Genre: Fiction

The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men by Rob McCarthy
Published by Hodder & Stoughton on February 25th 2016
Series: Dr Harry Kent #1
Pages: 368
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

A stunning and original debut crime thriller starring Harry Kent, a police surgeon who uncovers a shocking conspiracy after a hostage situation goes wrong.
Dr. Harry Kent likes to keep busy: juggling hospital duties with his work as a police surgeon for the Metropolitan Police - anything to ward off the memories of his time as an Army medic.
Usually the police work means minor injuries and mental health assessments. But Solomon Idris's case is different. Solomon Idris has taken eight people hostage in a chicken takeaway, and is demanding to see a lawyer and a BBC reporter. Harry is sent in to treat the clearly ill teenager...before the siege goes horribly wrong.
When Solomon's life is put in danger again from the safety of a critical care ward, it becomes clear he knows something people will kill to protect. Determined to uncover the secret that drove the boy to such desperate action, Harry soon realises that someone in the medical world, someone he may even know, has broken the doctors' commandment 'do no harm' many times over...

A good read, would recommend.

Snow Blind

Snow Blind

Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson
Published by Minotaur Books on January 31st 2017
Series: Dark Iceland #1
Pages: 320
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

Where: A quiet fishing village in northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors. It is accessible only via a small mountain tunnel.
Who: Ari Thor is a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik. He has a past that he's unable to leave behind.
What: A young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed elderly writer falls to his death. Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life.
Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness―blinded by snow and with a killer on the loose.
Taut and terrifying, Snowblind is a startling debut from an extraordinary new talent.

Endless days of gray sky set and snow set the stage for me to sit down to read Snow Blind, we haven’t seen the sun in days. Nestled in my comfortable chair in front of the fireplace, I settle into a small town close to the arctic circle were rookie Ari Thor has taken a his first position as a police officer. Shortly after his arrival, a local celebrity is found dead, Ari Thor is drawn to a woman who is not his girlfriend and a partially naked woman is found laying in the snow. While not an action packed thriller, the characters were well-developed holding my attention as the story slowing moved along, like the winter storm that had settled on Siglufjördur.

Inherit the Bones

Inherit the Bones

Inherit the Bones by Emily Littlejohn
on December 13th 2016
Series: Detective Gemma Monroe #1
Pages: 322
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

Secrets and lies can’t stay buried forever in Cedar Valley.
In the summer, hikers and campers pack the small Colorado town’s meadows and fields. And in the winter, skiers and snowboarders take over the mountains. Season by season, year after year, time passes and the lies, like the aspens and evergreens that surround the town, take root and spread deep.
Now, someone has uncovered the lies, and it is his murder that continues a chain of events that began almost forty years ago. Detective Gemma Monroe’s investigation takes her from the seedy grounds of a traveling circus to the powerful homes of those who would control Cedar Valley’s future.
Six-months pregnant, with a partner she can’t trust and colleagues who know more than they’re saying, Gemma tracks a killer who will stop at nothing to keep those secrets buried.

In Emily Littlejohn’s debt novel we are introduced to Gemma Monroe, a pregnant police detective. A clown with a traveling circus that has stopped in Gemma’s Colorado mountain town turns up dead. This death unleashes Gemma’s nightmare’s about the bones she found of two boys who died over thirty years ago, how does the death of the clown tie to what Gemma found three years ago? Gemma’s dogged persistence makes for a well tuned police procedural. The book is well-written and plotted, there is an ease between the characters that works well.

I look forward to her second novel, A Season to Lie due out later this year.

Frozen Assets

Frozen Assets

Frozen Assets by Quentin Bates
Published by Soho Crime on May 10th 2014
Series: Officer Gunnhilder #1
Pages: 330
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

A body is found floating in the harbor of a rural Icelandic fishing village. Was it an accident, or something more sinister? It's up to Officer Gunnhildur, a sardonic female cop, to find out. Her investigation uncovers a web of corruption connected to Iceland's business and banking communities. Meanwhile, a rookie crime journalist latches onto her, looking for a scoop, and an anonymous blogger is stirring up trouble. The complications increase, as do the stakes, when a second murder is committed. "Frozen Assets" is a piercing look at the endemic corruption that led to the global financial crisis that bankrupted Iceland's major banks and sent the country into an economic tailspin from which it has yet to recover.

It is interesting to read a murder mystery in a country where murder is all but non-existent, over the last two decades, an average of about two people have been murdered annually in the small and prosperous nation of 336,000. It has had entire years — 2003, 2006 and 2008 — when not a single person was murdered. Just recently, the murder of a 20 Icelander woman made the New York Times.

Iceland like the United States suffered the 2008 financial crisis, unlike the United States, the Icelandic government let its three major banks – Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbankinn – fail and went after reckless bankers. Many senior executives were jailed and the country’s ex-prime minister Geir Haarde was also put on trial, becoming the first world leader to face criminal prosecution arising from the turmoil. although he was cleared of negligence.

With the impending financial crisis as a backdrop Frozen Assets introduces Officer Gunnhildur, single mother, widow, police officer. After finding a body on a beach, Officer Gunnhildur does not accept the accidental death theory, she stumbles into a scheme that the energy minister and his wife are up too to make money at the expense of the taxpayer. Reading about police procedures in other countries is always interesting, unlike Arnaldur Indridason books, Quentin Bates books are not so dark and brooding. Be ready to be confused by the names.