#BloodyScotland Reveals Early Release Tickets – Ian Rankin @Beathigh @KathyReichs to Headline @BloodyScotland

BLOODY SCOTLAND REVEALS THE PROLOGUE

American superstar of crime fiction Kathy Reichs will be the first of a series of Early Releases as Bloody Scotland teases its headline acts for 2025.

The author of the Temperance Brennan novels will be making her first visit to the Stirling festival since 2013. She is a multi-million international bestseller, and the Brennan novels were the inspiration for the TV series Bones.

Tickets for Kathy’s event – in which she will be in conversation with 2025 guest programmer Sir Ian Rankin – will go on sale at noon on Monday 26 May.

A string of further Early Releases – all major names in the crime fiction world – will soon follow so keep your eye on our social media channels.

See www.bloodyscotland.com to spot other early highlights as they drop or follow Bloody Scotland on Facebook, Instagram, X or Blue Sky

The Bloody Scotland 2025 programme – featuring many other HUGE names in the world of crime fiction – will be launched at noon at The Golden Lion in Stirling on Thursday 12 June followed by an event at 1pm with Canadian crime writing superstar, Linwood Barclay. www.bloodyscotland.com

#Review By Lou of The Crash By Robert Peston @Peston @ZaffreBooks @Tra4cyFent0n #Thriller #PoliticalThriller #CompulsiveReaders #BlogTour #TheCrash

The Crash
By Robert Peston

Review By Louise Cannon (Lou)

Mixing fact and fiction, Robert Peston has written an excellently, tightly written thriller. Check out the blurb and review below in what is my turn on the Compulsive Readers blog tour, also with publisher, Zaffre Books. Firstly – Happy Publication Day to Robert Peston.

Blurb

London, 2007. It’s summer in the City: the economy is booming, profits are up and the stock market sits near record highs.

But journalist Gil Peck is a lone voice worrying it can’t last. Deep in the plumbing of the financial system, he has noticed strange things happening which could threaten the whole economy. But nobody wants to hear it: not the politicians taking credit for an end to boom and bust, not the bankers pocketing vast bonuses, not even Gil’s bosses at the BBC, who think it’s irrelevant.

When Gil gets a tip-off that a small northern bank has run out of money, everything changes. His report sparks the first run on a UK bank in 140 years. The next day, Marilyn Krol, a director of the Bank of England dies in an apparent suicide.

For Gil, it’s personal. Marilyn was his lover: was his scoop connected to her suicide? Or is there something more sinister in her death? Gil is determined to find out.

The more he investigates, the more he is drawn into the rotten heart of the financial system, where old school ties and secret Oxbridge societies lubricate vast and illegal conflicts of interest. The whole economy has been built on a house of cards, and Gil is threatening to bring it down.

When simply reporting the facts can make or break fortunes, Gil has to ask himself: is he crossing the line between journalist and participant? Are his own conflicts of interest making him reckless? And in a world ruled by greed where nothing and no-one is too big to fail, what price will he pay for uncovering the truth?

Review

The Crash gets off to a strong start. The prologue whacks you hard enough to have you sit bolt up and the first chapter will pull at your emotional heart strings as you encounter Gil Peck’s mum. Peston sends you on an emotional rollercoaster exceedingly well, before getting into a change of pace and grittiness of what is a hard-hitting, breathtaking book. The Crash reels you in and hooks right to the end.

Robert Peston is of course very well-placed to weave the financial crash and journalism into a book, but this is so much more and it is incredibly good. I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure how it would go in writing style or whether it would become dry, but I was highly intrigued to find out. It truly is an intensely great read that also has some thought-provoking points as it weaves the fact of banks flying high and then coming crashing down, along with people’s lives and fiction in the characters and the way their lives are told.

This is the second book. I hadn’t read the first – The Whistle Blower, but I thought that was okay as I got straight into the book’s plotline and quickly got the measure of Gil Peck, who works for the BBC, and his astuteness. It’s a compelling read as it goes right to the heart of the financial sector.

