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer

Just when you start to think there can be no new way to write a crime story, Belinda Bauer pulls out the proverbial rug and thrills the reader with this highly original page turner. If anyone could do this I suppose it would have to be Bauer who has an amazing way of getting into the heads of her characters and what interesting characters they are.
    First off there is Patrick Fort from a tiny hamlet near Brecon, Wales. He lives with a mother who doesn't like him because he's Aspergers, with a fascination for dead animals, and because her husband was killed in a hit and run when collecting Patrick from school after an 'incident'. Patrick has trouble with his temper, though most of the time he's clear-headed and unfailingly logical, making casual chit-chat difficult. Bauer paints a claustrophobic picture of the two living together in misery. Thank heavens Patrick has his bike and is happy to cycle for hours across the gorgeous Welsh countryside giving the two of them a breather.
    Then there's the coma patient at the hospital who is slowly becoming aware of his situation and provides an interesting commentary of what it is like being a coma patient and the oddities of the behaviour of nursing staff and visitors. When he sees a doctor murder a patient in the next bed, he makes more of an effort to communicate what he has seen but it's hard work and the tension rises up a notch or two.
    The disability quota at a university in Cardiff allows Patrick to take an anatomy class. He and several med students spend the lesson time slowly taking apart a cadaver in order to determine cause of death. While the other groups of students find cancer and mortal injuries, Patrick's group has trouble with theirs - the heart doesn't look too bad and the brain yields no tumours - until Patrick, who is looking like winning the top student award, finds a clue. And it looks like murder.
    The race to uncover the facts before the body is released to the relatives for burial drives the plot along, as do Patrick's antics. There are some crazy scenes at Patrick's student flat which add light relief. You need the light relief, as the anatomy class scenes can be grisly and the coma ward scenes are harrowing in their own way too.
    Things become worse when no one will take Patrick seriously and he keeps getting into trouble. Fortunately he finds a sympathetic ear in Meg, his fellow student, who patently likes him even though Patrick is unable to say if she is pretty or not. He just can't tell. The story hums along with a final showdown with the perpetrator, as you might expect, and a happy reconciliation or two towards the end with plenty of surprises.
    What a brilliant crime novel this is - not too long,  you'll read it in a day, and every word counts, which is as it should be. Deeply satisfying.

Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback

A book set in the Swedish Lapland, in 1717, is new terrain for this reader, while the cluster of homesteads on Blackasen Mountain is a fresh start for the Paavo, Maija and their daughters, fourteen-year-old Frederika and her six-year-old sister Dorotea. They are from Finland having exchanged a property with an uncle. On arrival they discover a house in poor repair and neighbours who are suspicious and nervous. Not that they meet the neighbours until the girls discover the body of a man while herding their goats.
    Paavo holds back but Maija has enough gumption to have a look for herself, and  do something about it. She walks to the nearest house to get help and slowly gets to meet the neighbours: Gustav, an ex-soldier with what we might call post-traumatic stress disorder, Henrik and Lisbet who are more helpful, and Elin Eriksson, the wife of the deceased. At first it is assumed that Eriksson was killed by a wolf, but when Maija helps wash the body, the wound has marks to suggest a blade.
    The story is in part a mystery around Maija's determination to discover what really happened. Frederika, who has a kind of sixth sense and frequently feels the presence of the dead man, also gets involved. Then as summer lapses into autumn, the arrival of the Lapps who leave their goats with Maija, adds complications. Frederika is drawn towards the shamanism that the Lapps have been forced to give up for Christianity, on pain of death. Elin Eriksson has also been suspected of sorcery and is still not trusted.
    It is left to the priest, a one-time royal favourite named Olaus, to uncover the culprit and to ensure the farmers and villagers alike adhere to the strict dictates of the church, but he has faults of his own and a wavering confidence. Olaus and Maija form an unlikely alliance, however, in their quest for the truth.
    While the novel carries the reader along with the gradual revelations that will lead ultimately to the unmasking of the murderer as well as secrets that have been hidden for years, this book is so much more. I was fascinated by the setting, the descriptions of the hardships of a Nordic winter, the glimpses of the Lapps' way of life, but particularly the historical period of a Sweden constantly at war, and a memory of witch hunts which creates a sense of unease and powerlessness among ordinary people.
    The translation of Wolf Winter is never clunky, there is a sense of immediacy in its narrative style which really draws you in and the characters are very likeable. There is just so much to enjoy here - a gripping story and an evocative atmosphere. Marvellous.

The Detective's Daughter by Lesley Thomson

This is the first in a promising series by Lesley Thomson featuring Stella Darnell, a solitary forty-something who runs a cleaning company called Clean Slate. Her father, Terry Darnell, a career policeman, had always wanted her to join the force, but a messy divorce and Stella's resentment that he'd always put his job before his daughter meant that she preferred to do her own thing. She likes things tidy, obsessively so, and being her own boss; Clean Slate is perfect, until Stella's father dies.
    Cleaning out her dad's house, Stella comes across a file that fascinates her: the case Terry was working on when suddenly struck down by a heart attack. Even though he was retired, Terry couldn't forget the murder of Kate Rokesmith, strangled in broad daylight while walking with her four-year-old son near the river at Hammersmith Bridge. Her husband Hugh carried the stigma of suspicion for the rest of his life, while little Jonathan was sent to a boarding school to be brought up by strangers.
    So begins Stella's slow determination to complete the case on Terry's behalf. Although, as the story begins, she is battling toothache and being apparently stalked by her ex-boyfriend, Paul, who is as sinister as he is persistent. And then weirdo, Jack, turns up asking for work. She wouldn't have taken him on except, being winter, half her staff seem to be ill and new customers, including her dentist, are demanding her services.
    Jack is a meticulous cleaner but turns out to be strange in more ways than one. He has an uncanny ability to enter people's houses and take up residence without their least suspicion. He has a thing about trains and he carries a battered London A-Z which has him on a weird project only he can explain. And then there's his connection to the Rokesmith case.
    Thomson creates lots of atmosphere, starting with the houses of her father and then the late Mrs Ramsay, the batty old woman customer who dies in strange circumstances; it's amazing how creepy the houses of the dead can be. Stella is always looking over her shoulder, fearing Simon it seems. Add to the list of eerie settings the path under Hammersmith Bridge, and even Stella's own antiseptic and oddly silent apartment building.
    I read this as an ebook which strangely had no page numbering, only a daunting table of contents listing 71 chapters. It says a lot for Thomson's ability to maintain suspense that I kept reading. This is in part due to the likability or at least the quirky individuality of the characters, particularly Jack and Stella, who team up to make an original crime-fighting duo.
    There's Stella's connection to her father as well which tugs at the heartstrings, both wishing they'd had more time for each other. This is certainly an incentive for Stella to carry on with her detective work, which is good news for the reader as there are a further three in the series so far.




