Ann Cleeves

The Shetland Quartet
           Raven Black
           White Nights
           Red Bones
           Blue Lightning

Detective: Inspector Jimmy Parez
Time:        Present
Location   Shetland Islands
Genre        Scots Noir

For novels in the sequence, which I read in quick succession. Set in various locations around the Shetland Isles the stories are nicely constructed, each with a good twist towards the end, while giving an interesting insight into life in this remote part of the United Kingdom. Jimmy Parez is a local lad, descended from an Armada survivor in tue with the crofting traditions of the area.

The back story involves his developng romance with an artist incomer although the story ends in tragedy.

Rating A+

Ann Cleeves Website

Quentin Bates

Winterlude

Detective:Detective Sergeant Gunhilder Gisladottir
Time            Present
Setting:      Iceland; Reykjavik
Genre:        Scandi Noir

This is the fourth of Bates' "Gunni" Gisladottir novels although much of the investigative work in this one is carried out by her assistant Helgi, following up leads in his home village. Interestingly in the first two books Gunni is based in a small town away from the capital and the gets transferred to th city. Hasaving done that ates' seems to feel the need to set his plot back in rural Iceland.

Essentially its a well crafted but simple plot. An ex-con, freed early from his sentence for killing a child in a road accident is found battered to death in a warehouse he owns in Reykavik. The most likely perpetrator, the child's father, has a cast iron alibi as he was at sea at the time of the murder. However he has three brothers living in Helgi's small home town. Did one of them do it and if so which?

Rating A-

Quentin Bates' Blog

Previously Read Novels in the Series
Frozen assets (1)
Cold Comfort (2)

Graham Masterton

White Bones (1)

Detective: Chief Superintendant Kate McGuire
Time.        Recent Past
Setting:      Cork
Genre:       Horror/Crime

Not a very satisfactory book. The plot begins with the discovery of eleven dismembered female skeletons on a farm   soon dated to about 1915. However an abduction and gruesome execution of a young female victim occurs with obvious links to the ancient crime. 

There is an improbable sub plot concerning McGuire's husband's dubious links with the underworld and her own use of the underworld to try and deal with it. This is all conveniently solved with an accident resulting in the death of the husband as well as the criminal fringwe he was dealing with.

The murders of the main plot appear to have a link to folk lore ritual and the summoning of a powerful spirit. Although there are some twists in the race to the climax it is largely predictable.

Rating C

Graham Masterton Weblink

Aline Templeton

The Darkness and the Deep

Detective: DI Marjorie Fleming

Time:        Recent Past (About 2004)

Setting:     Galloway

Genre:      Scots Noir

This is the second of Templeon's novels involving Marjorie Fleming and is a stronger book. The nub of the crime is the wrecking of an inshore lifeboat lured onto the rocks with the death of its three erson crew.Three victims but who was the intended target or was it the person who should have been on the vessel?  With that at the core there is plenty of opportunity for false leads before the final denoument. 

The underlying story arc tracks Templeton's concerns about her teenage daughter and the possible strat of her father's dementia as the novel closes.

Rating A

Aileen Templeton's Web Site

Previously Read

Cold in the Earth (Comments posted 26/01/13)

Alison Bruce

Cambridge Blue

Detective: Gary Goodhew
Time         Current
Setting      Cambridge UK
Genre        British Police Procedural

This is the first of the Gary Goodhew novels. Goodhew is a a young and gifted Detective Constable with a yen for extending an investigation on his own bat. Marks, his exasperated DI, is perhaps a little too generous in tolerating his methods.

The book opens with a murder in self defence which is apparently unconnected to the murder which eventually triggers Goodhew's investigation. The strands in the plot come together intriguingly and that to some extent compensates for some of the implausibility of Geoodhew's characterisation.

Rating A

Alison Bruce's Website

Anne Holt

Blessed are those who thirst

Detective: Hanne Wilhelmsen
Time:        Current to publication 1994
Setting:     Oslo, Norway
Cenre:      Scandi Noir

This is the second of Anne Holt's Hanne Wilhelmsen sequence. The plot involves both the solving of puzzling massively blood stained locations, christened "Saturday Night Massacres" but with no bodies and the horrific rape of a medical student.Inevitably they are linked. Wilhelmsen struggles to make progress on both cases whist by persistence the father of the rape victim, and by chance the victim herself, identify the rapist and plan revenge. The action builds well to a horrific climax. 

The frequent issue of crimes against mmigrant communities features in the novel.

In terms of underlying sub plot, Wilhelmsen is a covert Leasbian coming to terms with the need to come out.

Rating A+

Wikipedia Reference to Anne Holt

Previously Read Novels in the Sequence
Blind Goddess (1)
1222 (8)

David Mark

Dark Winter

Detective    DS Aector McAvoy
Location     Hull UK
Time           2008/9
Genre         Police Procedural

This is Mark's first novel featruring Aector McAvoy as DS with a past. He has prior to this novel been involved with securing the downfall of a bent senior detective for which he has not received the full credit due and has stirred up some resentment amongst some of his colleagues although his immediate superior clearly holds his skills in high regard, not that he is as aware of that as he should be. The novel opens with two apparently unconnected killings, one on superfreighter off Iceland of a man who survived a trawler tragedy many years ago, the other of a teenager in chyrch during a service in Hull. 

The links bewteen the killings and other subsequent murders gradually become apparent as the plot unfurls. 

The McAvoy sub plot is around his young family and the birth of their second child. How this will develop in the sequence of novels is to be seen but there are hints that Mcavoy may well find himself compromised by his female boss.

A second novel, "Original Skin" is due for publication in April 2013

Rating A

Web Reference  Quercus Books/David Mark