Re-posting for the blog tour. In case you missed it last year, here’s my review for a quirky Scandi-noir you won’t want to miss.
Winter is upon us and the temperature is dropping, at least where I am, it’s a bit chilly, bordering on a bitterness in the air. There can be dark humour in these darker nights and it comes in the form of The Winter Job. A great Road Trip and Crime Christmas Read.
Antti Tuomainen is an interesting Scandi-Noir author and brings surprising twists and turns. If you know Scandi-Noir, it’s often quite dark in the themes and what happens. Antti Tuomainen cleverly turns some of this on its head. I first read The Rabbit Factor trilogy and saw this and he has written others that are stand-alone books, but this is the author who makes me want to read this genre. So, what did I think of this latest book that was a surprise gift left at Bloody Scotland Festival for me by Orenda Books? Find out below…
Review
There’s a Christmas promise to fulfil, a fabulous road trip which brings some unexpected people into the journey along the way, some with friendship, others with danger and there is a death.
There’s an important Christmas mission to avoid disappointment on Christmas Day. Ilmari has a piano to pick up for his daughter. There’s an important agreement to be made and he needs it for his daughter in 6 days time. It shouldn’t be too hard, but there is some poor driving and the transportation of something unexpected that defies the anything like any type of normal things that get moved. There are also suspicious businessmen along the way.
The Winter Job is not your usual Scandi-Noir nor your usual Christmas book. It’s quirky, it’s full of humour combined with dangerous twists. The big question is, will the piano get to where it needs to be in time?
For fun this Christmas with a crime theme, The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen is a great treat for readers either for yourself or a present for someone.
Today I am on the blog tour with the book, Murder at the Tower by Stacey Murray, published by Hobeck Books, an Indy Crime Writing Publisher. It takes you to hidden places and behind the walls of the Tower of London, but not all is quite as you see normally see it…
The Yeoman Warders have guarded the Tower of London for 700 years. This is very much set in the present day. The Yeoman’s reside there, with their homes built into those stout, walls, when all the tourists and locals have gone, the gates are locked at night, it truly is their home and all is well, except for one night one of them dies and is discovered by The Ravenmaster, who alerts the Met. It sends DCI Viv Lee into their world to investigate deep secrets and enemies.
There’s clearly a lot of research and passion poured into this dark, twisty book. It, although, fictional, feels like its somehow timely, given the location and who owns it… This, however, focuses on the Yeomans and a killer is among them, where disturbing secrets emerge that change everything more than they could ever imagine.
The present day setting makes the book, perhaps more relatable and different from if it were a historical crime fiction and it is a good read for that.
The mystery is what drives the book as it twists and turns, as much as it almost asking the intriguing question of what happens behind closed doors or rather gates when there’s a killer on the loose and things emerging about the victim, although the Tower of London is a character within itself in someways.
Chasing Dark Shadows Featuring Luca Veste, Emma Styles, Michael Wood, Linda Duncan McLaughlin
review written by Louise Cannon – Bookmarks and Stages
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Chasing Dark Shadows was an insightful and entertaining panel about characters, their psychological make-up, the debates and more…
This, for me, was the most touching and most positively affecting part of the talk and it came from Michael Wood. He knows what he’s talking about. He came from a large family from what could be considered an impoverished background and was the case in the 90’s came across brick walls from teachers and a careers advisor when he said he wanted to be a writer. I find it relatable.
He says: “It Doesn’t Matter Where You Come From Or Where You Grew Up, It’s Got Nothing To Do With Being Able To Do Something”. Never a truer word, as I, myself am discovering as the years roll-on…
What was insightful, and if you’ve ever studied education, touching on psychology, which I have, some of this will be familiar, there was the look into nature vs nurture discussion. The direction it took was compelling and intellectual, looking at how we might all be capable and what the motivation might be. There was also look at the environment and the people around us, including parents imposing their views onto their children, even as much as if you scream at a spider, then you see them as a danger and become scared of them, it all has an impact and is looked at in various levels of psychology.
It was interesting to hear about characters in the books:
Linda Duncan McLaughlin’s Scottish Crime Debut of the Year – Shortlist 2026 is Original Sins. Joanne is a troubled woman who goes looking for her birth parents, partly inspired by her friend adopting a little girl from Cambodia. Linda was particularly entertaining in how she carried her talk, getting the audience laughing with between fun and dark humour, although you wondered where it was going at times as she interjected to bring some lightness.
Emma Styles’ is an award-winning crime writer with her latest book, The Shark. She poses an intriguingly thought-provoking question to ponder over: What would it be like if there was a serial killer in your neighbourhood and the police investigation wasn’t getting you anywhere? She then reminisced about cases when she was in Perth, Australia in the 80’s/90’s that happened and weren’t being resolved fast. Her book takes readers to a couple who abduct and kidnap the prime suspect because they want answers about nefarious activities that went on before.
