Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Mandy Robotham GENRE: Historical Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: February 29, 2024 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical crime fiction set in Germany in the years after WWII. Outstanding in the historical content, good in the crime parts. Has a returning character from another book, but can be read as a standalone. Much recommended to historical fiction lovers, even those tired of WWII fiction. Plot Preview: 1946. Hamburg. After seven years, freelance reporter Georgie Young is back in Hamburg. Now thirty-four, she has been sent to find stories that show the post-war horrors of the city and the positive impact of the British occupiers in setting things right for their erstwhile enemies. But her personal agenda is to report the truth about Hamburg and its denizens, both actual and immigrant, without any bias. When she learns of a serious crime – a young woman murdered and found nude with a word carved into her skin, Georgie teams up with Inspektor Harri Schroder to solve the ...

AUTHOR: S.A. Dunphy SERIES: DI Tessa Burns, #3 GENRE: Irish Police Procedural PUBLICATION DATE: August 19, 2024 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: The third book in the Tessa Burns series. Works as a standalone but preferably, read in series order. Decent premise, over the top developments, too smooth an ending. Not my favourite of the series, though it has its great moments. Plot Preview: Cork, Ireland. A young girl named Ellie has just walked into the local police station with her parents, claiming that she has psychic abilities and has foreseen a murder. As expected, she is politely turned away. But when her prediction comes true two days later, the gardai call the family back for questioning. Tessa and her team are despatched by Commissioner Wilson to help with Ellie’s investigation. But before they have a proper handle on things, an aggressive local officer and some bad guys come into the picture and Tessa’s team is left scrambling. The story comes to us in the third person perspec...

AUTHOR: Cath Staincliffe SERIES: Detectives Donovan & Young, #1 GENRE: Police Procedural. PUBLICATION DATE: May 9, 2024 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A police procedural focussed on discovering the truth about a crime that occurred two decades ago, as well as on the personal lives of the key characters. Most of the book was good enough but not gripping enough for me. But the ending was surprising and not over the top, which nudged up my rating. A good, one-time read. First of a planned series. Plot Preview: 2019. Yorkshire Dales. When a caver stumbles upon the remains of a body inside a previously unknown pothole beneath the fells, Detective Leo Donovan wonders if they have finally discovered the remains of Vicky Mott, a twenty-year-old drama student who went missing in 1997 after scrawling a note for her friends that she was going to see the sunrise. There had been a serial killer active in the area, and soon after Vicky’s disappearance, the “fellside strangler” had been arre...

AUTHOR: Nick Louth SERIES: Detective Jan Talantire, #1 GENRE: Police Procedural. PUBLICATION DATE: May 2, 2024 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: The first book of a new police procedural series. Not so impressed. While the mystery is dark and the plot contains enough twists, the lead detective is incompetent, much of the plot is extremely coincidental, and the ending has one of the most illogical infodumps I have ever read. I don’t think I’ll continue with this series. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: Ilfracombe, England. DI Jan Talantire has been called to a little cottage where a senior citizen has been murdered, impaled with a crucifix. When she discovers that the name of the victim is Ruth Lyle, she is stunned. Almost exactly fifty years earlier, sixteen-year-old Ruth Lyle had been murdered, also impaled with a crucifix, at exactly the same location. The old evidence is now inaccessible due to the passage of time and the shoddy maintenance of paper documents, and the new e...

AUTHOR: S.A. Dunphy SERIES: DI Tessa Burns, #2 GENRE: Irish Police Procedural RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: Book Two of the Tessa Burns series. Didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one, partially due to my reading preferences and lack of familiarity with the topic. Regardless, it is still an interesting continuation to the series. I am curious to see what’s next for Tessa, though not as excited as I was after the first book. Plot Preview: Tessa and her team have been called to an unusual location: a cargo ship that left from Norway a few weeks ago has run aground off the Irish coast. What makes it horrifying is that the captain is found with his throat slit, and the rest of the crew is missing. Tessa has been summoned because of another reason: three little children have been found in the ship’s galley kitchen, terrified but unharmed. Even when taken into care, they refuse to speak a word. As the team investigates the identity of the children, several facts come to light, which ma...

AUTHOR: S.A. Dunphy SERIES: DI Tessa Burns, #1 GENRE: Irish Police Procedural RATING:  4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A gripping police procedural set in Ireland. Great characters, interesting plot line, excellent use of the setting. Definitely recommend this series starter.  Plot Preview: Detective Tessa Burns, as a former child witness, has always wanted to work in crime cases involving children. And now, she finally has a dream team ready, comprising Danny Murphy – a garda with a large body, a bigger temper, and a soft heart; Maggie Doolan – who doesn’t allow her cerebral palsy or her wheelchair to stand in the way of her job as a police liaison officer, and Pavlov – Maggie’s loyal dog.  When seven-year-old Aisling Connolly is found in an isolated cabin, she takes her time to trust the trio who saved her, and will try to save her missing parents. As little Aisling reveals what she knows of that awful night, Tessa and her team know that they have a tough task ahead, especia...

