THE SILENT WIFE by A.S.A. Harrison

THE SILENT WIFE A.S.A. Harrison (asaharrison.com) Headline (www.headline.co.uk) £12.99 Jodi and Todd have been together for over 20 years. Todd, a self-made man, is prone to dalliance while Jodi, a part-time psychologist, has always been happy to turn a blind eye in order to maintain the status quo. This time, things are different. This time […]

REVIVER by Seth Patrick

REVIVER Seth Patrick (sethpatrickauthor.blogspot.co.uk) Macmillan (www.panmacmillan.com) £12.99 "Sometimes Jonah Miller hated talking to the dead." Jonah Miller is a reviver. As part of the Forensic Revival Service, his job is to bring the recent dead back to life – briefly – to obtain a witness statement from them concerning the circumstances of their death. When […]

Hospital Reading Round-up, or: A Letter of Apology

Dear Reader, I hope you will forgive this break from the usual straightforward literary(?) criticism for this personal note to explain the relative quiet at Reader Dad of late, and to apologise to authors, publishers, publicists and potential readers for the lack of reviews written and published on the site since mid-February. Anyone who follows […]

THE KILLING POOL by Kevin Sampson

THE KILLING POOL Kevin Sampson Jonathan Cape (http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/about-us/…/jonathan-cape) £12.99 Detective Chief Inspector Billy McCartney is part of Merseyside Police’s Drug Squad, his focus currently on the Rozaki brothers who have a monopoly on Liverpool’s heroin trade. When McCartney’s informant, the youngest of the Rozaki brothers is found dead and dismembered in a park, McCartney knows […]

THE NECESSARY DEATH OF LEWIS WINTER by Malcolm Mackay

THE NECESSARY DEATH OF LEWIS WINTER Malcolm Mackay Mantle (www.panmacmillan.com) £14.99 Calum MacLean is twenty-nine years old and lives alone in Glasgow. He is a killer for hire, a hit-man who takes jobs to suit his own schedule and which allow him to minimise the risk to himself. When he accepts a job from Peter […]

An Interview with DANIEL POLANSKY

Photograph © Dan Stack Name: DANIEL POLANSKY Author of: THE STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE (2011) TOMORROW, THE KILLING (2012) On the web: http://www.danielpolansky.com On Twitter: @danielpolansky Daniel Polansky’s first novel, The Straight Razor Cure was published in 2011, its mix of fantasy and Chandleresque hardboiled private detective appealing to a broad range of readers. His […]

LOW TOWN: TOMORROW, THE KILLING by Daniel Polansky

TOMORROW, THE KILLING (LOW TOWN 2) Daniel Polansky (www.danielpolansky.com) Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £18.99 Earlier this year, I read, reviewed and fairly raved about Daniel Polansky’s debut novel, The Straight Razor Cure. Picking up three years after the events of that first book, Polansky’s second novel – and the second volume of the Low Town […]

THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS by James M. Cain

THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS James M. Cain Hard Case Crime (hardcasecrime.com) £16.99 Back in September 2004, Hard Case Crime – then an imprint of American publisher Dorchester – launched with Lawrence Block’s Grifter’s Game. The idea behind the line, as evidenced by the lurid, pulpy (yet beautiful) covers, was to reproduce the feel of those early […]

LOW TOWN: THE STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE by Daniel Polansky

THE STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE (LOW TOWN 1) Daniel Polansky (www.danielpolansky.com) Hodder (hodder.co.uk) £7.99 Warden is a drug dealer and hard man on the streets of Low Town. Ex-soldier, ex-lawman, it is only his past that keeps him above suspicion when he stumbles upon the body of a young girl. When a second body is found, […]

IN HER BLOOD by Annie Hauxwell

IN HER BLOOD Annie Hauxwell (www.anniehauxwell.com) William Heinemann (www.randomhouse.co.uk/…/william-heinemann) £12.99 Catherine Berlin is an investigator for the Financial Services Authority, working as part of a task force whose remit is to clamp down on London’s illegal loan shark businesses. Working with an informant she knows only as ‘Juliet Bravo’, Berlin continues an investigation into East […]