A.A. Abbott

GREAT CRIME STORY WRITER

mystery

Book Review – Unlawful Killings by Wendy Joseph

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Compelling true crime stories

Unlawful Killings by Wendy Joseph is a true crime book as compelling as any thriller

True crime books are often racy, but speculative, accounts of the workings of a psychopath’s mind. Wendy Joseph’s book is not like that. As a former judge at the Old Bailey, she takes us behind the scenes at her trials. We learn not just about the roles of court officials, but the judges’ daily tea and their pecking order for chocolate biscuits. The book is laced with humour alongside the pathos of shattered lives.

As well as explaining how each story unfolds, Ms Joseph gives us a hint of what happens next. The cases include a stabbing, dangerous driving, child cruelty and a Mr Big dying at the hands of his battered wife. In the latter, the jury appear to decide that the widow has carried out a public service.

Ripples

Each crime affects not just the victim and defendant, but their families. It is impossible to feel unmoved at the anxious parents awaiting the fate of their child in the dock, or hearing that a much-loved son belonged to a gang. A crime creates ripples throughout the community, and the trial is a but a small part of that.

The future

Obliged to sentence in accordance with strict guidelines, Ms Joseph suggests we are storing up problems for society’s future. By the time prisoners regain their freedom after a long sentence, they are likely to be institutionalised and brutalised. How can we expect that to end well? She makes a plea for more work on rehabilitation and crime prevention.

The past

Ms Joseph also takes us back to the scene of each crime, with well-written and emotional vignettes. It is impossible to finish the book without shedding a few tears.

A fork in the road

The book begins with a school party visiting the court. The children, clearly engaged, act out a courtroom drama with enthusiasm. One of them might even be persuaded to follow in Ms Joseph’s footsteps. Schools outreach is possibly even more important than the ear of politicians. As long as Ms Joseph and her colleagues can convince young people to stay on the right side of the law, there is hope.

Do you love a well-written crime story? My latest psychological thriller, “Lies at Her Door” combines an old mystery with modern family drama.

A murder she can’t remember. A cop convinced she’s a killer. Her battle for freedom just became a fight for her life…

Book Review – The Lodger by Valerie Keogh

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Angels of Mercy dealing with death

Valerie Keogh's latest book psychological thriller The Lodger next to a pot plant

Nurses are useful people for a thriller writer to know. The Angels of Mercy save patients’ lives, but in doing so, they learn a lot about death. Valerie Keogh, a former nurse turned author, says she’s never committed murder. The Irish crime writer does enjoy finding creative ways to kill in her psychological thrillers, however.

Missing, presumed dead

Valerie’s latest book, The Lodger, features two characters who are missing, presumed dead. At least that is Leigh Simon’s fear, when both her creepy boss and hip young lodger disappear without trace.

Leigh is a go-getting young woman who has secured a high-flying job in the City of London. The City is notorious for paying handsome salaries to smart people and giving them boring work to do. This is true in the case of Leigh, a Cambridge maths graduate, whose skills are under-utilised in her role as a trader. The job is dull, its pressures exacerbated by her middle-aged boss’s lechery. Leigh fights back, only to find to her horror that he has vanished, pleading stress. Has she sent him over the edge? Another event unsettles Leigh even more. In an act of kindness, she has rented her spare room to Gina, a girl she hardly knows. Then Gina moves out suddenly, leaving a cryptic note behind. Yet someone is visiting the house, eating Leigh’s food and drinking her wine.  Leigh decides it’s time to track Gina down…

Suspense, twists and murder

Valerie Keogh writes convincingly of a fearful woman, gradually falling apart, doubting herself and others. The pages crackle with suspense. Of course, there is a murder – a suitably colourful one – but there are plenty of twists before we discover who, and why, and what has happened to the lodger.

If you enjoy a mystery amplified by twists and cliffhangers, you’ll love my latest suspense thriller, Lies at Her Door. Shy Lucy has spent her life in her brother’s shadow. When the spotlight of accusation shines down on her, can she clear her name? Or will the hunt for chilling secrets send her to her doom?