Gil Peck is an economic journalist who is career-driven, quite the workaholic. He becomes aware of something huge happening in the financial sector.
It could be seen as hind-sight, but there were some people out-with the financial sector who knew the “boom-times” couldn’t last, if not what the ramifications of when it doesn’t. Peston throws open the doors, although, in a fictional way, to Oxbridge and its secret societies. Gil and his investigative nouse, wants to find out more and is on a mission to pull all that’s secretly going on, down.

Gil Peck also has a girlfriend, a relationship that’s on and off, but now things have changed. The question is, has she committed suicide or is something more sinister going on? This is compellingly written. It gives a glimpse into Peck’s personal life.

A slow-burn, it may be, but with intricate plotting with unexpected twists and turns, it becomes quite the page-turner. It makes me wonder what Peston’s next book will be. I may even go back to his debut novel. I’d certainly be looking out for his books and I highly recommend The Crash.

#CelebratingAuthorsSeries By Lo -Celebrating #CrimeAuthor – Lin Anderson @Lin_Anderson #CrimeFiction @BloodyScotland #BloodyScotland #RhonaMcLeod #BlazeDetectiveDog #Mystery

Celebrating Author – Lin Anderson

written by Louise at Bookmarks and Stages

As part of my blog in 2023 until it reaches 5 years old in September, I will be celebrating an author or publisher every so often, amongst reviewing and interviewing as usual. Join me as I celebrate works of Lin Anderson. I have included links to previous reviews that also include blurbs of a book from the Rhona McLeod series, a Thriller and a Middle Grade Book and a link to Bloody Scotland 2023 and talk write-ups.

Lin Anderson was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award, 2022.

CWA stands for Crime Writers Association. has She has written over 20 books, primarily in the crime fiction genre with her popular main protagonist being forensic scientist Rhona McLeod. She has also written a stand alone thriller – The Party House and mystery books for children – Blaze Detective series. She also created book festival Bloody Scotland. I have been fortunate to write some reviews for some of her books and the festival. You can find out more about the festival and then about her books as you read further.

Lin Anderson, on top of attending book festivals and talks in many venues, created a book festival just over 10 years ago called Bloody Scotland alongside some others. The location is Stirling. Dates: Friday 15th September to Sunday 17th September.

This festival goes from strength to strength each year, playing host to many crime authors from both the UK and across the world. It also has its own awards – The McIlvanney Prize. As well as hosting a stream of established authors, it is also a place that has Spotlight talks on the same stage as an established author for new authors and shortlists for debut novelists. There is also a torchlight parade through this town made millennium city, authors playing football, games, authors singing and a new addition for 2023 – guided walks through Stirling, which is steeped in history, including an old town jail and a castle.

Link to Bloody Scotland 2023: https://bloodyscotland.com/

Link to the write up of a 2022 panel Lin Anderson was on with Clare Mackintosh and Chris Brookmyre: Panel Talk

Lin Anderson’s first book was Driftnet and the latest (2023) is The Wild Coast in the Rhona McLeod series. Here is a link to the talk she gave for Time For the Dead on a Morecambe and Vice Festival on a panel with Noelle Holten – Panel talk

The Wild Coast sees Rhona McLeod on holiday and not all goes to plan with mysterious stickmen being left on murdered wild campers. There’s a slightly creepy vibe mixed with on-trend topics.
Here is the link to the blurb and review of The Wild Coast: The Wild Coast

The Party House is a standalone thriller set in the Highlands of Scotland. Something sinister and dark is happening in Blackrig and the ‘party house’ in this excellent, compelling book.
The Party House

Blaze the Detective Dog is a Middle Grade series. Book 1 is The Magic Flag Mystery. Blaze, the dog actually exists and lives with Donald McKay and his other dog – Laoch. In my review you will see photos of them.
In the book, there is a mystery to be solved – the all important fairy flag has been stolen from Dunvegan Castle, where the Chief of Clan McLeod lives, meaning the cancellation of a school trip. It’s a compelling mystery that children can really get absorbed in to solve the mystery, meet the characters and discover a castle, a secret passage and a map to follow. Here is a link to my review of Blaze The Detective Dog – Book 1 – The Magic Flag Mystery

