CRUCIBLE OF SECRETS by Shona MacLean

CRUCIBLE OF SECRETS Shona MacLean Quercus (www.quercusbooks.co.uk) £20.00 Aberdeen, 1631. Alexander Seaton, lecturer and regent of Marischal College, stumbles upon the dead body of his friend, the university’s librarian, and is asked by the principal to look into the man’s life with an eye to protecting the college’s interests. Convinced that his friend has been […]

THE CUT by George Pelecanos

THE CUT George Pelecanos (www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/georgepelecanos) Orion Books (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £12.99 Released:25th August 2011 Another week, another shameful secret here at Reader Dad: The Cut – the first book in a new series featuring private investigator Spero Lucas – is the first George Pelecanos book I’ve read. With that out of the way, let’s get on with […]

UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST by Åsa Larsson

UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST Åsa Larsson Translated by Laurie Thompson MacLehose Press (www.maclehosepress.com) £12.99 Released: 4th August 2011 In the early spring thaw, the body of a young woman is discovered floating in the river Torne, in the northern extremes of Sweden. It doesn’t take long for police to discover that it’s the […]

KILLER MOVE by Michael Marshall

KILLER MOVE Michael Marshall (michaelmarshallsmith.com) Orion (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £12.99 Michael Marshall is something of a cult writer. His first three novels, as well as the vast majority of his short stories, were published under the name Michael Marshall Smith and were mainly classified as science fiction (the novels) and horror (the stories). In 2002 he dropped […]

GUN: A NOVELLA by Ray Banks

GUN: A NOVELLA Ray Banks (www.thesaturdayboy.com) eBook £0.86 Here’s this week’s shameful secret: while I’ve been aware of Ray Banks for a number of years (a signed copy of his The Big Blind has been sitting on my shelves for close to five years), he’s not an author I’m at all familiar with. Gun, a […]

TABOO by Casey Hill

TABOO Casey Hill (www.caseyhillbooks.com) Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £6.99 “First in a new series featuring forensic investigator Reilly Steel,” the review copy informs me and I’m immediately on my guard. In my experience, this means one of two things: the author has already planned out the first twenty-seven books in the series and none of […]

BEAUTY AND THE INFERNO by Roberto Saviano

BEAUTY AND THE INFERNO Roberto Saviano (www.robertosaviano.it) Translated by Oonagh Stransky MacLehose Press (www.maclehosepress.com) £16.99 If, like me, you’ve gone all this time not knowing who Roberto Saviano is, here’s the nutshell version: in 2006 Roberto Saviano, an Italian journalist living and working in Naples, Italy, published Gomorrah. Part journalism, part literary novel, it details […]

OUTPOST by Adam Baker

OUTPOST Adam Baker Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £12.99 I’ve mentioned before on this blog how much I enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction. There is an abundance of zombie fiction on the go these days, and it’s one of the sub-genres of horror where people aren’t afraid to experiment and play with the tropes, which keeps it somewhat […]

THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY by A. A. Milne

THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY A. A. Milne Vintage Classics (www.randomhouse.co.uk/vintage/vintageclassics/) £7.99 Anyone who has perused Reader Dad at any point during its so-far short life could not help but notice that I like my fiction dark and, if at all possible, violent. So, it will probably come as something of a surprise (as it does […]

PLUGGED by Eoin Colfer

PLUGGED Eoin McNamee (www.eoincolfer.com) Headline (www.headline.co.uk) £12.99 Irish crime fiction is going through a golden era at the minute. Look at the wealth of crime fiction coming out of Ireland – both North and South – over the past handful of years, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more buoyant market anywhere else. From […]