   

The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths

This is the third novel featuring Elly Griffith's forensic anthropologist, Ruth Galloway, which recalls events that took place on the north coast of Norfolk during the Second World War. Ruth's archaeology pals, Ted and Trace are part of a team who discover six bodies buried at the foot of a cliff and it is soon Ruth's job to date the bodies. She discovers the deaths go back to the 1940s, that the bodies are German and each has died from a single bullet wound to the head, rather like an execution.
    The tides have been eroding this coast for years, mercilessly threatening the house that sits on top of the cliff, Sea's End House. Without the sea, the dark secrets from this corner of the war might never have been uncovered. Somehow Ruth is on the spot when Inspector Harry Nelson interviews the house's owner, former MP, Jack Hastings. His elderly mother, Irene, now in her nineties, talks about her husband, Captain Buster Hastings, who led the local Home Guard at a time when a German invasion was feared at any moment.
    Irene mentions the names of some of the younger Home Guard members who might be still alive and able to shed some light on what happened, and Nelson is soon amassing clues that are startlingly cryptic. When more deaths occur, it would seem that someone is out there who still wants to suppress the truth of what happened.
    Meanwhile Ruth is coming to terms with being a working mother. Just back from maternity leave, she has a daughter Kate to think of as she darts off to examine more sites of interest and help Harry piece together the clues only someone with a mind like hers could figure out, or someone who likes Countdown on the telly. She has unfinished business with Nelson, which adds to the emotional drama of the story, making it a bit more than your standard whodunit.
    And we have our favourite characters popping up again: Ruth's oddball Druid friend, Cathbad, Nelson's subordinates, Judy Johnson, a reluctant bride in this story, and the insensitive Sergeant Clough now oddly romantically entangled with Ruth's archeologist friend, Trace with the purple hair.
    Then there's the weather. The action really gears up a notch during an unseasonable snowstorm and there's a frantic scene by the sea involving explosions as the perpetrator closes in on Ruth - she really needs to lose a bit of weight and get fitter, as these battles for survival seem to be a regular feature of the books. It all adds up to an entertaining page-turner, with enough to keep the brain occupied and plenty of surprises. I'll be keen to check on Ruth again soon, as she's such good company.

A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs enters a new phase in her life with this latest in Winspear's 1930s mystery series, and we are suddenly four years further on from her last story, finding Maisie in Gibraltar in 1937. Across the border the Spanish Civil War is going hammer and tongs, so what could Maisie be doing here in a pleasant but spartan guest house, sitting in cafes looking thin and not eating very much?
    Maisie has it seemed suffered a terrible loss, and after a bit of travel, via India, her spiritual home, is set to return to her house at Chelstone, but has jumped ship at the last hurdle, reluctant to face the people who love her and relive her own grief. Gibraltar is an interesting place in 1937, while dangerously close to the battles over the border, but things take an interesting turn when Maisie trips over a dead body one evening. It belongs to a photographer, so the reader soon hears alarm bells ringing. What pictures had been taken that had caused his death?
    The police are useless of course. They believe Sebastian Babayoff was beaten to death by an impoverished refugee - there are many flooding across the border looking for a safe haven. His Zeiss was stolen after all - but not his Leica, which Maisie discovers flung under some bushes. Maisie interviews the sister of the deceased, and seeing her grief determines to find out the real killer. She learns that not long before Sebastian's death, Carlos, a family friend and fisherman, died suddenly of a suspected heart attack while out in his boat. He and Sebastian would often row out together, Babayoff with his camera of course and with the presence of military ships in the Mediterranean, could the two have seen something they shouldn't?
    This is the basic set up of the storyline but it is in some ways overshadowed by Maisie's own personal tragedy. While reminding her of the terrible cost of war on ordinary families, the discovery of the body is also a god's-send for Maisie, bringing out her detective instincts and she is soon busy snooping like anything and building a case map. Of course the authorities don't take kindly to her meddling, and Maisie herself is under surveillance, being followed by a young spy in the pay, Maisie suspects, of people in England who are worried about her.
    The story really gets going when Maisie meets the mysterious Professor Vallejo, who can come and go across the border, but whose side is he really on? Maisie's gritty determination to find out will lead her into more than one 'dangerous place' which is all the more fun for the reader. I particularly enjoy the period atmosphere Winspear conjures up in this series, and Maisie makes a brilliant old-world spy. This may well be the direction the rest of the series takes her, as spymaster, Robert Macfarlane is on the scene, a key character in a previous book. It will be interesting to find out.