#Extract #Excerpt post By Lou of Finding Ruby Draker By Marianne Scott @MScott44 @lovebookstours #blogtour #Suspense #Thriller

Finding Ruby Draker
By Marianne Scott
Excerpt/Extract

Today I have an excerpt of finding Ruby Draker for you, courtesy of being on the Love Books Group blog tour and Marianne Scott.
It certainly caught my attention and drew my eye in. First, check out the blurb and then onto the excerpt, of this suspense/thriller, which has intrigue and intensity.

Blurb

Kathleen Jones has lived a protected and typical suburban life, nothing unexpected in her carefully controlled and planned existence. She’s about to complete her college degree and is ready to start a successful career but after completing her last exam she comes home to find her world has been turned upside down. Her home has been torched and her parents and little brother killed. If that’s not bad enough, she is kidnapped and drugged unconscious by strangers posing as police officers. When she awakes she discovers that everything has changed – her face, her name, and everything she believed to be true. But things get worse. Hardly recovered from surgery, she is whisked away under the cover of darkness as more men storm the clinic with guns. It seems that the men who abducted her are not her greatest threat. Now on a private charter on its way to Nice, France, her abductors are calling her Ruby – Ruby Draker!

Now, onto the excerpt.

When I awoke, I could hear people moving around me, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut.

For a minute or two I listened to what was going on around me, but then I just had to see what was happening. I cracked open my eyes, but my vision was blurry, and I couldn’t make out much of anything except shapes and colors.
All the people who floated in and out of this quiet place were dressed in white.
A man with dark hair stood from his chair in the corner and leaned over. I knew right away it was him, from the fire. He tapped the IV pole to my side while a nurse covered me with another blanket and adjusted the pillow under my head.

In a few seconds, the white fog went black and I passed out again.

I have no idea how long I was like this; it could have been a day, a week, a month.

When I woke up again, my face was tightly bandaged and again everyone around was fuzzy and white. The bandage felt like a straitjacket, and my hand flew to it to pull it off. Someone saw I was conscious and came over to scoot me into a sitting position in some kind of high- backed chair and rested my head on a cushion.

Why was everything so white?
My heart was like a rock, heavy in my chest. I didn’t feel anything, no pain, no fear, just like I’d been emptied out.
I didn’t even know if I was breathing. I couldn’t move or talk or see much.
My eyes and lips seared against the air.

#BookReviews By Lou of The Patient and The Politician By Tim Sullivan @TimJRSullivan @HoZ_Books #ThePatient #ThePolitician #Thrillers #BlogTour

The Patient
The Politician
By Tim Sullivan

Today, at a time of day a bit later than normal due to personal circumstance, I am on the blog tour to review both The Patient and The Politician. Some dark humour going on here as I find myself being an actual patient, although very different from that of the book, thankfully, and the fractured bones I have will heal. Sense of humour is still intact, so I see the unintended black humour and irony in being laid up and reviewing a thriller called The Patient first. Really first of all I thank the publisher – Head of Zeus and Tim Sullivan for contacting me to request I reviewed the books and what a pleasure it was. I have reviewed them both together. First discover the blurbs and then my reviews.

No fingerprints. No weapon. No witnesses. Can DS Cross prove it was murder?

THE DETECTIVE

DS George Cross doesn’t rely on guesswork and he has no time for false assumptions. He is a detective who goes off the evidence in front of him, not ‘hunches’ or ‘gut feelings’. He does not know what these are.

THE CLOSED CASE

When a young woman is found dead, the Bristol Crime Unit is quick to rule it a suicide as the woman had a long history of drug abuse. But her mother is convinced it was murder, saying that her daughter had been clean for years and had been making strides in a new therapy programme.

