NOVEMBER 2018 - ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY - 6 OF THE BEST! (PART 2)

Couldn't resist a second post seeing as November was a rather good month for acquisitions...

Joe Clifford - Broken Ground (2018) - purchased copy

The fourth in Clifford's well regarded Jay Porter series. I've only read some short stories by him so far - Choice Cuts back in 2013

At an AA meeting, handyman and part-time investigator Jay Porter meets a recovering addict who needs his help. In the midst of another grueling northern New Hampshire winter, Amy Lupus' younger sister, Emily, has gone missing from the Coos County Center, the newly opened rehab run by Jay's old nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi.

As Jay begins looking into Emily's disappearance, he finds that all who knew Emily swear that she's never used drugs. She's a straight shooter and an intern at a newspaper investigating the Center and the horrendous secret hidden in it - or beneath it.

When Jay learns of a "missing" hard drive, he is flung back to five years ago when his own junkie brother, Chris, found a hard drive belonging to Lombardi Construction. For years, Jay assumed that the much-sought-after hard drive contained incriminating photos of Adam and Michael's father, which contributed to Chris' death. But now he believes that hard drive may have harbored a secret far more sinister, which the missing Lupus sister may have unwittingly discovered. The deeper Jay digs, the more poisoned the ground gets, and the two cases become one, yielding a toxic truth with local fallout - and far-reaching ramifications.

Martin Holmen -Slugger (2018) - review copy from Pushkin Vertigo

Third in the Harry Kvist series after Clinch and Down For the Count - Harry was a former boxer if you didn't know!


The third hard-hitting Harry Kvist thriller - fresh out of prison, Harry's friend is dead, and the trail of guilt leads all the way to Hitler's Germany

It's summer in Stockholm, and the city is sweltering in the grip of a rare heatwave while fascists and communists beat each other bloody in the streets. Harry Kvist has had enough. It's time for him to leave. But first he has some business to take care of. His old friend and one-time lover, Reverend Gabrielsson, has been murdered, and the police are more interested in anti-Semitic rumours than finding the truth.

Kvist investigates the only way he knows how, with his fists, uncovering a Nazi terrorist plot and a cabal of corrupt cops. Before long he finds himself caught in the middle of a turf war between two of the city's most brutal gangs. Can he fight his way out of one last corner and find a way to freedom, or has Kvist finally taken a punch too many?

Born in 1974, Martin Holmen studied history, and now teaches at a Stockholm secondary school. Slugger is the third thriller in The Stockholm Trilogy, following on from Clinch and Down for the Count.

Jeff Strand - Cold Dead Hands (2018) - impulse purchase

A billy bargain from Amazon at under a pound. I have a couple from Strand on the pile, but I've not read him yet. Tipped off to this by a Goodreads friend's review....

A vicious attack on a grocery store has turned into a hostage situation. But things are much worse for the ten people hiding in the walk-in freezer...

From the four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of PRESSURE and BLISTER comes a tension-filled tale of survival laced with his trademark macabre sense of humor.

John Wessel - This Far, No Further (1996) - purchased copy

On spec. punt on a new-to-me author - the first in a three book PI series

Harding is a private eye and an ex-con, who's been hired to tail a plastic surgeon with kinky sex habits and a Swiss bank account. Problems arise when the cheated wife turns up at his appartment and the supposedly willing sex partner turns up dead. And Harding turns up as a murder suspect - again.

Alan Parks - February's Son (2019) - review copy from publisher Canongate

Looking forward to this one after Bloody January blew my socks off earlier this year....

Bodies are piling up with grisly messages carved into their chests. Rival gangs are competing for control of Glasgow's underworld and it seems that Cooper, McCoy's oldest gangster friend, is tangled up in it all.

Detective Harry McCoy's first day back at work couldn't have gone worse.

New drugs have arrived in Glasgow, and they've brought a different kind of violence to the broken city. The law of the street is changing and now demons from McCoy's past are coming back to haunt him. But vengeance always carries a price, and it could cost McCoy more than he ever imagined.

The waters of Glasgow corruption are creeping higher, as the wealthy and dangerous play for power. And the city's killer continues his dark mission.

Can McCoy keep his head up for long enough to solve the case?

Bruised and battered from the events of Bloody January, McCoy returns for a breathless ride through the ruthless world of 1970s Glasgow.

J.A. Baker - Finding Eva (2018) - competition win - copy from Bloodhound Books

Another new-to-me author and another female writer to hopefully restore some gender balance to my future reading....

"This book is a rollercoaster of emotions and you have to keep on reading until the explosive ending." Peggy Beaver - reviewer

Eva is desperate to find her birth parents after spending her childhood in foster care. She leaves London and heads to Whitby in search of her mother and father, after breaking up with her boyfriend, Gareth. 

Gareth is furious with Eva. He loved her deeply and the disclosure she made when she ended the relationship is eating away at him.

Celia, Eva’s friend, is concerned about Eva. She has stopped answering her calls and when Celia goes to London to find her, she realises Eva has moved without telling anyone. Celia makes the decision to follow Eva to Whitby, concerned that Eva is unravelling. Both women have been damaged by their childhoods.

When Gareth also decides to go to Whitby, it is the start of a lethal situation. 

Who exactly is Eva and why is Celia so concerned? 

Some relationships are toxic. Others are deadly.