The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths

I just had to see what happens to forensic archaeologist, Dr Ruth Galloway, in the second book in Elly Griffith's series of mysteries set in Norfolk. By the end of The Crossing Places, Ruth has discovered she is pregnant at 39, and happy about it, though not so keen to reveal her secret to the father, a married man, or her born-again Christian parents.
    At the start of the first book, Ruth was leading a quiet, spinsterish life, absorbed in her work at the university, attending the odd faculty party, but happy at home with her cats and Radio 4. She lives in a desolate spot on the marshes, away from the hurly burly, which suits her fine. Until she meets DCI Harry Nelson who needs her expertise with bones. Since then she's had her life threatened on more than one occasion, as she gets closer to discovering the truth, and her circle of friends has at least doubled in number. There's a lot more of that here in The Janus Stone.
    When builders discover bones at a building site, Ruth excavates the tiny skeleton of a child, minus its head. The large house, which was once an orphanage, is being demolished to make way for apartments, and the burial of the bones at a doorway, implies a kind of ritual sacrifice with links to Roman deities, in particular, Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions, often shown with two faces.
    However Ruth notices that layers of soil indicate a much more recent burial and Nelson questions Father Hennessey, who ran a children's home on the site around fifty years ago. He reluctantly reveals that two children ran away from the home in the early seventies, a boy of twelve and his younger sister.
    The reader is treated to plenty of archaeological information about Janus and Hecate, some of the not-so-nice minor Roman deities thanks to Ruth's friendship with Dr Max Grey, from Sussex, who is involved in a dig uncovering a Roman villa. His insight is useful because of the clues at the crime scene which indicate a murderer with a weird obsession with some of the nastier Roman rituals, such as sacrificing children to place under doorways for good luck.
    Max Grey and Ruth have a lot in common and he is obviously in line for some romantic interest; he's attracted to Ruth, that is soon clear. But how will she tell him about her baby? And is Max hiding a secret of his own? Everyone's got secrets it would seem.
    The Janus Stone is another engrossing mystery, with plenty of factual material to get your teeth into while building up to an action-packed ending. Ruth and DCI Nelson are brilliant characters, each good at their job, but with the personality quirks that make the reader care for them. There are another six Galloway-Nelson novels so far, and this will no doubt become my go-to collection for a relaxing escapist read.
 
 

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

The Crossing Places is the first book that features forensic archaeologist, Ruth Galloway, in Elly Griffiths' series of murder mysteries set in Norfolk. Ruth works at the local university and has a particular interest in the henge circle that was discovered near her isolated home right on the marshes. This is a landscape where sea and land meet and according to the religion of the ancient people who built the henge it is also the path between life and death. A perfect spot for burial rites and human sacrifice then.
    When a child's bones are discovered on the marshes, Inspector Harry Nelson requests Ruth's help to date them. It is obviously not a new death, and Nelson hopes to solve a ten-year-old murder, that of Lucy Downey, a little girl taken from her bed in middle of the night. It is the case that haunts Nelson the most, possibly because of the letters that the murderer has sent him over the years, full of references to literature, archaeology and the Bible.
    The bones turn out to be around two thousand years old, and at the burial site are Iron Age artefacts, which is great for Ruth and her archaeologist friends, including her old teacher and mentor, the Norwegian Erik Anderssen. There will be more for Ruth and co to get their teeth into, more finds including an ancient pathway, giving plenty of scope for Griffiths to describe the customs and beliefs of the early people who lived here.
    Ruth sees her job as something akin to detective work, but when another little girl goes missing from her home and more letters arrive with references to ancient burials and the marshes, she is soon involved in a modern day crime. Inspector Nelson with his brusque north of England manner and Ruth with the confidence that comes from her academic expertise are an incongruous pair. Rather overweight and dressed for practicalities as opposed to style, Ruth is the world away from the kind of woman Nelson is used to, but the two make a connection.
    The reader suspects this will be the first of many crimes they will solve together and it is fortunate the two soon develop a grudging respect for each other. Plot-wise there aren't so many surprises but I enjoyed this fairly light and easy read, and I like the main characters, Ruth with her cats and solitariness and Nelson with his bad-tempered impatience but undoubtable integrity.
    Best of all is the setting: what is it about the Norfolk marshes that is so appealing? Possibly it is the danger of the rushing tide that threatens to swallow up anyone caught off the narrow paths of safety. There are shades of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone here, which just adds to the chilling atmosphere and creates a reliably escapist novel.

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan

This is the first of what would seem to be a new series of mysteries featuring recently retired Mumbai policeman, Ashwin Chopra and, quite possibly, his pet elephant. The book begins on Inspector Chopra's last day in the force - he has had to retire early for health reasons - and he is daunted by the fact. He will have his policeman's pension, and his wife, Poppy, is looking forward to having him at home to make a fuss over. But he is not ready to retire.
    A final case - the drowning of a young man from a poor part of town - looks to Chopra to be more than meets the eye and in spite of orders to sign it off as a drunken accident, Chopra resists. He can hear the words of the boy's distraught mother ringing in his ears, that there is no justice for a poor woman and her poor son. Surely he can ask a friend to perform a post mortem and visit the family to see what he can find out.
    At the end of the day he arrives home to find there is a baby elephant outside his home. It has been left to him by a favourite uncle and an argument is in full flow between Poppy and Mrs Subramanium, the self-appointed arbiter of what is permitted in their apartment block. No pets is one of the rules, while Poppy exclaims that the elephant isn't a pet, but one of the family. The elephant is tethered in the compound and left with the caretaker, while Chopra figures out what to do with it.
    The elephant is so tiny and, separated from its herd, utterly miserable, neither eating or drinking. You can't help but fear for its survival while curiosity about its role in the plot draws you into the story. Chopra, now with time on his hands, begins his investigation into the drowning. He finds the victim's diary which sends him on a trail into the slums of Mumbai. What can be the connection between a leather shop, an orphanage and an abandoned warehouse?
    While Chopra is involved in his secret undercover work, Poppy suspects he has another woman and hatches a scheme of her own to save her marriage. There are plenty more mad cap scenes involving the elephant at the apartment, also home of Chopra's difficult mother-in-law, while Chopra closes in on a network of criminals, leading up to a showdown with an old enemy.
    The plot just bubbles along and the colourful sights of Mumbai in its infinite variety adds a ton of interest while the monsoon brings new challenges. Chopra is a big-hearted investigator and his elephant surprisingly helpful - is is just as well they are not ready to settle into retirement together. I for one will be looking out for the next Baby Ganesh Agency investigation.
 

Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson

Instruments of Darkness is the first novel in the Harriet Westerman/Gabriel Crowther mystery series and is set in the hot Sussex summer of 1780. The story really pulls you in because it introduces its sleuths in such an interesting way.
    Crowther makes the villagers nervous with his nocturnal habits and interest in anatomy, a pursuit that has led to a reputation for body snatching, which he may have had a hand in in the past. He is unhappy to be woken from his sleep by the well-to-do resident of Caveley Park and as a rule doesn't allow visitors. But the note she has slipped the maid is compelling: 'I have found a body on my land. His throat has been cut.' How can he resist?
    So begins a thrilling historical mystery at the core of which are some dark secrets at Thornleigh Hall, the seat of the Earl of Sussex. The current earl is bedridden and unable to speak following a stroke. He has a reputation as a cruel master who has recently married a dancer, flouting the laws of polite society. There is a cloud over his past, in particular regarding the death of a young girl, while his first wife also died in suspicious circumstances.
    The heir to the earldom, Alexander Thornleigh has abandoned his family, marrying for love and hasn't been heard of in ten years; his younger brother, Hugh, battle scarred from the American War of Independence, is quietly drinking himself to an early grave. After examining the body, a man in his thirties, Harriet sends for Hugh, fearing the victim may be his long lost brother.
    Two clues are found on the body - a ring bearing the Thornleigh crest and a scrap of paper torn from the man's fist. Hugh is not a pleasant man and is prickly with Harriet. A year or so before he'd been a welcome guest at Caveley Park, and there had been hopes for a match with Harriet's younger sister, Rachel. But something has changed Hugh, and Harriet fears a kind of evil lurking at the hall. If she is right, Rachel has had a lucky escape.
    The storyline cuts to London and the music shop of one Alexander Adams. He's a widower with two young children and for some reason he cannot find the old ring he has sometimes allowed little Jonathan to play with. In the background London is besieged by anti-Catholic riots, a situation which creates a memorable chase scene towards the end of the book.
    Robertson has started her series off with an excellent debut novel, full of intrigue, family secrets, evil malefactors and a growing body count. There's also budding romance among the minor characters and an interesting historical context. Best of all are the two main characters: the determined, outspoken Harriet, the doggedly anti-social and clever Crowther who has his own shadowy past. Together they make an entertaining sleuthing couple.
    If I have a problem with the book, it is that the copy-editing lets it down at times, though I noticed fewer gaffs as the story progressed, probably because I was so swept along by the plot. I shall certainly be happy to return to more Westerman and Crowther mysteries, for this is a classic ripping yarn.

The Ghost Riders of Ordebec by Fred Vargas

Vargas throws four perplexing mysteries in not so many more pages in the opening chapters of her most recent Commissaire Adamsberg novel. He quickly solves the cause of death of an old woman who had apparently died in her sleep, but a trail of breadcrumbs leads him to suspect her husband of foul play.
    Soon after that, he rescues a pigeon, its legs tied together so that it cannot feed itself and looks likely to die. Adamsberg swears he will bring the perpetrator of this petty crime to justice, and takes the bird to Lieutenant Retancourt, his Amazonian subordinate - if she can't cure the bird no one can.
    Pacing the pavement distractedly and looking out of place on the streets of Paris, he meets an elderly woman who is too nervous to enter the police department doors. Eventually this Mme Vendermot reveals her peculiar story - that her daughter has seen the Ghost Riders of Ordebec and among them were four doomed men who live in her Normandy town, the first of whom has already disappeared. The local police take her for a madwoman and will not listen, but Adamsberg is fascinated.
    If only he hasn't been suddenly called off to investigate the murder of prominent businessman Antoine Clermont-Brasseur, his corpse found in his burnt-out car. The suspicion falls immediately on Momo, a serial arsonist whose petrol soaked sneakers are found on searching his home. But there are others who might want Clermont-Brasseur dead - his two sons are reportedly dissatisfied with his management of the family business and want to take over, yet torching an old man in his car seems a fearful way to go about it.
    Momo swears his innocence and Adamsberg, who has a knack for being able to detect if someone is lying, believes him. He masterminds a way for Momo to escape and to allow him to investigate the Ordebec mystery at the same time. His twenty-something son, Zerk, whom he has only come to know in recent months, becomes Momo's caretaker, bringing with them the rescued pigeon, hiding out in the house of the first of the Ordebec victims, a conveniently secluded cottage.
   Adamsberg installs himself in the home of another victim, the elderly Leone, felled by a blow to the head and now lying in hospital, unlikely to survive. What was it that Leone knew? He brings with him Lte Veyranc, recently returned to duty and spouting Alexandrine verse as is his way. He'll need the help of Commandant Danglard as well, useful as always for his extensive recollection of facts and fine taste in wine. He and Veyranc hate each other, and Vargas invents a clever scene to create a hilarious reconciliation.
    There is a huge cast of curious characters, in particular the Vendermot family - the son Hippolyte who speaks whole sentences backwards, his famously busty sister, Lina, who can understand him, the younger brother Antonin who thinks his bones are made of clay and the brother, Martin, who concocts nourishing meals out of insects. Adamsberg must work with Capitaine Emeri of the local gendarmerie, who has airs above his station on account of being descended from a famous military general.
    The story is both ridiculous and perfectly logical at the same time, enlivened by the way the characters, particularly those on Adamsberg's team play off each other. The Ghost Riders of Ordebec is quirky, original and such good fun and, best of all, the kind of escapism that manages to be intelligent at the same time. Not surprisingly it has won for the author her third CWA International Dagger award.

