A.A. Abbott

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Book Review – Killing The Girl, by Elizabeth Hill

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Desire, Secrets and DeathKilling The Girl is a page turner suspense thriller about secrets desire and death

An explosive tale of desire, secrets and hard-nosed commerce, “Killing The Girl” is a psychological thriller like no other. It begins with a coming-of-age story. Fifteen-year-old Carol Cage lives in a council house on the edge of Bristol. A tomboy whose older brothers have taught her to drive, she loves nothing better than taking the wheel of a car or scrumping apples with her best friend. Local farmer’s son, Perry, his crush on Carol painfully obvious, holds no attraction for her. Childhood mischief comes to an end, however, when Carol falls under Frankie’s spell. Nineteen-year-old Frankie is visiting a relative whose posh house nearby is a mirage of unattainable wealth to the council kids. He seems impossibly handsome and sophisticated.

It doesn’t take long for the reader, or indeed many of the adult characters in the book, to realise that Frankie is just using Carol. However, Carol is besotted and ignores all the well-intentioned warnings until she finds out the hard way. Then, nightmarishly, she attacks Frankie when he pushes her too far.

Love or Money?

Perry is Carol’s saviour, helping her cover up Frankie’s death. He claims it is because his father’s farm would face impossibly steep outgoings if land that Carol has inherited falls into new hands. Although undeniably true, it is also clear that Perry still carries a torch for Carol – a torch that burns for nearly five decades while they co-exist as neighbours. Then the council announces it will build a ring road through the land where Frankie is buried. Can Carol continue to escape justice?

The Corpse Count Rises

Once the bulldozers move in, more secrets are revealed. There are heart-stopping moments as Carol unravels the hidden agendas of those she has loved and trusted. The story, written from Carol’s point of view, portrays her as a mild-mannered woman buffeted by the whims of others. However, the corpse count keeps rising…

Page Turner

Although this is Carol’s story, the supporting characters are sharply observed and interesting, too. Even the gloriously-named socialite Izzy Dewberry-Newberry is well-described in a couple of lines. Likewise, the social mores of the 1970s – the acceptance of drink-driving, the Bristol tobacco factory jobs handed down from one generation to the next – leap from the page. Exquisitely written, full of surprises as layers of secrets and lies are peeled back, “Killing The Girl” is a page turner par excellence. Elizabeth Hill is definitely a writer to watch.

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Like Elizabeth Hill, I’m a British thriller writer. If you love a suspense-filled story uncovering secrets of the past, try “The Vodka Trail”. Vodka salesman Marty Bridges couldn’t save his business partner’s life. Blamed by the dead man’s daughter for his death, Marty finds new evidence – but dare he tell her?

Book Review – Death on the Suez, by David Wake

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Agatha Christie meets Terry Pratchettsphinx-like murderers and magic carpets in this agatha christie meets terry pratchett mystery

Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” is splendidly parodied by David Wake in this locked room murder mystery set aboard the Victorian paddle steamer SS Karnak. Yes, folks, the protagonists appear to travel on the very boat Hercule Poirot chose for his rather too exciting holiday in Egypt. This time, the ship sails down the Suez Canal with an assorted cast of characters including a libidinous Frenchman, an Indian mystic, two archaeologists and a couple of stiff upper lip British army men. They are accompanied by the Derring-Do Club, three plucky young women whose parents have forbidden them to do any adventuring, ever. A murder investigation doesn’t count as an adventure, however, so middle sister Georgina is roped in as investigating officer when one of the archaeologists takes a fatal bullet. With humour worthy of Terry Pratchett, David Wake leads Georgina and her sisters on a merry dance through the desert, in which they nearly (but of course, not quite) die before the case is cracked.

Locked room murder mystery

There are at least nine suspects, all with alibis and no apparent means of shooting a man whose corpse has been found in a room locked from the inside. The method, when Georgina finally deduces it, is a twist worthy of the Queen of the Crime herself.

Magic carpets, romance & adventure

“Death on the Suez” is so much more than a murder mystery, however. It’s a rip-roaring adventure  featuring mummies, guns, magic carpets, a marvellous calculating machine, ancient gods and temples. There’s also dash of romance, running like a thread throughout the narrative and beautifully tied at the end. Throughout, David Wake writes well, his gentle British humour lampooning Victorian mores. He never puts a foot wrong, and the pages just keep turning.

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Like David Wake, I’m a British writer, and my stories are fast-paced page turners. The Trail series of crime thrillers begins with a mystery when fake bride Kat White goes missing. Take a look at The Bride’s Trail here.

Book Review – The Locksmith, by Jo Ullah

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A good read in the gothic tradition

Book Review of The Locksmith Suspense Thriller by Jo Ullah a good read and a page turnerThe Locksmith is a good read for the summer holidays – not just because it’s about a mother taking her children to stay on a farm during the long vacation, but because the light evenings are less conducive to book-induced nightmares. While the book is written in a deceptively simple style, it’s a suspense thriller in the gothic tradition. An air of menace pervades the pages, mounting as twists unfold. Like the boobytraps placed around the farm, it’s evident that tragedy will strike, but it’s only at the last minute that we find out how and when.