Book Review – Phosphate Rocks by Fiona Erskine

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Phosphate Rocks by Fiona Erskine is a Scottish noir murder mystery set in a chemicals factory

Scottish noir

Years ago, before I threw caution to the winds and became a full time writer, I worked for a company who proclaimed themselves world leaders in phosphorus chemistry. They, too, relied on solidified bird droppings – the “Phosphate Rocks” of the book’s title – as their raw material. Fiona Erskine’s thriller says a great deal about this, and other little-known (but absolutely fascinating) facts about the industry.  A slice of Scottish noir, it begins in true murder mystery fashion with the discovery of a dead body when a chemical works is demolished. Brisk young Detective Inspector Rose Irvine soon homes in on the one man who holds the key to the mystery: John Gibson, the former shift manager.

Literature meets chemistry

As Rose questions John however it becomes clear that “Phosphate Rocks” is much more than a simple police procedural story. The corpse, encased in a crust of phosphate, is surrounded by ten objects. When John identifies each item, pouring out his reminiscences in the process, we receive a sequence of chemistry lessons. Furthermore, John’s memories are a rich seam of social history. He tells Rose about canny men and glamorous women and a manufacturing environment decaying as much as the deliquescent corpse.

Layers of mystery

Although the mystery is solved, it’s a bitter-sweet victory. Too many other questions remain unanswered. Is Rose the orphaned child of good-time girl Polly, who ended up feeding the fishes? What became of the proud workmen thrown on the scrapheap when the factory closed, victims of head office accountants?

This is not a formulaic, stripped down style of book, but it is beautifully written. If you fancy a refreshingly different crime story, “Phosphate Rocks” delivers it.

For a mystery with a difference, read “The Bride’s Trail”, first in my Trail series of British thrillers. When a shy graduate finds herself framed, can she survive long enough to clear her name?

So What Have Libraries Done for Me? A guest blog by Helen Hollick

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Helen Hollick and her new cozy mystery A Mirror Murder in the Library

I know, that heading conjures a mental image of Monty Python and that scene in  Life Of Brian: “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

The aqueduct, sanitation, roads, education… Hmm, can I add libraries? The Romans provided scrolls, kept in dry rooms, for patrons of the public baths to read. The baths were not just a place to go to get clean, they were the equivalent of a leisure centre, a place for exercise and relaxation. Which included the pleasure of reading.

I am sixty-seven this year (2021) but one of my earliest memories is of leaving the library with a book clutched tightly in my hands, thrilled, because it was one I hadn’t read. I say ‘read’ – that, I’m not sure of. I was not yet four years old. Was I reading by then? I don’t remember, on the other hand, I don’t remember not reading. (For those interested, it was a Little Grey Rabbit book by Alison Uttley).

Books rarely let you down

I was a shy, quiet child, with very little self-confidence, heightened because I was extremely short-sighted. I could see, clearly, what was going on in a book. Books didn’t shout at you when you couldn’t see the board at school, or didn’t mind that you couldn’t see well enough to thread a needle in sewing class. Books were friends, not enemies. Books rarely let you down.

I was a regular at South Chingford Library, east London – it helped that my junior school was almost opposite and I had to pass the library to go home. I wonder, was it that compulsion which made my little legs turn into the library to browse the books, the forerunner of not being able to pass a bookshop now, without at least peering into the window?

At the age of nine I discovered the second love of my life. Pony stories.

I received a book for my ninth birthday. I’m ashamed to admit that my first reaction was one of disappointment. A book. It would probably be Noddy, or a school story (I disliked both). I unwrapped it. There, on the cover, was a girl riding a black pony. Jill’s Gymkhana by Ruby Ferguson. I recall nothing else of that party, only the book. I hadn’t realised, until that moment, that there was such a thing as The Pony Story. I desperately wanted a pony, but we were not in the financial position for ponies, although I did ride at the local stables once a fortnight.

Thank goodness for the library. I devoured everything pony-related that they had. The Pullein-Thompson sisters, Monica Edwards, Pat Smythe, Joanna Cannon, Elizabeth Beresford… And then there was the non-fiction section. How to groom a pony, feed a pony, keep a pony… But there was more than books and reading, more that I discovered because of libraries. I started to write. From the age of about eleven, I scribbled (not very good, I suspect) stories about, well, yes, ponies.

Come school leaving age at sixteen in 1969, I was steered towards working in the library – that same, South Chingford Library in fact. It was heaven, especially when I realised that, as a member of staff, I could take out more than four books at a time!