AUTHOR: Ian Rankin GENRE: Short Story, Police Procedural RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A police procedural novelette about a murder investigation at an elite residential tower. Too many characters and not enough depth for a short fiction work. Story Synopsis: Detective Sergeant Gish has been called to investigate the murder of the concierge at The Rise, an elite residential tower and home to some intriguing multi-millionaires in London. Gish definitely has her work cut out, as the wealthy are helpful neither as witnesses nor as informants when it comes to investigating a murder. I’m not a thriller fanatic and am very picky about the thrillers I do choose. So I have never read the works of some reputed thriller writers, Ian Rankin being one of them. I use such short stories to see if their style works for me. In this case, I was even more excited as this was a police procedural, which is among my favourite thriller subgenres. However, the execution left me disappointed. Rankin migh...

AUTHOR: Dannie Boyd NARRATOR: Sierra Kline GENRE: Cozy Mystery, Magical Realism. RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: An interesting cocktail of contemporary police procedural plus mild mystery plus magical realism plus historical fiction. Though not much of a mystery, this indie work kept me hooked from start to end. Story Synopsis: In 1853, Catherine Miller became the third woman to become a medical doctor. On the same day as she received her diploma, she was brutally murdered. Now, a hundred and seventy years later, Catherine is still alive but not as a human. She is a sentient oak tree, observing quietly the events and the resident of the secluded house near the place “she” is rooted in. The owner of the house, Dr. Carver, isn’t Catherine’s favourite person, and her worst fears are confirmed when he ends up murdering one of his Ph.D. students in front of her. Can she do anything though? She is just a tree. Lani Whitaker, a detective just a few weeks short of her mandatory retirement, ...

AUTHOR: Damyanti Biswas SERIES: Blue Mumbai, #1 GENRE: Crime Thriller RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary crime noir set in my beloved city of Mumbai!!! ( Trying my best not to be biased in this review! 😃) Complicated characters, gritty plot, fast-paced writing. Enjoyed most of it. But this *might* work better for those familiar with Mumbai. Story Synopsis: Mumbai, 2002. Tara Mondal, a young bar dancer, had been offered an odd assignment for a hefty payment. She just needed to wear a blue sequinned saree, enter a crowded railway station, and escape from the premises within three minutes.  That was the last time anyone saw Tara. Mumbai, mid-2010s. Inspector Arnav Rajput, who was Tara's lover back when he was a constable, has just been informed of a woman’s body being discovered in a construction site. As his officers begin investigating, they realise that this is just one of several other similar cases. All that they have to connect the decapitated bodies are some scatte...

AUTHOR: Mariah Fredericks NARRATOR: Penelope Rawlins GENRE: Historical Fiction, True Crime. RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: Liked it enough. It’s not bad but it didn’t dazzle me as much as I had expected. Didn’t enjoy the first person pov. Note: This review contains spoilers about the actual case. Story Synopsis: You might have heard of the famous kidnapping case of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s eldest son, twenty-month-old Charles Jr., in the early 1930s. This is a partially fictionalised narration of the events leading up to and beyond the kidnapping & murder, recollected from the point of view of Betty Gow, the child’s Scottish nanny. Not being from the US, I had first heard of the Lindbergh case only when I had read Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, which takes inspiration from this kidnapping. As such, I couldn’t resist the chance of trying out this novel, though I am not a great fan of fictionalisations of true stories. You don’t need to be aware of the actual...

Author: Angela Marsons Series: DI Kim Stone, Number 16 Genre: Crime Fiction, Police Procedural. Rating: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: Worked just as a good thriller should. Well-written, fast-paced, great on thrills, gripping. Story: DI Kim Stone has been called to investigate a house fire. However, the fire isn’t as innocent as it seems. Four members of the Daynes family have been found dead, and each of them has been killed by gunshot, with the mother holding the gun. While Kim and her team are working on this case, they hear that a dangerous psychopath whom Kim had arrested a few years ago has escaped from prison and is out for her blood. With a protection officer by her side, Kim has no choice but to stay away from the limelight and yet find out what happened with the Daynes family. Where the book worked for me: ✔ Quick-paced. Short chapters. Kept me gripped from start to end. ✔ No needless subplots. Everything is written keeping in mind the two main investigations - the Daynes murder...