GUEST POST: On Locations by CONRAD WILLIAMS

Name: CONRAD WILLIAMS Author of: DUST AND DESIRE (2015) SONATA OF THE DEAD (2016) HELL IS EMPTY (2016) On the web: conradwilliams.wordpress.com On Twitter: @salavaria When I teach creative writing at university (I’ve had a few gigs over the years at Manchester Metropolitan, Edge Hill and, in the new year, I’ll be at […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

THE POINT by Gerard Brennan

THE POINT Gerard Brennan (www.gerardbrennan.co.uk) Pulp Press (www.pulppress.co.uk) £7.99 Coming, as I do, from the wilds of West Belfast, I have an aversion to the Norn Irish accent on film and television; for me, there’s something distinctly cringe-worthy about it, a fact that is probably best exemplified every time Liam Neeson opens his mouth (who […]

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 […]

THE FACILITY by Simon Lelic

The Facility Simon Lelic (www.simonlelic.com) Mantle (mantle.panmacmillan.com) £12.99 Simon Lelic’s first novel, the quietly horrific RUPTURE, made him an instant “must-read”. THE FACILITY, his second novel, bleaker and tougher than the first, but no less enjoyable, has cemented that impression, leaving […]