The secret life of a librarian

Come school leaving age at sixteen in 1969, I was steered towards working in the library – that same, South Chingford Library in fact. It was heaven, especially when I realised that, as a member of staff, I could take out more than four books at a time!

I was still writing, scribbling away – although I had moved on to fantasy and science fiction. Then I came across King Arthur. Mary Stewart’s The Hollow Hills and The Crystal Cave. Fabulous stories, but what triggered my interest, and imagination, was her author’s note where she explained that if Arthur had existed (a very doubtful if, now) it would have been during that period between the Romans (them again!) and the coming of the Anglo Saxons. I was intrigued. I had never much liked the traditional Arthurian tales, the Medieval knights in armour … but a Dark Age warlord? Now that I did like! I pounced on the non-fiction section of the library, re-discovered the beautiful poetic narrative of the brilliant Rosemary Sutcliff, studied Roman Britain, and came across too many novels that just didn’t fill what I was looking for: a realistic man, with faults as well as strengths. No post-Norman nonsense, but a man who fought hard to win his kingdom, and fought even harder to keep it. And as for Guinevere… sorry, I just didn’t see her as a fragile wimp drooling over a Lancelot figure. So there was nothing for it. I decided to write my own novel, where there would be no Merlin, no Lancelot, and Gwenhwyfar would know how to wield a sword. (And there would be horses. I still loved horses – had one of my own by then!)

I wrote whenever I could, and penned quite a few chapters in the library office when I was there on my own, supposedly writing out overdue cards…

It’s murder in that library

As for my latest release,  A Mirror Murder, a ‘cosy mystery’ which I based on my years of working in the library, I plan to alternate between one story set in and around the library, and one in a different location, so book two (A Mystery of Murder) will be set in Devon over Christmas 1971, book three (no title yet!) will be back in the library – again based on my years there. Jan Christopher has been asked to take over one of the Book Delivery Service rounds, selecting and taking books out to the housebound. Of course, one day she finds… well, you’ll have to wait until I’ve written it. Sorry. I wrote A Mirror Murder because I finally realised that the years I had spent as a library assistant ought to be put to good use. All those anecdotes, all those hilarious moments, all those members of the public and the quirky events that happened  –  from the main door that was so heavy it bruised your heels, to the slice of raw bacon used as a bookmark…

It took me well over ten years to write a final version of what eventually became my Arthurian  Pendragon’s Banner trilogy, originally published in 1994 by William Heinemann. The books are still in print, although via different publishers now. Oh and that book that I received for my ninth birthday? I’ve still got it.

So what did my library do for me?

It gave me a love of books, of reading. Library books nurtured my imagination, expanded my existence. My library took me to places in other countries and other worlds. The books kept me company when I was lonely, cheered me when I was sad. The characters within were my friends.

My library helped to show me that I could write, that I could fulfil an ambition – to become a real author.

What have libraries done for you, I wonder?

HELEN HOLLICK – A MIRROR MURDER

Amazon Author Page (Universal Link) http://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

“I settled down with A Mirror Murder and pretty much read it in one sitting, thoroughly enjoyed it.”

The first in a new series of cosy mysteries set in the 1970s… Will romance blossom between library assistant Jan Christopher and DC Laurie Walker – or will a brutal murder intervene?

Eighteen-year-old library assistant Jan Christopher’s life is to change on a rainy Friday evening in July 1971, when her legal guardian and uncle, DCI Toby Christopher, gives her a lift home after work. Driving the car, is her uncle’s new Detective Constable, Laurie Walker – and it is love at first sight for the young couple.

But romance is soon to take a back seat when a baby boy is taken from his pram,  a naked man is scaring young ladies in nearby Epping Forest, and an elderly lady is found, brutally murdered… Are the events related? How will they affect the staff and public of the local library where Jan works – and will a blossoming romance survive a police investigation into  murder?

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Find out more about Helen Hollick on her website and find her on Twitter and Facebook. If her book, A Mirror Murder, tempts you to read more stories about librarians, look no further than The Bride’s Trail. First in my Trail series of thrillers, it features real-life librarian Jackie Molloy saving a saintly cancer researcher from a killer!