The Information Officer by Mark Mills

You could easily pass off The Information Officer as just another pacy World War Two thriller. It has all the standard requirements. First off we have a young, intelligent investigator in the form of Max Chadwick. Max's step-mother has supposedly got him a cushy number for the duration, handling press releases for the military on the isle of Malta. It's propaganda really, aimed at maintaining morale and good relations with the islanders. As it happens it hasn't turned out to be such a safe billet with Malta the target of an ongoing bombing campaign by the enemy, which only adds to the suspense.
    Next there's an evil malefactor at large - in this case a rapist/murderer is stalking sherry queens, the women who work in the bars in an area known as the Gut. His previous killings have looked like accidents, with nothing to suggest a connection between them. But the most recent girl has bled to death from a wound that could have been caused by ack-ack shrapnel, or was it made to look that way?
    Max's doctor friend, Freddie, is alarmed when the latest victim is found with vestiges of a submarine officer's uniform clutched in her hand, and calls in Max to investigate. With relations between the British forces and the Islanders fragile at best, Max will have to move swiftly to find the killer before the details leak out and cause even more resentment.
    And of course it wouldn't be your classic thriller without a love interest for the hero. Max has a couple of options here. First off there's Mitzi, stuck in a loveless marriage with Lionel, an officer in the submarine corps. Mitzi works tirelessly for a service sorting the affects of dead RAF personnel, packaging them up for their families and writing heartfelt letters to accompany them.
    Then there's Lilian, half Maltese and half English, who is as smart as she is beautiful. Her job as deputy editor of a local newspaper brings her in contact with Max and the two are good friends.
    Max zips around the island on his motorbike and his easy manner means he has many acquaintances, some of whom are suspects. Lionel is a possibility if only because he wears the right kind of uniform and taking him out of the equation would free up Mitzi for Max, or is this too obvious a plot twist? Questions also hover over Elliott, an American pilot, temporarily grounded after an accident.
    Meanwhile the reader is treated to snippets of the perpetrator's own story through his eyes which are chilling and fortunately brief. It is all fairly classic stuff except Mills is a better than average writer. He captures the snappy dialogue of servicemen desperately keeping chipper while the Germans give them more than they can possibly return. The characters and camaraderie are all vividly brought to life, while the plot builds up to a terrific showdown as history is made in the air above.
    But what I really enjoyed was the picture Mills creates of Malta - an island with a long tradition of being under siege. With its distinctive architecture, amazing harbours and sunny Mediterranean ambiance - it is as much of a character in the book as Max.

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Bingham

I'm not sure I've ever read a crime thriller set in Wales before, but This Thing of Darkness is the perfect introduction. It's a brilliant police procedural and as plots go it has much going for it, including a particularly nasty bunch of crims who are determined to make a lot of money and don't care what they have to do to anyone in their way. There's plenty of danger for its plucky detective, including being abducted and interrogated with a picana and going under cover as a ship's cook. Then there's some exciting stuff to do with rock climbing and a spider-man sort of criminal nick-named Stonemonkey.
    But what really grabs you is the main character. DC Fiona Griffiths suffers from something called Cotard's Syndrome, a mental disorder that can cause depression and a kind of psychosis which leads sufferers to believe they are dead. Maybe this is why Fiona is quite relaxed about throwing herself into dangerous situations.
    We first come across the detective having time off to study for her sergeant's exam. Her attention becomes riveted on a couple of cold cases: the death by accident or suicide of a security guard who had fallen from a steep cliff on his way home; and the seemingly impossible burglary of some art - how did the burglars manage to break in through the top storey?
    Fiona spots a connection to do with a dodgy insurance company run by one Galton Evans, who is as slimy as he is crooked. It is his ex-wife's home that was burgled and as the art was returned, it doesn't seem like a major crime, but Fiona smells a rat. She has a knack for reinspecting crime scenes and discovering things her colleagues have missed. Making friends with a handsome climber, she recruits him to check out the possibility of scaling the smooth exterior of the house.
    Mike shows how it can be done and gives her a clue to the death of the cliff jumper as well - both suggest the involvement of a top-level climber, soon given the moniker of Stonemonkey. Could there be more cases where fearless climbing was required?
    All the while Fiona is meant to be working on something else, which doesn't impress her superior officer, DCI Jackson, who likes to thump the desk a lot and talks in a bass-baritone - very Welsh, in fact. Relegated to working as the exhibits officer of a rape case, Fiona finds a huge amount of forensic evidence but no leads.
    But her mind keeps going back to the Stonemonkey case and she enlists the help of ex-cop, Brian Penry, recently released from prison. He's happy to do a bit of surveillance and breaking and entering on Fiona's behalf in the search for evidence.
    Bingham assembles a terrific cast of characters in support of his gutsy investigator, all of them well rounded and interesting. But that never slows down the action - there always seems to be another tight corner for Fiona to extricate herself from. The work of the Stonemonkey adds a brilliant bit of plotting and the varied settings - Welsh mountains, central London, a storm-tossed fishing trawler and sunny Spain - all add plenty of atmosphere.
    With snappy first-person/present tense narration, you just about inhale this novel. There is so much to enjoy about This Thing of Darkness, I shall be checking out the previous Fiona Griffiths books - Bingham doesn't put a foot wrong.

