BLOG TOUR: Foul Play at the Seaview Hotel (A Helen Dexter Cosy Crime Mystery Book 3) - Glenda Young

In the charming Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough, a killer game is being played . . .

Helen Dexter is enjoying the new four-star status of the Seaview Hotel. But she begins to wonder if this accolade is cursed when a series of disasters strike.

It starts when a crazy golf team arrive to play in a Scarborough tournament. Their odd behaviour heightens when the rival team captain turns up. Yet, there's worse to come for Helen when one of the guests is murdered playing crazy golf.

Then the Seaview's prize-winning cook Jean quits, leaving Helen devastated. And so, as Helen's fiftieth birthday approaches, the last thing she's in the mood for is a celebration. However, mysterious invitations arrive to a party that Helen doesn't want.

Can Helen unmask the crazy golf killer, save the reputation of the Seaview, win Jean back and solve the mystery of the party invitations? With her rescue greyhound Suki by her side, Helen Dexter is on the case.

 

What did I think?

Foul Play at the Seaview Hotel is the third book in the Helen Dexter Cosy Crime Mystery series and it's an absolute cracker.  This amazing series is going from strength to strength and I always love my virtual visit to Scarborough, even though it appears to be the murder capital of North Yorkshire (but that's just in Glenda's books, of course).  You can definitely read this book as a standalone but I highly recommend the whole series.

Helen Dexter is all set to welcome a new group of guests to her newly rated Four Star Seaview Hotel.  Her guests are a crazy golf team competing in a local tournament and it's clear that they take the game very seriously indeed.  Helen also finds herself with an unexpected guest: the team captain of a rival team and his arrival causes tension above and below stairs.  The days are numbered for one of the guests and they're about to find themselves checking out...

This is a brilliant 'whodunnit' - I suspected even the most unlikeliest candidate at one point or another.  I love how the story is self-contained so that readers new to the series can pick up  this book and enjoy it, but there's some wonderful character development to delight established series fans.

Although I haven't been to Scarborough for many years, Glenda paints such a vivid picture with her wonderful writing and her love for the seaside town shines through every word in the book.  It was also lovely to see local brewery Wold Top getting a mention in the book as I've tried a few of their beers and loved them.

Hugely entertaining and as drama-filled as your favourite soap opera, Foul Play at the Seaview Hotel is a fantastic cosy mystery.  Very clever misdirection and perfect plotting keep the reader on their toes from start to finish and I loved every second of it, so much so that I will definitely be reading it again.  It’s absolutely brilliant and I really can't recommend it highly enough.

I received a digital ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: Someone Who Isn't Me - Danuta Kot

 

When the body of a twenty-four-year-old man is found on Sunk Island, a quiet stretch of land in Yorkshire, two facts immediately stand out. First: the killer wanted the body to be found. Second, the dead man was a police officer, and he had been working undercover.

Meanwhile, aimless 20-something Becca has multiple jobs to keep her head above water. At night, in the local pub, she serves punters and tries to work out what she wants to do with her life. One thing that keeps her going is Andy, a regular she always has a laugh with – and maybe something more.

And then Andy vanishes. Becca is convinced that the shady manager of her pub has something to do with his disappearance. But in order to discover the truth, she'll have to put herself in danger. All for someone she doesn't truly know...

The gripping new novel from Dagger-Award-winning author Danuta Kot, perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves, Tana French and Denise Mina - a story about the people we are... and the people we aren't.

What did I think?

I loved Danuta Kot's Life Ruins set in the Northern dilapidated seaside town of Bridlington so I was very eager to visit Bridlington again in Someone Who Isn't Me.  As it has some of the same characters in it, Someone Who Isn't Me can be described as a sequel but it's so good in its own right that it can definitely be read and enjoyed as a standalone.

Danuta Kot's writing is stunning; she not only brings characters to life but the landscape itself almost seems to take on a life of its own.  It's not just Bridlington but Sunk Island, a little village almost 40 miles down the coast, that sets the scene for this wonderful novel filled with tension and danger.  Sunk Island sounds so dark and desolate that it gave me chills just reading about it.  It is actually a real place in Yorkshire so no offence to the residents, but it really does give me the creeps.  

Becca and her foster mum Kay are the two characters that follow through from Life Ruins.  It was great to catch up with them again and see that Becca is as independent as ever.  Working two jobs to make ends meet, the highlight of Becca's week is meeting up with her boyfriend Andy again.  As she watches the clock and Andy still doesn't appear, it soon becomes clear that Andy isn't who she thinks he is and Becca herself might be in danger.

