The Puppet Show – M W Craven @MWCravenUK @LittleBrownUK #ThePuppetShow

The smell is terrible, but as you slowly approach the charred corpse in the centre of the circle, your sense of smell is overwhelmed by the sight in front of you. The mangled, twisted figure appears to defy all laws of nature. It is hard to imagine that it was ever alive in the first place. As the forensic team poke and prod about in the ashes, you hear a call as one of the white suited officials calls you over. They point to the corpse and you struggle to see what they are getting excited about.

Then you see it. Like one of those magic eye pictures that only come together when you look at them in a certain way, the image in front of you slowly coalesces into something familiar.

You look across to your colleague who looks as confused as you feel.

As the crime scene official carefully removes the loose ashes with a fine brush, underneath are revealed markings, carefully cut deep into the flesh of the corpse.

There’s no doubt about it it. You reach for your notebook and scribble down the words that are now clearly apparent in front of you.

Looking at your notes your worst fears are confirmed.

The killer has written a…. blurb:

A serial killer is burning people alive in the Lake District’s prehistoric stone circles. He leaves no clues and the police are helpless. When his name is found carved into the charred remains of the third victim, disgraced detective Washington Poe is brought back from suspension and into an investigation he wants no part of . . .

Reluctantly partnered with the brilliant, but socially awkward, civilian analyst, Tilly Bradshaw, the mismatched pair uncover a trail that only he is meant to see. The elusive killer has a plan and for some reason Poe is part of it.

As the body count rises, Poe discovers he has far more invested in the case than he could have possibly imagined. And in a shocking finale that will shatter everything he’s ever believed about himself, Poe will learn that there are things far worse than being burned alive …

Deep Dirty Truth – Steph Broadribb @crimethrillgirl @orendabooks @annecater #TeamLori

 

When I agreed to review Deep Dirty Truth for this blog tour I couldn’t wait to get started. My gibber glands were excitedly secreting gibber juice at a rate I have never experienced before. I was seriously in danger of over gibbering and passing out with all the anticipation.

But there was a problem.

I discovered that I just didn’t have the time to read and review this book. What was I thinking in accepting this tour? What was I going to? I couldn’t let Karen Sullivan, The Lovely Steph® and Anne Cater down.

My gibber glands went into reverse and I suffered what can only be described as ‘reverse gibberage’ and I despaired.

For days I wailed, and, after a cleansing saline flushing of my gibber-pipes, I wondered what I could do to fulfil my responsibility. Eventually I came to the inevitable conclusion: I would have to ask someone else to review this book and post their review as a guest post.

I started to ask around the bloggersphere for someone who could do this book justice. Someone who could get right into the deep dirty truth of what this book was all about. To my utter and crushing disappointment no one answered me. Not one person. Eventually I got to the very end of my contacts, and then I got to the very end of my emergency contacts. No one. After going through all of my emergency emergency contacts, and then exhausting everyone down my street, even flagging down a coach-load of pensioners on an outing to a matinee showing of the Chippendales, I came to the inevitable conclusion…

… I would have to ask him.

I went to the little box mounted on my bedroom wall; the one protected by super toughened, military grade glass, took out the special diamond tipped ultrasonic hammer, sent a silent prayer to the Lord, Freddie, and switched it on. The little thrum vibrating down the handle from the hammer head tickled my hand as I raised it to the glass and struck it.

The glass shattered, revealing behind it a safe, the combination to which was itself locked away in a safe deposit box in Hong Kong. I had arranged to have it couriered to me earlier, so armed with the code I opened the safe. Inside was a little toughened titanium box, locked with a key that was itself locked away in a safe guarded by a highly venomous Black Mamba snake that only one person in the world could safely wrangle. That person, RIP, sent me the key by secure courier and with it I opened the box.

Inside was a number. A phone number.

I dialled it with sweating hands and a terrible sense of dread and trepidation.

It was engaged.

Of course it was. That is because I was dialling the only other person I knew who loves, er, I mean, admires, Steph Broadribb as much as me:

The Beardy Book Blogger.

May your lord have mercy on your reading souls.

 

But first, a word from the blurb:

 

“A price on her head, and just 48 hours to expose the truth, and save her family…

Single-mother bounty hunter Lori Anderson has finally got her family back together, but her new-found happiness is shattered when she’s snatched by the Miami Mob, who they want her dead. But rather than a bullet, they offer her a job: find the Mob’s ‘numbers man’ – Carlton North – who’s in protective custody after being forced to turn federal witness against them. If Lori succeeds, they’ll wipe the slate clean and the price on her head – and those of her family – will be removed. If she fails, they die.

