DEEP WATER by Emma Bamford

DEEP WATER Emma Bamford Simon & Schuster (simonandschuster.co.uk) £8.99 Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop Virginie and her husband Jake have packed in the rat race and spent their savings on a small yacht. Flying to Malaysia to take ownership of their new home/transport, their plan is to head to Thailand and see […]

GUEST POST: Researching The Widow’s Confession by SOPHIA TOBIN

Name: SOPHIA TOBIN Author of: THE SILVERSMITH’S WIFE (2014) THE WIDOW’S CONFESSION (2015) On the web: sophiatobin.wordpress.com On Twitter: @SophiaTobin1 From day trips to directories: researching The Widow’s Confession The Widow’s Confession is set during a summer season at a Victorian seaside resort. Researching the life of the Victorian tourist with its excursions, shell-collecting, […]

THE WIDOW’S CONFESSION by Sophia Tobin

THE WIDOW’S CONFESSION Sophia Tobin (sophiatobin.wordpress.com) Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 In the summer of 1851, Edmund Steele leaves the stresses of London behind and, at the behest of his good friend, heads to the seaside resort of Broadstairs and takes up residence with the town’s parson, Theo Hallam. It isn’t long before Edmund and […]

COLD GRAVE by Craig Robertson

COLD GRAVE Craig Robertson Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 There is, it would seem, an unwritten rule for writers of cop-centric series that states that at some point the cop must become involved in an off-the-books investigation. Craig Robertson’s third novel, Cold Grave, sees the return of series characters Rachel Narey and Tony Winter, and […]

THE INQUISITOR by Mark Allen Smith

THE INQUISITOR Mark Allen Smith (www.markallensmith.com) Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 Geiger is a man without a past; his life started with his arrival, several years before, in New York. Before that, a black hole. After chance leads him to the local Mafia boss, he decides to go into Information Retrieval – torturing subjects to […]

The 2011 Round-Up

As the end of the year approaches, I have decided to break from the straightforward review posts that have populated Reader Dad to date, to do a brief round-up of the year’s reading, including my Top 10 of 2011 and my Most Disappointing of 2011. THE ROUND-UP If you have checked out my newly-added Reading […]

SNAPSHOT by Craig Robertson

SNAPSHOT Craig Robertson Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 Glasgow, present day, and someone – a man with a high-powered rifle and a scope to match – is taking out the rulers of the city’s underbelly: drug dealers, murderers, extortionists. As the body count grows and war breaks out amongst the various underground factions, the Strathclyde […]

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 […]

ALTAR OF BONES by Philip Carter

ALTAR OF BONES Philip Carter Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 Thrillers and I have had something of a rocky relationship this year, going from one extreme (The Obelisk) to the other (Sanctus). Philip Carter’s Altar of Bones, I’ll say right at the outset, comes somewhere close to the Sanctus end of the spectrum. Carter is, […]

THE OBELISK by Howard Gordon

THE OBELISK Howard Gordon (www.howardmgordon.com) Simon & Schuster (www.simonandschuster.co.uk) £12.99 Here’s a good concept for one of those rollercoaster-ride thrillers that I like to read from time to time, the type of book that doesn’t require much concentration, but delivers entertainment by the bucketful: Gideon Davis is a peacemaker, a man working for the US […]