I absolutely raced through this outstanding novel; the plot is fast-paced, gripping and incredibly believable and the writing is sublime with a raw and gritty edge.  I almost couldn't keep hold of the book in my sweaty palms during a particular scene on Sunk Island when I was on the edge of my seat - such brilliant writing.  I also picked up a really useful self-defense tip using just a newspaper - I'll never forget that one.

Tense and suspenseful, Someone Who Isn't Me is a fast-paced, dark and gritty novel filled to the brim with danger.  I loved Life Ruins but I think Danuta Kot has really raised the bar with Someone Who Isn't Me.  A stunning novel and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour; this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from:

UK.Bookshop.org

Amazon

About the author:

Danuta Kot grew up with stories. Her Irish mother and her Polish father kept their own cultures alive with traditional tales they shared with their children. For many years, she worked with young people in Yorkshire who were growing up in the aftermath of sudden industrial decline. She uses this background in her books to explore some of the issues that confront modern, urban society: poverty, alienation and social breakdown, using the contexts of the modern crime novel. She now works as a senior education consultant, work that involves travel to establish education and training in other parts of the world. She is a regular academic speaker at conferences and literary festivals, and has appeared on radio and television.

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Looking for Leo - J.A. Baker

 

One missing boy. Four possible suspects.

When young Leo disappears after leaving school, it sets a chain of events in motion that will change the lives of the residents of a quiet Yorkshire village forever.

Ashton returns home many years after committing a heinous crime as a child, and starts to teach an art class. Lynda, a stern secondary school teacher who unwillingly gave evidence against him, recognises her tutor as the troubled boy from all those years ago, bringing him the unwelcome attention he fears.

When Sarah, a bored housewife, hears about Ashton’s return, she convinces herself he is responsible for Leo’s disappearance and reports him to the police. 

Terrified, the boy remains locked in a soundproof room, growing ever more scared of his unpredictable captor.

But just who took Leo and why?

And will he be found before it’s too late?

What did I think?

Looking for Leo is J.A. Baker's tenth published novel since she burst onto the scene with her amazing debut novel, Undercurrent in 2017.  I just have to applaud such prolific writing and for all her novels to be completely different and still manage to shock and surprise the reader is nothing short of exceptional.  

With a storyline about the abduction of an 8 year old boy, Looking for Leo is filled to the brim with tension and suspense.  The suspects are set out before the reader like a game of Cluedo and I must have pointed my finger at all of them at one point or another but J.A. Baker still managed to surprise me.

The cover states that there are four possible suspects but the way that the story unfolds and the tension in the writing makes suspicion fall on everyone, so I had so many more characters in my sights.  I love the way that J.A. Baker writes; drawing the reader in various directions, making you focus on different characters and hiding so many red herrings.  It's so very gripping and intriguing and although I wouldn't say that this was a fast-paced book, it certainly had me hooked from the start.

With disturbing, jaw-dropping scenes that left me breathless, Looking for Leo is an absolutely outstanding novel from one of the best suspense authors around today.  Highly recommended reading.

I received an ARC from the author to read and review; this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

BLOG TOUR: Mortmain Hall - Martin Edwards

WINNER OF THE CWA DIAMOND DAGGER 2020.

ENGLAND, 1930. Grieving widows are a familiar sight on London's Necropolis Railway. So when an elegant young woman in a black veil boards the funeral train, nobody guesses her true purpose.

But Rachel Savernake is not one of the mourners. She hopes to save a life – the life of a man who is supposed to be cold in the grave. But then a suspicious death on the railway track spurs her on to investigate a sequence of baffling mysteries: a death in a blazing car; a killing in a seaside bungalow; a tragic drowning in a frozen lake. Rachel believes that the cases are connected – but what possible link can there be?

Rich, ruthless and obsessed with her own dark notions of justice, she will not rest until she has discovered the truth. To find the answers to her questions she joins a house party on the eerie and remote North Yorkshire coast at Mortmain Hall, an estate. Her inquiries are helped – and sometimes hindered – by the impetuous young journalist Jacob Flint and an eccentric female criminologist with a dangerous fascination with perfect crimes...

Mortmain Hall is at once a gripping thriller and a classic whodunit puzzle: a Golden Age Gothic mystery, the finest novel yet from a modern master of crime writing.

What did I think?

I love a good old-fashioned murder mystery so I was very eager to read Mortmain Hall.  I thought the cover was very alluring and gives the impression of a Golden Age mystery, although the whirls and swirls also resembled the tangle my brain got into whilst reading.