The Baghdad Railway Club by Andrew Martin

In this instalment of Andrew Martin's Jim Stringer mystery series, our dogged railway detective finds himself sent to Baghdad to investigate a potential case of treason. It is 1917 and Jim has barely recovered from an injury in the Somme when a chance meeting at a railway club in London plus a word from his Chief in York have him working on a covert mission.
    Not terribly good in hot weather, Jim is flung into a scorching Mesopotamia, where the Allies have chased out the Turks. The local population is unsure whether the British are any better and insurrection simmers in the background.
    It is easy to forget that there was more to World War One than the Western Front and of course Gallipoli. But the fall of the Ottoman Empire is not to be sniffed at. Jim's meant to reconnoitre with a Captain Boyd outside the tea shop at the railway station but discovers the poor chap's corpse instead. Jim slips away, anxious not to be in the frame for his murder and is soon on the hunt for suspects.
     The one with the most likely motive is Lt. Col Shepherd, the officer who has taken Jim on to help run the railways - a debonair, old-school-tie sort with a tendency to be a risk taker in battle. Shepherd was the officer mentioned by Boyd to the War Office as a possible traitor, for apparently accepting a bribe from the surrendering Turks. There's also Boyd's nervous batman to consider who is acting somewhat secretively. Other characters add colour - movie maker, Wallace King, who turns up at the most inconvenient of times with his film camera and the breathtakingly lovely archaeologist, Harriet Bailey, who is an expert on the Arab peoples.
    Jim begins to feel nervous when Shepherd and his side-kick Captain Stevens are eager to take him on a steam train outing up to Samarrah, Jim driving and Stevens as fire-man. Normally this would be a joy, but the intense heat and also the knowledge that Jim's cover is blown give Jim a sense of impending doom.
    The tension ramps up a notch or two with more deaths, and there's Martin's usual blunt North of England humour which describes the characters so well. The tedium of talks given at the railway club meetings, the love-lorn folly generated by the presence of a pretty woman, the reluctant help given by Jim's Arab servant, the ridiculous code devised by Jim's secret service boss that is really no help to Jim at all - all give the reader plenty of chuckles. Meanwhile the plot is driven towards a stand-off during another railway outing, while a surprise twist courtesy of Jim's wife Lydia rounds the book off nicely.
    The Baghdad Railway Club delivers more of what fans of the Jim Stringer series have come to expect - who new that steam railway systems could be such fun? There are only two I have yet to read, but perhaps Martin will get the railway bug again and deliver a few more.

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson

Josephine Tey was the pen-name of mystery writer Elizabeth Mackintosh whose book, The Daughter of Time, was voted the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990. An Expert in Murder is the first of Nicola Upson's mysteries that feature Josephine Tey and her friend Detective Inspector Archie Penrose. The two make a nifty crime-solving duo in Upson's traditional, Agatha Christie-style series of whodunits set in the 1930s.
    An Expert in Murder features Tey in her other role, as a dramatist whose play, Richard of Bordeaux, is the huge box-office hit of its day. It begins with a train journey in which Tey finds herself seated opposite an attractive by shy young woman wearing a stunningly smart hat. Eighteen-year-old Elspeth is on her way to London with a consignment of hats from her mother's millinery business and soon Josephine is giving out her autograph and sharing a meal with her young fan in the dining car.
    Elspeth is planning to meet her boyfriend, Hedley White, who is a back-stage hand at The New, the theatre where Josephine's play is nearing the end of its run. Hedley has tickets for the show and is planning a romantic evening, but murder interferes and Elspeth is discovered in the compartment stabbed and dramatically arranged in a tableau featuring two commemorative dolls from the play.
    You can't help wondering if Josephine was the intended victim, but soon Archie Penrose in on the scene and numerous suspects and motives start turning up. When a second murder occurs it seems likely that there is a connection between the two victims and the actors and production team are thrown into the spotlight. The cast of suspects includes the director/lead actor of the play, John Terry, who has a secret to hide about his personal life. Is would-be playwright, Esme McCracken bitter enough to kill and could actor Lewis Fleming also have a motive being so desperate for money? Then there is Elspeth's beau who soon does a runner.
     And what of the mysteries that surround Elspeth herself? As the much loved but adopted daughter of the not very theatrical Simmons, there is the question of her birth and unsurprisingly a back story which extends back to events in the First World War.
     Costume designers Ronnie and Lettice give Josephine a place to stay in London and are full of lively quips and cheeky gossip. They are a good foil for when Josephine is brooding over a recent legal battle with the writer Elliott Vintner who accused her of plagiarism. When he lost the case he committed suicide, an event Josephine still feels guilty about, despite Archie's protestations that none of it was her fault.
     There are plenty of red herrings and possible scenarios for the reader to mull over, but for me this was something of a murder by numbers plot, with no real surprises. What made the book really enjoyable though was Upson's ability to recreate the London theatre scene circa 1934. Taking place in a chilly March, the story has plenty of atmosphere and with its colourful yet sympathetic characters made for a diverting read.  Basing the story on real-life people was a definite plus, too, and I shall be happy to see what Tey and Penrose get up to next.

Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd

Lynn Shepherd's first foray into mystery fiction inspired by nineteenth century literature reads very like a Jane Austen novel. One of the first things you notice is the pains she has taken to sprinkle through the book occasional outmoded usages - words such as sopha (sofa) and twelvemonth (a year), to name but two. The first half of the book is a bit like a reworking of Austen's Mansfield Park, with an overhaul of the characters.
    Most notable of these is Fanny Price, whom Kingsley Amis described as 'a monster of complacency and pride, who under a cloak of cringing self-abasement, dominates and gives meaning to the novel'. Here Fanny is an heiress, with an immense fortune when she comes of age and her pick of suitors. You would think this would make her happy. She's nice looking, has nice things to wear and balls to go to, but all that entitlement seems to have turned her into quite the calculating shrew.
    Fanny's aunt, Mrs Norris, has pushed forward her stepson, Edmund, as Fanny's suitor and the two are informally engaged, but neither seem terribly happy about that. Mrs Norris is snooty or fawning depending on who she is talking to, and the Bertrams whose seat is Mansfield Park are pleasant but not very smart. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram think Fanny demure and generally lovely, but when Mr Rushworth, a character for whom the term popinjay seems to have been invented, starts paying court to Fanny, her true colours begin to emerge.
    Much of the story is told from the point of view of Mary Crawford, who is staying with her sister, the vicar's wife, along with her brother, Henry, who has been contracted by Sir Thomas to redesign the gardens of Mansfield Park. Mary is attractive, kindly and sensible in equal proportions and soon makes friends with young Julia Bertram while catching the eye of Edmund.
    The novel could quite happily carry along in this vein, a comedy of manners with a bit of social commentary and romance on the side. There's plenty of goings on and intrigue when it comes to who might marry whom. But in the middle of the book Shepherd throws in a murder and the novel takes a darker turn. The Bertrams engage the services of 'thief-taker' Charles Maddox, who you might recall is the uncle of Shepherd's private investigator from her later books, also a Charles Maddox. The older Maddox is uncompromising, stopping at nothing to get to the truth, and suddenly the book has a distinctly different tone.
    Murder at Mansfield Park is another terrific read from Lynn Shepherd - well researched and cleverly plotted. Her characters are multidimensional too. There's nothing like throwing a murder at them to see who shines and who turns into a quivering mess. But what I like best about her books is Shepherd's impeccable writing which so perfectly captures a sense of period, plus a wry Jane Austen humour. She writes the kind of book that is both a lot of fun and remarkably intelligent - is that why so many literary authors are turning to mystery writing?