She was candid in how she revealed how her characters often divide opinion. She mentioned how her young characters are and yet they are enraged and how people perhaps don’t like that as much as if it is an older character, who then people just find humour within that rage.
Michael Wood brings some characters back from before in his latest book, Evil In The Family (I reviewed this earlier in the year and recommend it for a compelling, edge of your seat read). Dr. Olivia Winter is a forensic psychologist who the media call the “serial killer hunter”. She travels the world incarcerating serial killers because she wants to understand what motivates them. The psychology within this is interesting and thought-provoking. There’s a deep motivation as to why she specialises in this to do with her own dark past, involving her father. Scarily, a killer is getting into everyone’s houses and murders. He did reassure everyone that the dog doesn’t die.
This is the 3rd book in this psychological thriller series. He’s written many other books prior to this series you can also investigate.
Luca Veste has brought back characters from a different series. Funnily, he mentions Buffy the Vampire tv series as an analogy of what he was going to do with his new book series. What he was getting at was how there was a self-contained plot.
Liar, Liar is rather topical as still, “cancel culture” is hot on many people’s lips, no matter what side of the fence you sit on, as well as police not always being “holier than thou”. Luca Veste quipped about being fascinated about people who are at the top of their game and then fall from grace, which is explored with his main character, Mark Fletcher.
Liar-Liar takes readers into Mark Fletcher’s life. He was once a hailed detective, but now he’s been suspended from the police. He wakes up one morning in a hotel room and has no idea how he got there…
They talked about having to “close the door” on the subject at the end of their time of writing for the day to take care of themselves. There seems to be a consensus that self-care is important and how sometimes bringing certain situations in a fictional way to the fore can be empowering.
Spies, espionage in both the real and the fictional world were discussed on this panel. It was intelligent, informative and entertaining. It was a highly pertinent panel as what we see in the news, live through and fictional worlds collide, each featuring MI5/MI6. The authors impart not just a bit about themselves and their books, but also some highly important information about things we are all technologically facing today…. One of the books will also feature on Netflix. Read further to find out more about this. I have a link at the end for how you can watch the talk online. Thanks to all the authors for the photo op.
Chris Merritt is a highly rated author, who has worked as a Diplomat in posts in Iraq and Jerusalem. He is a clinical psychologist with interest in PTSD. His first book was published in 2018 where they sat in the psychological thrillers, but Committed sat in both this and spy genres. His latest book is Octagon that is a full-on action/adventure spy thriller where a woman has set up her own private intelligence agency off the back of leaving the SIS. Her old boss gives her a cryptic message and then dies in suspicious circumstances. She is then accompanied by her ex-lover, a former SAS operator. The message takes them across Europe to get answers.
He wanted high stakes so people care about the characters among the unfolding of multiple threats, including technological threats. I previously reviewed this book and he achieves this and more in what is a compelling book. There will be sequel, which will also be worth looking out for.
He compellingly imparted how the main characters have each experienced traumas from their previous work and it affects how they also react in the situation they are presented in. The process on using his experience as a clinical psychologist was very engaging. He thinks in terms of a stimulus in-front of you, what’s the instinctive reaction to it, what you think is going on and model the difficulties someone is experiencing, but in fiction it’s not about helping people, it’s about getting an interesting reaction from them and to keep it psychologically authentic.
David Goodman had been writing Sci-Fi, including one that sat in both this genre and the spy genre. He then got asked to write a straight spy novel.
Solitary Agents is sequel to Reluctant Spy. Jamie Tulloch agrees to loan himself to SAS programme and asked to live a limited life for a future spy to use as an identity. He ends up on a mission. In book 2 he moves away from it and is on Tinder and goes back to SIS as a trainee.
One-liner style humour was mentioned and how in real life, there is some dark humour that occurs in these types of jobs.
Paul Warner, a teacher who has done an MA in creative writing and a little journalism. The Spy in the Blood is about a spy of the 90’s, head of recruitment but looking forward to retirement. His daughter wants to join and discovers she is more suited than he thought as she went out on missions. She then didn’t come back and has try and work out the digital world to clear her name and then the action and body count mounts.
Watch out Netflix viewers, A Spy In The Blood will be adapted. It already has David Harper for the main character and Milie Bobby Brown playing his daughter. A24 producing it. It will be set in America with the main character changing to an FBI Agent.
The author did say for them to go for it. He seemed excited this was happening with his book.
Why people are so interested in spy fiction
This was an interesting question that prompted a very thought-provoking discussion between the authors.
The idea you can walk away from your life, the sneaking around or walking around people leading a secret life attracts readers to that escapism.