THE ANSWER

As an outsider himself, DS Cross is drawn to cases involving the voiceless and dispossessed and, here, the evidence states that this woman was murdered – Cross just has to prove it. But under pressure from his boss to shut down the case, and with numerous potential suspects, time is rapidly running out to get the answers that this grieving family deserve.

Perfect for fans of M.W. Craven, Peter James and Joy Ellis, The Patient is part of the DS George Cross thriller series, which can be read in any order.

A ransacked room. A dead politician. A burglary gone wrong – or a staged murder?

THE DETECTIVE

DS George Cross loves puzzles – he’s good at them – and he immediately spots one when he begins investigating the death of former mayor Peggy Frampton. It looks like a burglary that went horribly wrong to most but George can see what others can’t – that this was murder.

THE PUZZLE

After her political career ended, Peggy became a controversial blogger whose forthright opinions attracted a battalion of online trolls. And then there’s her family: an unfaithful husband and a gambling-addicted son. With yet more enemies in her past, the potential suspects are unending.

THE SUSPECTS

Cross must unpick the never-ending list of seedy connections to find her killer – but the sheer number of suspects is clouding his usually impeccable logic. He’s a relentlessly methodical detective, but no case can last forever. And politics can be a dangerous game – especially for people who don’t know the rules . . .

Perfect for fans of M.W. Craven, Peter James and Joy Ellis, The Politician is part of the DS George Cross thriller series, which can be read in any order.

Reviews

DS George Cross is on the case in both The Patient and The Politician, which can be read as stand alone and in any order.

The Patient is the first book I read. skills are not his fortè. It soon becomes apparent that D.S. Cross is on the autistic spectrum and is quite high functioning. It makes for some interesting and different interactions around the office as banter is not his thing but he gets fairly fixated on crime solving.
He works for the Major Crime Unit (MCU) in Bristol. The death of Sandra’s daughter looks like suicide or an accident, but Sandra believes it was murder. DI Campbell, meanwhile isn’t happy about Cross re-opening the Felicity Wilson case. This in itself poses questions as to why and causes some tensions between those two and Carson, that then increases the compelling nature to continue to read on. There is the themes of suicide and assisted suicide, which is interesting and also the fact that it was assumed the victim had indeed committed suicide, but D.S. Cross and her mother, especially the mother, are adamant to look again to uncover the murderous truth.

The Politician is Tim Sullivan’s latest book is also compelling and rather intriguing. There is the death of former local politician and ex-mayor Peggy Frampton that is the next case for DS George Cross to solve. In retirement she had some strong opinions about construction companies that resulted in her being trolled (shows the state of society and truly highlights the issue surrounding how people choose to (mis)behave). What a life Peggy lived, so much in the limelight, but all was not rosy. She had her enemies, which are uncovered as the police dig deep into the corners of her life, even her husband was unfaithful to her.

In both books, the further the surface is removed, the darker the under-layers become!

Both books have their red herrings to successfully throw readers off the scent a bit and to cast doubt in their minds when trying to figure out who the perpetrators are. The lack of obvious evidence in both books adds intrigue as all the signs initially point to a suicide (The Patient), a burglary gone wrong (The Politician), which even though, given the nature of the type of crime books they are, adds exceptionally well to the thriller as it is more pieces of the puzzle, of people’s lives the police (and reader), needs to piece together and the more taut it becomes, the deeper the investigations are dug into.

Tim Sullivan writes intriguing plots and complex characters with thought provoking themes in a way that makes them compelling. The endings could possibly be stronger, but these are books worth investing time in what fast becomes engaging storytelling in both The Patient and The Politician. These are the 3rd and 4th in the series. I have not read the first two, but that doesn’t detract from the 2 I have read as I felt I got a good grasp of the recurring characters and the mysteries are complete by the end of the books.

#BloodyScotland #Writeup and #Reviews By Lou of The Party’s Over Panel – @claremackint0sh @cbrookmyre @Lin_Anderson #Thrillers #TheLastParty #TheCliffHouse #ThePartyHouse

The Party’s Over

Each book on this panel had murderous books set at parties. The talk was fascinating on many different levels as the authors talked about some of their books content and their influences. It was all very entertaining too. Before I knew it, an hour was up and this part of the party was well and truly over. All books mentioned are available now.