With only 48 hours before North is due to appear in court, Lori sets across Florida, racing against the clock to find him, and save her family…”

 

What can be more noir than February? – #Fahrenbruary by Aidan Thorn

This is a brilliant post by Fahrenheit author Aidan Thorn. Not only does he extoll the virtues of the novella, but he’s fully behind my idea for #Fahrenbruary. Wonderfull stuff. Look out for more on this real soon.

Punk Noir Press

If you’re a reader of these pages I imagine you like your entertainment dripping in noir and with the spirit of punk running right through its core. So, I probably don’t need to introduce you to Fahrenheit Press and its hard-boiled and experimental imprint, Fahrenheit 13. But you may not be aware of the levels of dedication Fahrenheit readers have for what this wonderful small press is doing. Next month is February, and I know I didn’t need to tell you that because if you’re like me you’ll dread its arrival every year. It’s just far enough away from Christmas that it feels like a distant memory and the green shoots of spring and summer feel like they’ll never arrive. But this year the fans of Fahrenheit Press have decided to brighten things up with a celebration of dark, disturbing, funny, experimental, engaging, sad, heartfelt and just plain brilliant…

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Changeling (Six Stories) – Matt Wesolowski @concretekraken @orendabooks @annecater #SixStories

 

The trees of the forest sigh as they move in the breeze. They appear to whisper to you as the branches rustle against each other creating a sinister susurration that sends a shiver down your spine.  A twig snaps somewhere deep within the forest as you slowly become aware of a presence surrounding you. Terror begins to mount inside you as you become more and more disoriented as the darkness falls. Why, why did you have to stop the car to have a wee in the woods at this hour? You knew, just knew, that having that second glass of Pepsi Max was a bad idea. You spin around as you swear that you hear a voice behind you. But there is no one there. Where is the car? You have no idea from which direction you came in from now; everywhere looks exactly the same; the shapes and shadows blurring into one. Suddenly you hear a tapping.

tap. tap. tap. taptap. tap.

What the hell is that? Where is it coming from? It sounds like it is coming from behind you. No, now it’s ahead of you… no, to your left… is it getting closer?

tap. tap. tap. taptap. tap.

Now it is clear and coming from all around you. You begin to panic, all thoughts of your wee-wee are gone (as is the wee as it travels down your leg), as you race through the trees, the branches swiping at your face, stinging your cheeks, getting caught on your clothes. Still the tapping continues, closer than ever, keeping up with your retreat.

Finally you burst out of the trees and onto the road. Your car sits a few metres up the road. Your relief is short lived though for as you approach your car you notice that it has been vandalised. The windscreen is shattered, the wipers are broken and the seats inside are all torn and ripped apart. Standing back you notice that the car is covered in scratches. Still reeling with fear, and with sodden trousers, you stand and stare aghast at the damage. Then you notice something odd. There is something familiar about those scratches.

You stand further back and stare at the markings on your car.

They appear to form words.

They appear to form… a blurb:

 

On Christmas Eve in 1988, seven-year-old Alfie Marsden vanished in the dark Wentshire Forest Pass, when his father, Sorrel, stopped the car to investigate a mysterious knocking sound. No trace of the child, nor his remains, have ever been found. Alfie Marsden was declared officially dead in 1995.

Elusive online journalist, Scott King, whose ‘Six Stories’ podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the disappearance, interviewing six witnesses, including Sorrel and his ex-partner, to try to find out what really happened that fateful night. Journeying through the trees of the Wentshire Forest – a place synonymous with strange sightings, and tales of hidden folk who dwell there, he talks to a company that tried and failed to build a development in the forest, and a psychic who claims to know what happened to the little boy…

 

The Sinister Gathering – @diane_ezzard @rararescources #blogtour

 

Sophie attends a well-being retreat hoping to find herself, instead she finds a dead body.

Coming to the Scottish Highlands, she hopes to escape life and get in touch with her inner self. She wants to free herself from the anxieties that have gripped her for years.

Peace and harmony are advertised but what she discovers is anything but.

She is around women with other ideas. As she gets to know the strange bunch staying at Glenloch Hall, fights and arguments become the norm.

She should never have entered that fateful property.

She was looking for peace but found death.