Night Train to Jamalpur by Andrew Martin

Andrew Martin might well have called this novel 'Snakes on a Train'. His railway detective, Jim Stringer, has been sent to Calcutta  to investigate corruption and security arrangements on the East Indian Railway. It is 1923 and with Lydia and their sixteen year old daughter Bernadette in tow, his secondment was supposed to be a kind of working holiday.
    But someone has been secreting venomous snakes in first class carriages and the body count begins to climb. Jim feels that this should be something he could look into, and of course he does, hampered as he is by fellow investigator, the cigar smoking and monstrously rude, Major Fisher. The two are on the night train of the title, when a murder takes place - Jim rudely awakened by sounds outside his compartment and then gunshot.
    The Anglo Indian, John Young, with whom Stringer had been chatting and sharing an evening drink just hours before, is found dead while horsemen ride off into the night. It is difficult to suggest a motive for the killing unless Jim himself is the target, a means of stalling any investigations into railway corruption.
    And Jim can only wonder who has stolen the folder of potentially damning information that had arrived on his desk the day before. If only he'd had the chance to read it first. Jim is inclined to suspect Fisher, who is uncooperative and who he believes is carrying a gun, which for some reason fails to appear when their carriage is searched by police.
    If that isn't enough to be going on with, Jim begins to worry that his daughter Bernadette is about to be swept off her feet by the son of a Maharajah, known to the family as the RK. On top of this Bernadette is out almost every night dancing with her posher pals and spending small fortunes on hats. Meanwhile Jim's wife, Lydia, is eager to spread the word about the women's movement in India at a time when revolution is in the air. But Jim worries that there is something else niggling her.
    Jim's investigations take him from balls held by Anglo high society and golfing with the RK to clandestine meetings with snake charmers. There is a host of potential suspects, most of them peculiar in some way - the strangely faceless William Asquith in charge of the traffic department who spends more than he could possible earn,  his subordinate Dougie Poole, who has a brilliant mind hidden by his tendency to be off his face most of the time, as well as Professor Hedley Fleming who knows an inordinate amount about snakes, to name but three.
    While this novel isn't as pacy as some Jim Stringer novels, there is a lot going on and enough action to keep the reader well amused. And laced through everything is Jim's knack for wry observations and local colour. The India situation in itself is interesting, with whisperings about that upstart, Gandhi while Lydia has plenty to say about British colonial domination.
    Night Train to Jamalpur is the last in the Jim Stringer series to date, its author seemingly beavering away on other projects. We've seen Jim delve into all manner of cases in a range of interesting settings. Will there be more in the series? I certainly hope so as this is probably my favourite current mystery series - where it doesn't really matter 'whodunit', as the story is all in the telling. Which is just as it should be.

Death by Water by Kerry Greenwood

For some fun, light entertainment Kerry Greenwood's series of 1920s mystery novels featuring private detective, Phryne Fisher are hard to beat. In Death by Water Phryne and her companion, Dot are cruising around New Zealand on the Hinemoa, a luxury cruise ship - their mission: to uncover a jewel thief. Why am I slightly reminded of Dame Edna Everage and her side-kick Madge? It might be the contrast between the flamboyant employer and her quiet, dowdy companion. Or it might be their Melbourne provenance. Anyway there are no gladioli here nor diamante spectacles. Phryne is far to sophisticated for that.
    And boy does she know her classics and Lalique. She's quite a match for the informative Navigation Officer Green who is given the task to show her round the impressively appointed ship and apprise her of the job at hand. He is utterly smitten of course, as Phryne is beautiful too, in that dainty, flapper kind of way, as well as smart and at times scarily frank about her sexuality.
    Anyway in this story we have the classic whodunit set up of a group of people confined in one setting who each have opportunity to commit the crime. They all happen to be conveniently seated at Table Three for meals in the first class dining room. Dot is of course travelling second class and gets to know the maids and shipboard attendants and all the gossip they provide.
    Table Three has quite a diverse bunch of characters: Professor Applegate is a kind of New Zealand Margaret Meads, which is handy for background detail as she knows all about the Maori and early New Zealand history. Albert Forrester is a photographer who takes pictures of the female form. Enough said! Mr West is grumpily middle aged with a young flirty wife. Mr and Mrs Cahill are retired farmers from the outback. Tetchy Mr Singer suffers from dyspepsia and bullies his wife. Jack Mason is a lively young man desperate to avoid a career in law, which is his father's wish. Marjory Lemmon is accompanying her elderly uncle Vivian Aubrey, both ex British raj.
    And we mustn't forget the all-female band, Mavis and the Melody Makers, who for some reason nobody likes, although they know their stuff when it comes to dance music. Phryne dangles a carrot for the thief in the form of a large, lustrous sapphire, with a supposed provenance from an Indian temple - all quite fake, and the action slowly begins.
    The reader can't but wonder, however, when the murder will take place - the book isn't called Death by Water for nothing - and some might be disappointed that it takes quite some time - at least three quarters of the book. What a blood-thirsty bunch we mystery readers are!
    But with a Phryne Fisher novel like this, it's really all about the journey - and I mean that literally as well as figuratively - because there is so much to enjoy. The writing is crisp and engaging and Miss Fisher always entertaining. And there's quite enough going on with blackmail, Mickey Finns, shipboard romance and infidelity, attempted murder as well as the real thing, and the general marvellousness of the luxury cruise ship setting.
    All this is coloured by the 1920s era which Greenwood has got off pat. It's a bit like a sex-ed up Dorothy L Sayers and as such Greenwood has carved out a niche all her own. There are twenty Phryne Fisher novels, and they make a great stand-by rainy day read as they never disappoint. Her bio on Fantastic Fiction is, by the way, the best I've come across.