I have to be completely honest and say that I really struggled with this book at first; there are just so many characters that I was completely overwhelmed.  I was so confused that I stopped reading at 60% and started it all over again, but made sure to write down many of the character names the second time around (I didn't write them all down but still had a huge list of over 40 characters).  Of course trying to concentrate on reading during a global pandemic doesn't help, especially when the story is so intricate.  I can say that it was definitely worth persevering with as the last third of the story is brilliant when all of the tangled threads unravel for the big reveal.

Mortmain Hall is the second book in the Rachel Savernake series, of which Gallows Court is the first.  As I had jumped in at book 2, I wondered if reading the books in order might help alleviate some of the confusion over the myriad characters.   So unless your brain can cope with such a huge cast of characters, I would definitely recommend reading Gallows Court first.

I loved the Cluefinder list at the end, listing 30 clues to the plot that were hidden within the narrative of the book.  I'm a really poor detective as I didn't pick up on any of them but I have to applaud Martin Edwards' inventiveness in hiding these clues in the book.  It was very eye-opening to read them at the end to see what I'd missed and it was a fine way to pay homage to detective novels of the Golden Age.

Intricate, clever and inventive, Mortmain Hall really does have the feel of a Golden Age detective novel.  Martin Edwards has really embraced the writing style of the era which results in a very authentic read.  

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon

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BLOG TOUR: Life Ruins - Danuta Kot

In a small northern town, girls are disappearing.

You won’t see it in the papers and the police aren’t taking any notice, but the clues are there if you know where to look.

Becca sees that something is wrong, but she’s been labelled ‘difficult’ thanks to her troubled past. So when a girl is so savagely beaten she can’t be identified, and Becca claims she knows who she is, no one will believe her.

With the police refusing to listen, Becca digs for evidence that will prove what she is saying. But her search for justice will put herself and those closest to her in danger – and once she finds the truth, will anyone even listen?

What did I think?

I love the cover of this book; it's so bleak and menacing and perfectly portrays the theme of Life Ruins.  I was completely mesmerised by Danuta Kot's poetic writing from the very first page where she brought the dramatic and dangerous East Yorkshire coastline to life and from that point on, I simply couldn't put this book down.

There are three very intriguing main characters in Life Ruins, that all have interesting back stories.  Kay is a recently widowed foster carer adjusting to life on her own, Becca is her tempestuous foster daughter taking her first few steps into independence and Jared is a troubled young man recovering from an accident.  How their stories intertwine is simply sublime and I read in open eyed awe as the story unfolded, with my heart pounding and my palms sweating as I approached the breathtaking conclusion at breakneck speed.

The story is set in Bridlington, a seaside town on the East Yorkshire coast.  Gone are the days when families would flock to the seaside towns of the UK for their summer holidays and a lot of towns have become run-down because of this.  With no money coming in from tourists, shops close down and the vulnerable people move in.  There is a line in Life Ruins about this that took my breath away and made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck:  "If you populate an area with prey, the predators will not be far behind."

I found Danuta Kot's writing to be very visual in quite a unique way; not only did she perfectly set out the scene's appearance but she also manages to portray the feelings of the characters.  Not only the characters' emotions, but I sometimes felt as if the landscape itself had hidden emotions that only Danuta Kot could reveal through her vivid imagery.

I think it is a little misleading to say that Life Ruins is a debut novel as Danuta Kot has written books under the names of Danuta Reah and Carla Banks.  I'm pleased it mentioned this in the 'About the author' note below as I'll definitely be adding some of her previous books to my reading queue based on the outstanding quality of Life Ruins.

Tense and gripping, Life Ruins is a powerful, thought-provoking read that perfectly encapsulates the despair and desolation of a run-down town as the predators move in for their prey.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

Danuta Kot grew up with stories. Her Irish mother and her Polish father kept their own cultures alive with traditional tales they shared with their children. For many years, she worked with young people in Yorkshire who were growing up in the aftermath of sudden industrial decline. She uses this background in her books to explore some of the issues that confront modern, urban society: poverty, alienation and social breakdown, using the contexts of the modern crime novel. She has previously written under the names, Danuta Reah and Carla Banks. Danuta was also a former chair of the Crime Writers’ Association. She now works as a senior education consultant, work that involves travel to establish education and training in other parts of the world. She is a regular academic speaker at conferences and literary festivals, and has appeared on radio and television. 

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BLOG TOUR: Treble Clef (The Harrogate Crime Series Book 8) - Malcolm Hollingdrake

I am delighted to take part in the blog tour for Treble Clef, book 8 in the Harrogate Crime Series, by Malcolm Hollingdrake.  Many thanks to Caroline from Bits About Books for inviting me to take part in the tour but without further ado, please scroll down to read my thoughts on the book.