Panel: Clare Mackintosh, Chris Brookmyre, Lin Anderson

There are links after my write up to reviews I wrote previously on books by Chris Brookmyre and Lin Anderson. There will be one on Clare MacIntosh’s book in the near future.

Clare Mackintosh is the author of 5 bestsellers.

The Last Party, she says is set at a New Year’s Day party, held in a luxury resort on the border between England and Wales. She talked of bridges being built and all is going well, until someone is murdered…

Clare MacKintosh talked about not mentioning Covid as she doesn’t ever refer to current affairs or fixes a time in her books because she wants her books to be timeless, but she does fix a place. What was interesting, however, was the angle she chose to allow to feed into her book, that was Covid related, and that was her fascination of how people were crossing borders into different parts of the UK. She also touched upon Air B n B homes popping up in Wales and the “incomers” and how, in a way she is an “incomer”, so talked about how anyone moving, tries to fit in and how important that is to blend into the community.

She was asked about her police background and whether it a blessing or a curse. The blessing seems to be that it is useful for research, but the curse is knowing too much and remembering to fictionalise it. It was also fascinating hearing about how she fell into writing by accident in a way and how demanding working in the police was, especially the impact on her family life.

Chris Brookmyre talked about it being set on a fictional luxury island, that he has put people on, who you perhaps wouldn’t normally put together and how they have secrets to hide. He also says it’s about friendship and forgiveness.

She’s rented a luxury getaway on its own private island. The helicopter won’t be back for seventy-two hours. They are alone. They think.

He talked about how he thought writers were influenced by lockdown parties going on for those not abiding by the rules (politics was mentioned, because I guess, how could they not, by all of the authors), and how they created their own parties on a written page and virtual parties.

Chris Brookmyre also talked about creating tension between groups of people and his writing style and influence in a way of knowing you’re at the end of a chapter is fascinating and may remain in my mind. It turns out the end of Eastenders, with those drums and the end of a chapter have something in common – they both want you to tune into more, so it sounds like those dramatic Eastenders drums at the end of each episode and thinking of this, can help when knowing if the tension or dramatic effect of a chapter is there, or whether it is finished or has more to be written.

He talked about the island he set his book on and wanting a sense of isolation and also to portray the different levels of friendship you have with different people. He also talked about how he was conscious of the links between this book and Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ being made, but talked about how that was retribution and how his book is about having secrets and having to forgive.

It’s a stand alone psychological thriller, set in Blackrig in the Scottish Highlands and the outrage villagers have of a party house going to open.

Someone went missing 5 years ago and was never found, until now, creating all sorts of suspicion in the small village.

Lin Anderson talked about The Party House and how there is one bottom of a road she knows and how her friend had lots of highly entertaining stories to tell.

She talked about lockdown and the time where people were trying to flea to remote places to try and ‘escape’ Covid. It was interesting to hear what a sudden influx of people from all over felt like to locals, which features a bit.

The book is written with 2 view points, both with secrets and lies. She talked about small villages and how people talk and think they know everything about you (so true) and how this features.

Lin Anderson also divulged how her dad worked in the police force and ‘interrogated’ her in her childhood, much to the audience’s amusement, which then led onto some hilarious stories about real criminals being caught time and time again – one continually drew smiley faces after committing a crime, thinking this was clever, but of course was caught.

So, all in all, an enjoyable and entertaining talk is given by these 3 authors, so if you ever get an opportunity to watch them, I highly recommend you do so.

Now, I have mentioned how I have read and reviewed The Cliff House By Chris Brookmyre and The Party House by Lin Anderson, both of which are absorbing and enthralling thrillers, which I rated 5 stars. Here are links to those reviews and also a previous talk I saw with Chris Brookmyre.

The Cliff House Review The Cliff House Talk The Party House