Redemption by Jussi Adler Olsen

Adler-Olsen is one of those crime writers who juxtaposes scenes showing his killer - in the case of Redemption he's an evil kidnapper/child killer - with scenes from the point of view of his detective. It's another novel featuring Department Q, a cold-case team led by curmudgeonly DI Carl Morck. This changing-viewpoint narrative makes things uncomfortable for the reader from the outset, and knowing what to expect, I was somewhat reluctant to pick this book up.
    I guess I am still a bit nostalgic for those old crime novels where the reader and the investigator work side by side, discovering clues and working out whodunit together. But really, Ader-Olsen makes the storyline steam along with these narrative shifts because, while Morck thinks he's dealing with a cold case, it is only the reader who seems to know that our killer is still at work and unless the police get a move on, another youngster is likely to die within a number of days.
    What really hooks you in at the outset, however, is the message in a bottle scenario that the author has cooked up. Our killer would have carried on unnoticed if it hadn't been for young Poul, who tied up in a boat shed, believes he and his brother will be murdered. As the elder of the two, he feels he should do something, so he finds paper, an old bit of newspaper, and making a pen out of a splinter of wood and ink from his own blood - all with his hands tied together - he writes a detailed description of his kidnapper and their situation.
    The bottle eventually turns up in Scotland, where it adorns the window sill of a remote police station for a couple of years until it piques the curiosity of a visiting computer expert. When it winds up in Department Q, Morck already has a lot on his hands with a visiting Health and Safety inspector in the pipeline and his basement bolthole out of bounds due to an asbestos scare. There's also a number of cases his team have been struggling with and he doesn't need another.
    Thank goodness Morck's quirky underlings, Rose and Assad, have other ideas. And it's also lucky that a few clues are thrown up by the message,  even though many of the words have become illegible. The team manage to track down the newspaper and that gives them an area to hone in on. It transpires that the boys were part of a large family from a religious community who have long since left the area.
    While the Q team track the family down, our mysterious kidnapper has his sights on another family who belong to The Mother Church and the tension winds up a notch. In the background are grim scenes showing our killer's childhood, his possessiveness towards his own wife and child. There are some humorous scenes from Morck's own private life - the wife who wants to return, his 'thing' for Mona the psychologist and Morck's recurring guilt.
    There's a ton of action too: car chases, stake outs and a particularly tense scene in a bowling alley. And all the while the clock is ticking. It's a gripping story that barrels along, which is a good thing, because sometimes reading a translation like this throws up a few curly phrases you don't want to linger over. That's a small niggle, for overall Jussi Adler-Olsen has created another superb crime-thriller, a surprisingly quick read for a book over 600 pages long. I certainly hope there's a few more Department Q novels in the pipeline as sometimes a good Scandinavian mystery is just the ticket.

The Pierced Heart by Lynn Shepherd

It must have been difficult being a private inquiry agent in Victorian England, if Lynn Shepherd's protagonist, Charles Maddox is anything to go by. Benighted could be one way to describe him and this is obvious from page one, when Charles is travelling by train to a remote part of Austria, a journey that must be completed by a lengthy ride in a coach.
    The weather is miserable and so is he, having two months before lost his occasional lover/servant and the child he hadn't realised she was carrying to an ectopic pregnancy. He is full of guilt and remorse but things get worse when he arrives at the imposing ancestral home of Baron Von Reisenberg, a pale, thin, chilling man who shuns the light and has strangely long teeth.
    Aha, we are in vampire territory, says the reader. And yes the term 'exsanguination' does crop up throughout this book, but knowing Shepherd, you can be sure she will find a plausible explanation for anything too fanciful, that is both ingenious and likely to keep the reader guessing until the final page.
    But back to Austria. Charles has been sent on behalf of the Bodleian Library to discreetly examine the suitability of a bequest that his Austrian host would like to offer this venerable establishment. While he's there he witnesses many strange occurrences, and by night hears some peculiar sounds, and being the determined investigator that he is, decides to explore. This upsets his host no end, and Charles finds himself mowed down by Von Reisenberg 's guard dog before things really take a turn for the worse.
     By the time Charles gets back to England he's even more unsettled, while London is full of people gathered to see the Great Exhibition at the purpose-built Crystal Palace. This makes his usual dashing about even more difficult with the streets unusually congested. And dash about he must as Sam, his policeman friend, has called on his help over a series of grisly murders involving prostitutes. Could there be any connection to Von Reisenberg who has mysteriously arrived in England?
    Charles's investigation is mixed in with the diaries of Lucy, the daughter of a kind of illusionist cum showman who wants to develop Lucy's talent as a medium in order to improve their fortunes. Her health and treatment by an Austrian doctor with alarming results ups the tension of the novel. Charles's discoveries and Lucy's experiences are set to dovetail as the plot hurtles to an exciting end.
     Shepherd writes wonderfully with her vivid present-tense style that keeps things fairly pacy, while her distant third-person narration adds a suitably Victorian tone. It amazes me how she can make this work, but some how it does and adds to the reader's enjoyment hugely. The use of Lucy's diary (both first person and past tense) throws in a nice contrast so you never tire of either.
    I adore these books - they're probably my favourite mystery series at the moment - and I particularly love how Shepherd draws on research and her depth of knowledge of literature and history from the period. It all adds up to a particularly rich as well as entertaining reading experience.