BLOG TOUR ~ Silent Night by Geraldine Hogan

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Silent Night by Geraldine Hogan where I've a review from her latest crime thriller novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Kim Nash from Bookouture Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

"She reached into the pram and placed her hands on the cotton blanket. It was still warm. But her smiling, new baby sister, with her wide blue-grey eyes, was gone...’

Twenty five years later, three bodies are found at a ramshackle cottage in the Irish countryside, and Detective Iris Locke is sick to her stomach. The victims are Anna Crowe and her two young children.

Iris has only recently joined the Limerick Murder Squad. Against her father’s advice, she’s working the narrow lanes and green hills of her childhood. Iris still remembers Anna, who was just a small girl when her baby sister was snatched, never to be seen again. It was the one case Iris’ own father never solved, and Iris can’t help but wonder if the two crimes are connected.

She’ll stop at nothing to find Anna justice, but a fire has destroyed almost all the physical evidence, and Limerick is the same small town she remembers: everybody protects their neighbours, and Iris has been away for too long.

Can Iris unpick the lies beneath the surface of her pretty hometown, and catch the most twisted individual of her career, when reopening the old case means reopening old wounds for her team, the rest of the community, and her own Father?

This is the first instalment in the Detective Iris Locke series which is written by Geraldine Hogan and is based in Ireland. It tells of Detective Locke who is transferred to the Murder Squad in Limerick where she is immediately thrown into a case where the bodies of Anna and her two children are found in the remains of a house fire.  

Will reopening an old case from over 30 years ago be somehow connected to this ongoing case where Iris' baby sister Janey was snatched and never to be seen again where Iris' own father worked on but never solved mean reopening old wounds for the team who worked on it and more importantly herself and her own father?? Are these two incidents connected? Will it quite possibly help solve both cases or is there something more sinister lurking within the pages??

Well, Geraldine Hogan has gone to the darkside with her writing of this crime novel and I really enjoyed this book, it started off with a bang with those first few chapters, a few good twists, turns and revelations throughout the novel too but for me it slowed down quite a lot and I felt it was a little dragged out in parts but overall an enjoyable read with great potential for the second instalment in the series which is due out in December and I'm really looking forward to seeing what's in store for Detective Iris Locke and her team. 

Silent Night is available from last good bookstores, libraries and on audio. It is also available on Kindle where it is currently £0.99. It is also a definite for fans of Patricia Gibney, L.J. Ross and Angela Marsons.

BLOG TOUR ~ At Your Door by J.P. Carter

Hi Everyone,

 Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Mummy Needs A Break by Susan Edmunds where I've an extract from her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

Anna told DI Walker and DC Megan Sweeny that she wanted them to go with her to the common. She then issued various instructions to the rest of the detectives.

‘Check missing persons to see if any young women have been added to the database recently. And I want us to locate all the street cameras within a half-mile radius of where the body’s been found.’

Anna hurried back into her office to collect her jacket and shoulder bag. As she was stepping back out her mobile rang. She answered it without checking the caller ID.

‘DCI Tate,’ she said.

‘Hello, detective. This is Jan Groves in the Media Liaison Department. Can you spare a moment?’

‘Not really. I’m on my way out of the office. And if you’re calling to ask about the body found on Barnes Common then I don’t have any information yet. We’ve only just got wind of it.’

‘Actually it’s got nothing to do with that,’ Groves said. ‘This is more of a personal matter.’ 

Anna paused in the doorway and frowned.

‘In that case I’ll let you satisfy my curiosity,’ she said. ‘I can give you sixty seconds. So fire away.’

‘Well, we’ve been contacted by a producer at Channel Four,’ Groves said. ‘He just finished the second instalment of the feature about you that’s been published in the Evening Standard. He said it blew his mind and he’d like to do a programme on it for their true crime series. He wants to know if you’d be willing to cooperate.’