Recent reviews
7 September 2009
A Trace of Smoke
Author: Rebecca Cantrell
Call No: CRI CAN
Even though hardened crime reporter Hannah Vogel knows all too well how tough it is to survive in 1931 Berlin, she is devastated when she sees a photograph of her brother’s body posted in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead. Ernst, a cross-dressing lounge singer at a seedy nightclub, had many secrets, a never-ending list of lovers, and plenty of opportunities to get into trouble. Hannah delves into the city’s dark underbelly to flush out his murderer, but the late night arrival of a five-year-old orphan on her doorstep complicates matters. The endearing Anton claims that Hannah is his mother… and that her dead brother Ernst is his father.
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6 September 2009
Buried
Author: Mark Billingham
Call No: CRI BIL
Luke Mullen, sixteen year old son of a former, high-ranking police officer has disappeared, presumed kidnapped. While no-one quite dares to voice the fear that he could also be presumed dead, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is brought in to beef up the squad dedicated to locating the missing boy. Thorne discovers that ex-DCI Tony Mullen has omitted to mention the name of the most obvious suspect ; a man who'd once threatened him and his family, and who, after serving time for his original crime, is now the main suspect in a murder which has been unsolved for four years.
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1 September 2009
The Fourth Bear
Author: Jasper Fforde
Call No: CRI FFO
The Gingerbreadman - psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and cake/biscuit - is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. Despite the success of the Humpty Dumpty investigation, the well publicised failure to prevent Red Riding Hood and her Gran being eaten once again plunges the Nursery Crime Division into controversy. Enforced non-involvement with the Gingerbreadman hunt looks to be frustrating until a chance encounter at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club leads them onto the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldy' Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Toad. The last witnesses to see her alive were the Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood. But all is not what it seems. Are the unexplained explosions around the globe somehow related to missing nuclear scientist Angus McGuffin? Is cucumber-growing really that dangerous? Why are National Security involved? But most important of all: how could the bears' porridge be at such disparate temperatures when they were poured at the same time?
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