Geo-politics and threats are more present in people’s lives and people are more interested in it that even 10/20 years ago. The security, democracy, tech threats have come more to everyday experiences and want to know what’s going on. Stories and relatable characters help with this. They talked about lots going on in the background and disruption in information war that is a kind of war. Hostile nations using technology to target the West, with AI being part of this and the “sleepwalking” of people putting literally everything on social media over the last decade or so and how the tech companies don’t care about us, just the data to sell on.
In the fictional books, they try to ground the spying, so sometimes it’s rather humanistic and not all about the technology.
People want spy fiction to make sense of it as we read it all and hopefully good guys will win out. So why not check out the aforementioned books and join the trend of reading about intriguing espionage.
Nice and Cosy: Janice Hallett, Steve Higgs, Olly Smith
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
What links these 3 authors, apart from cosy crime? Agatha Christie, between Olly mentioning Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and Janice Hallett having her characters put on a play, The Hollow. It was a very entertaining panel and one that leaves you feeling hungry after all the talk of pork pies and wine and also wanting to devour their intriguing books.
It’s a panel, entertainingly chaired by Nicola Meighan that reveals a few surprises!
Olly Smith’s book is Death By Noir. Interestingly, he has links to Falkirk and Stirling. You may know him from recommending wine on Saturday Kitchen or from some columns he’s written. His book isn’t quite as out the blue as it seems. He originally studied English and was always writing plots and doing plays, before wine hijacked this and took his career plans in a whole different, yet also successful direction. For him, then and now, it’s always been about the words on a page, communication and meeting people.
He talked about how in some ways deciphering wine is like solving mysteries. It’s and interesting take, but an understandable one as we see him with wine, telling us the flavour notes he’s worked out within it. In crime, there are different types of threads to follow, but both are working out the mystery.
Death by Noir, set in the South Downs, sounds welcoming with his lead welcoming everyone into his wine shop by Barclay, with his regional accent. All that seems idyllic turns into a murderous bonfire night.
Interestingly, has clearly thought about the landscape and how it relates to real life with his love of regenerative farming and environmental and taste factors.
Food is relatable and Steve Higgs book is Pork Pie Pandemonium. He, by his own admission, has an active imagination, but to his advantage he won a school competition, wrote for a magazine in the army and short stories. He got a pen out and wrote until he had something to publish and there a new book appeared for readers.
There’s a dog which seems to be a big character in helping a retired detective to solve crime. He, incidentally can’t cook, but not even the dog can help with that. Interestingly, he talked about the geography can become a character as you enshroud people in architecture.
The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett is 7-8 years later, since The Appeal and has community at the heart of it. She has been clever in choosing a theatrical setting to have a murder, with all the props, it’s great territory to have a murder. She is also interested in language and picks up accents and phrases.
She started her career by writing about bubble bath in small magazines and wrote 2 plays as well as studying screen-writing before she switched to novel writing.
A Bloody Scotland Panel where the books reached the short-list of the McIllvanney Prize. Check out the titles and review below…
Anyone who grew up in the 1980’s and 1990’s would relate to this and the rest, it would add to their education of how things were. Films like Ghostbusters, Cagney and Lacey, ET, The Lost Boys, Back to the Future. There was a lot of American shows that were filmed in New York and “crossed the pond”. Nowadays films and series are now filmed in Glasgow because it has a similar grid system and costs less to film in. There was talk of New York being generic yet unique and keeping writing at surface level. There was also humour at the fact fiction states the title, then “A Novel” on book “across the pond”.
It is interestingly about how Tariq Ashkanani talks about the America then that has a lot of scope for stories and now it’s an even more complex place. His book looks at missing 2 boys and has many questions about what happened earlier, the parents coping in different ways. He also looks at almost derelict towns and those that stay in a place that is practically condemned and where people may fall behind the rest of the world and those who move away. It’s setting causes some mystery within itself.
Gavin Bell has been published under many pseudonyms. I read his books under the name, Mason Cross many years ago, now he’s published 138 Main Street using his real name. 4 murders, 4 streets. There are many of these addresses to untangle for where the killer can go next. It might even be in a different town in different housing types. It takes readers across many parts of America.
The Killing Season was his debut novel and involved State-hopping and was always going to be set in America as not got the same gun laws as in the UK.
Edel Coffey Breaking Point was set in New York as knows about it and needed a place that could lend itself to being harder than Ireland, that has a more generous maternity benefit.
Her new book, Glass Houses is inspired by the elite and she talked really fascinatingly about how people can view each other from different classes and the friction, how, in Ireland this gap has widened. She has made the rule in her book that you can’t have curtains and plays with reflection and glass, how it can obscure things. She was inspired by Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