Harrogate attracts hundreds of players to the annual Games Convention and for one player it is the perfect opportunity to kill by the mechanics of his own sinister game.

Each victim will die in the same way. Each will be classed as the loser and their time will have run out. The escape room and the game table will draw more, each believing they are invincible.

However, in every game there is always a traitor waiting in the wings.

What did I think?

Although this is book 8 in such a well established series, I can definitely say that Treble Clef can be read as a standalone, as I've only read the first book so far.  Of course, to really get the most out of any book in a series you really should read them in order purely for the character development, but the characters are so perfectly described that even new readers can get a good feel for them if they are jumping into the series at this point.

Treble Clef is set in the magnificent North Yorkshire town of Harrogate.  I have visited Harrogate before but even if I hadn't, Malcolm Hollingdrake paints a beautiful picture with his visual and poetic writing.  This isn't a tourist guide to Harrogate though, and there's a murderer in town as the tourists descend for the annual Games Convention.  As the gamers compete with each other, one game is proving deadlier than the others; it seems that nobody who goes into the secret single player escape room comes out alive.  This is a case for DCI Cyril Bennett and DS David Owen.

Bennett and Owen are the main characters throughout this series and I love seeing how characters such as these evolve.  Owen was very young and naïve when we first met him in Only the Dead but it seems like he has learnt a lot from Bennett over the years.  They are quite an unlikely pairing but with their combined knowledge they certainly get results.  As a keen reader, I love the fact that Bennett doesn't own a TV and it still makes me laugh when he refers to it as an 'Idiot's lantern' - a name that seems to fit more and more these days. 

Treble Clef is about a 3 hour read, depending on your reading speed, so it's perfect to read on a weekend with a pint or two of mine and Cyril's favourite ale: Black Sheep.  Malcolm Hollingdrake writes with such eloquence that it feels as if he has carefully and purposefully chosen every single word.  If you haven't discovered this series yet, you are missing out on some excellent crime fiction.  So take my advice: turn off your idiot's lantern and read these fantastic books.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

You could say that the writing was clearly on the wall for someone born in a library that they might aspire to be an author, but to get to that point Malcolm Hollingdrake has travelled a circuitous route.

Malcolm worked in education for many years, even teaching for a period in Cairo before he started writing, a challenge he had longed to tackle for more years than he cares to remember.

He has written a number of successful short stories, has nine books now available and is presently writing the eighth crime novel set in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Born in Bradford and spending three years at Ripon College, Malcolm has never lost his love for his home county, a passion that is reflected in the settings for all the DCI Bennett novels.

Currently, Malcolm is writing a new series which is set in Merseyside.

Malcolm has enjoyed many hobbies including collecting works by Northern artists; the art auctions offer a degree of excitement when both buying and certainly when selling. It is a hobby he has bestowed upon DCI Cyril Bennett, the main character in his successful Bennett series.

You can follow Malcolm Hollingdrake on Social Media:

Author Website malcolmhollingdrakeauthor.co.uk
Twitter twitter.com/MHollingdrake
Facebook Author Page bit.ly/FBtoMHdrake
Goodreads Author Page bit.ly/GRtoMHdrake
Amazon Author Page bit.ly/AmtoMHdrake

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Only the Dead (DCI Bennett book 1) - Malcolm Hollingdrake

Meet DCI Cyril Bennett, a man with a passion for manners and efficiency, as well as an eye for the ladies. His partner, DS David Owen, is naïve and untidy but keen. Together they make a formidable pair.

When the discovery of two infants’ bodies is made at a Teacher Training College, Bennett and Owen are given the case. Soon a number of suspects are identified.

At the same time, a killer is on the loose staging attacks using sulphur mustard.

Is there a link between the infants’ bodies and the sulphur mustard attacks? 

Do the answers lie in the past or the present?

Bennett and Owen must work together to bring to justice a killer with revenge on his mind.

What did I think?

What an introduction to a new crime series!  I loved every single word that Malcolm Hollingdrake has carefully chosen in this first instalment of the DCI Bennett series.  The writing is so descriptive that a picture is painted before your eyes as if you're watching it on screen, which DCI Bennett can't do as he doesn't have a television, or an 'Idiot's lantern' as he calls them.  

It didn't take long for me to feel an affinity with DCI Cyril Bennett.  He's a typical Northerner, who loves a pint of Black Sheep (my favourite beer), is thought of so highly by his colleagues that he has a humorous nickname and is getting on with his job despite suffering from an outbreak of Bell's Palsy, causing temporary paralysis to his face.  Partnered with young and naïve DS David Owen, the pair investigate when two infant bodies are found.  At the same time, a killer is targeting care workers by infecting them with sulphur mustard, harvested from bullets left behind during the First World War.  Bennett has his hands full with both cases but I had no doubt that his good old-fashioned police work would reap rewards.