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Make Your Dreams Come True

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Make Your Dreams Come True by Writing A Book

Make Your Dreams Come True Day

Imagine you had a magic wand that could make all your dreams come true. Wouldn’t that be brilliant? Now, step back from fantasy to reality. There is a way to realise those dreams without magic or megabucks. It’s called setting goals. On Make Your Dreams Come True Day, why not take time out to do it? Even ten minutes can take you closer to achieving your desires.

Realistic Goals

It’s crucial to have realistic goals. That might mean breaking down a task into chunks, or setting less arduous goals as stepping stones. For example, if you want to write a novel but you haven’t even written a short story yet, set yourself the target of producing a short tale first. You’ll feel good when you achieve that first success and you’ll have developed skills that will help you in your ultimate aim.

We can learn from big corporations here. If you’ve ever worked for one, you’ll be used to agreeing SMART objectives with your manager – that is, you’ll agree on tasks which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. Employers do this for a reason. They know that SMART goals are likely to succeed.

A Case Study in SMART Objectives – The Vodka Trail

Looking back at my writing resolutions for 2016, #1 was to write a sequel to my British mystery thriller, The Bride’s Trail. This ticked all the SMART boxes – it was:

Specific – I would write another thriller about glamorous Kat, shy Amy and arrogant Ross.

Measurable – the objective would be met when the book was published.

Achievable – I’d already written and published one thriller a year from 2013 to 2015.

Relevant – I’m a writer, after all.

Time-bound – I announced to the world that I’d do it in 2016, but in my mind, I gave myself 6 months from mid-January.

The Vodka Trail, the twisting tale of Kat’s kidnap by terrorists, was published on 18 July 2016! The rest of the thrilling series – The Grass Trail, The Revenge Trail and The Final Trail – followed in 2017, 2018 and 2019. As with my latest novel, dark psychological thriller Bright Lies, I plotted each book in advance and planned chunks – chapters – before sitting at my laptop to write them.

My Top Tip

My Top Tip is: Share Your Goals! Just as I did when announcing my writing resolutions for 2016, tell others of your plans and they’ll help you to stay accountable for them.

Whether your dream is to change jobs, write that novel or make the world a better place, I wish you the very best of luck!

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Bright Lies, heralded by respected American review site Readers’ Favorite as “5 star compelling drama” had its origin in a dream 30 years ago. In that dark night-time fantasy, Emily emerged fleeing from danger and finding sanctuary with troubled nightclub DJ Jack in his Birmingham squat. It has taken many years to channel that dream into a book, but the great reviews prove it was worth it. Click on the book’s cover here to start reading.

A woman dreaming about psychological thriller BRIGHT LIES

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Book Review – Death Strikes Back, by Carolyn Stubbs

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Short and slick suspense thriller

Carolyn Stubbs suspense thriller novella begins in an English monastery.

The Victorians loved a touch of Gothic in their stories – a creeping sense of menace to send an enjoyable chill down the reader’s spine. Although Carolyn Stubbs’ debut story is set firmly in the 21st century, it retains a Gothic feeling of unease on each page. The mystery begins when a stranger arrives at an English monastery at midnight. Georgio Stefano has made bad choices in his life. Even now, when he unburdens himself to the holy men who give him succour, he doesn’t realise exactly how much trouble he is in.

This is a novella, so every word has to count. There is a lot going on in the book’s 46 pages, including a scary diversion into the paranormal. Thriller fans will enjoy the twists emerging once Georgio decides he must atone for his sins.

Murder, mystery and horror

Although a suspense thriller, the tale segues into murder, mystery and horror. It should therefore appeal to readers of those genres too. Most of all, it reminds me of 19th century favourites like MR James’ “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad”, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” – all of which I read on a beach as a teenager during one hot summer. (I admit this is strange behaviour.) Tightly written and imaginative, “Death Strikes Back” is a real page turner. Although I loved the ending, I was sad to finish the book.

The paperback is well-priced

My only gripe – a minor one – is that the publishers are clearly angling for print sales. The paperback version is well-priced; the ebook less so. Having said that, the prices are competitive with MR James books of a similar length.

Read it!

Carolyn Stubbs is an exciting new talent and this slice of 21st century Gothic is well worth reading.

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If you like a bite-sized read, try my free short stories here.