I read Only the Dead just before the awful events in Salisbury where nerve gas was used on a former Russian spy and his daughter.  The real life events had little care for who would get infected by the toxin, whereas the perpetrator in the book was a killer with a conscience as he warned the targets to contain themselves to avoid innocent people being infected.  Without delving too deeply, it also brought to light some of the conditions that our elderly population have to suffer in care homes.  I know we only hear of bad stories, but I do hope that there are more good care homes out there than bad ones.

Although it's only a 254 page book, Only the Dead epitomises the saying 'quality over quantity' and, with not a word out of place, shows the rest of the field how a book should be written.  I'm really looking forward to continuing the series with Hell's Gate.

My rating:

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BLOG BLITZ: Her Dark Retreat - J.A. Baker

The coastguard’s residence Chamber Cottage, which sits high up on the North Yorkshire cliffs, overlooking The North Sea, holds many dark secrets.

Alec and Peggy are struggling to overcome their marital problems. Both damaged by issues from their childhoods, they are trying to get on with their lives. But this is hard for them to do when they both believe they are being watched. As a result, Peggy, who has terrible scars on her face, becomes more agoraphobic.

To make matters worse, Peggy discovers her estranged mother is stalking both she and Alec, claiming she has a dark secret that is putting Peggy in danger.

What caused the scars on Peggy’s face? Is Alec really the monster Peggy’s mother believes him to be? And what secrets does Chamber Cottage hold?

What did I think?

This is one of those books that I find very difficult to review; it's a case of the less said the better for fear of revealing any spoilers but, believe me, this is a book that you really must read.  If you haven't read Undercurrent, J.A. Baker's debut, you don't want to miss that one either.  Although both Undercurrent and Her Dark Retreat are standalone novels, I don't want you to miss out on discovering some outstanding fiction.

The blurb tells us that Chamber Cottage holds many dark secrets, and doesn't it just!  Peggy and Alec live in the remote coastguard's cottage on the edge of a cliff where they struggle with their inner demons as well as their marital issues.  Peggy's face is badly scarred, leaving her with very low confidence and no desire to leave the house.  Her husband, Alec, tries and fails to encourage Peggy to socialise and he struggles to remain faithful to their marriage.  Is their marriage the only thing that is dying in their house?

Have a good look at the cover to get an idea of the setting: this remote house on the edge of a cliff, but even without the cover photo the description of the cottage and its surroundings are sublime.  It sounds so craggy and desolate that I could almost taste the salt on my lips and feel the wind whipping my hair.  I certainly wouldn't want to stand too close to the edge with the angry North Sea crashing against the cliff face.  It may be an isolated cottage but Maude, a distant neighbour, can see the comings and goings at the cottage and one day sees more than she bargained for.  The only problem is, Maude is suffering from dementia and nobody believes a word she says.

Each chapter is told from many different viewpoints: Peggy and Alec, Peggy's estranged mother Audrey, neighbour Maude, Maude's daughter Brenda, and Rachel who is searching for her missing sister, Sheryl.  At the end of a few chapters there's the intriguing voice of somebody clinging on to the last breaths of life - is it Sheryl? Where is she and who put her there?  For a reasonably short book (at 305 pages) there is a lot going on but with the dedicated chapters, it never gets confusing.  Whilst Peggy and Alec are the main characters (and both creeped me out), it was Maude's chapters that evoked the most emotion in me.  J.A. Baker's description of the mist descending in Maude's mind had me choking back tears.

Her Dark Retreat is another excellent edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller from J.A. Baker.  I thought I had worked it all out at one point, and I may have been right in some aspects, but there were still plenty of those wide-eyed gaspy moments to keep my pulse racing right up to the very last page.  

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

J.A.BAKER was born and brought up in the North East of England and has had a love of language for as long as she can remember.

After gaining an MA in Education & Applied Linguistics with the Open University, she found herself with spare time and embarked on doing something she always wanted to do – write a novel.

She has a love of local history and genealogy and enjoys reading many genres of books but is an addict of psychological thrillers.

In December 2016 she was signed by Bloodhound Books who published Undercurrent. J.A. 

Her second novel, Her Dark Retreat was published in October 2017. J. A. Baker's third book, The Other Mother is due out on 5th December 2017.

She has four grown-up children and a grandchild and lives in a village near Darlington with her husband and madcap dog.

You find out more about J.A.Baker by visiting her website at http://www.jabakerauthor.co.uk/

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