Scars of the past

Artist Jude has escaped a violent marriage and found contentment with a new lover, Spider. Together, they have a young baby as well as Jude’s two children from her first marriage. Family life in Bristol’s Bohemian Montpelier district seems idyllic, but cracks are beginning to show. Middle child Immy displays unsettling signs of a sixth sense. Adolescent Ben chafes at the restrictions imposed on him and resents his stepfather’s authority. Spider bears the scars of an unhappy childhood, but refuses to talk about it. Jude decides the answer for her is more physical and mental space. When Spider’s mother invites her to bring the children to stay on the family farm for the summer, the offer is too tempting to ignore.

Page turner awash with surprises

Despite deepening unease, the story abounds with gentle humour, especially in the clash of urban and rural mores. The children discover that nature is red in tooth and claw. There is also a priceless trip to a snobby town near the farm. Jo Ullah strikes the perfect balance between entertainment and edge-of-the-seat fear, creating a page turner awash with surprises to keep you guessing.

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Read it and sleep – if you dare…

Do you like sinister stories with a Bristol edge? If so, try “A Dark Imagined Bristol”, a collection of short tales that are just that. Although I’m a crime thriller writer, I turned my hand to a disturbing supernatural story, “First Blood”, especially for a “A Dark Imagined Bristol”. Read it, and sleep – if you dare…

Thriller of the Month – Bloodie Bones, by Lucienne Boyce

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Forced to read Georgette Heyer at school, I avoided historical fiction for years.  “Bloodie Bones”, a gritty detective mystery set in 1796, is as far removed from genteel Georgette as James Patterson is from Barbara Cartland. The award-winning story follows Bow Street Runner Dan Foster as he goes undercover to catch a murderer in the Somerset village of Barcombe.

Barcombe is not a happy place. The local squire, Lord Oldfield, has annexed its woodland and is about to take more land away from the villagers. His gamekeeper has been murdered and threats have been made against his life by the mysterious Bloodie Bones. Rumour suggests this is a phantom. Dan Foster, however, doesn’t believe in ghosts – he believes in bringing villains to justice.

As a policeman, Dan has a respectable, middle-class lifestyle, but dark memories underpin it. A former street urchin and bare knuckle fighter, he has known poverty. He is not, therefore, a great fan of Lord Oldfield, who is effectively stealing the villagers’ land from them under the Enclosure Acts. Nevertheless, the lord is acting within the law, and those who kill his gamekeeper and poach his game are not. Dan cannot allow sympathy for the villagers to stop him doing his job. Accordingly, he puts his life as risk – and comes within a whisker of losing it – to bring the culprit to justice.

This is not only a rollicking, twist-filled read, but a slice of social history. Writer Lucienne Boyce explains movingly how the dice were loaded against ordinary working people in the 18th century. Dan Foster is lucky to have escaped the horrors of his upbringing – and, in “Bloodie Bones”, he is lucky to escape with his life.

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Take a look at crime thriller “Bloodie Bones” on Amazon – click on the cover to look inside. If you’d like to read some of my own stories, subscribe for my newsletter and I’ll send you a free e-book of short stories.

 

Thriller of the Month – Dark Fragments, by Rob Sinclair

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An unreliable narrator isn’t often used in a thriller, perhaps because it requires a great deal of skill to keep a reader engaged once it’s clear the “hero” is anything but. John Grisham did it well in “The Racketeer”. Now British writer Rob Sinclair joins him with “Dark Fragments”.

“Dark Fragments” is a departure for Sinclair, who has previously written tense third person spy thrillers about secret agent Carl Logan. This, his first book for crime publisher Bloodhound, is told in the first person by Ben Stephens. At first, management consultant Ben seems a nice, ordinary guy. He adores his children and his wife. Yes, he’s down in the dumps, but who wouldn’t be in his situation? After all, he’s being threatened by gangsters over a soured business deal, he’s haunted by the unsolved murder of his first wife, and his career has plateaued. We can all imagine struggling with that kind of baggage.

This is where Rob Sinclair is very clever. Having made us sympathise with the man, perhaps even identify with him, alarm bells ring as Ben takes extreme actions to solve his problems. Rash and impulsive, he resorts to infidelity and violence, all the while seeing himself as a victim. The level of self-justification is such that the dramatic finale of the book is easy to believe, although it still comes as a surprise.

Sinclair’s style is pacy, energetic and liberally punctuated with cliff hangers. In consequence, “Dark Fragments” is a quick read, which leaves the lingering feeling that the ordinary people you meet every day may not be quite what they seem.

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“Dark Fragments” is set in Birmingham, England. I also write crime thrillers that are (at least partly) set in the city and I very much enjoyed Rob Sinclair’s descriptions of its swanky and seedy areas. Do you like to read about places you know? Email me at aaabbottstories[at]gmail.com.

Crowdfunding fiction

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The Thriller of the Month is taking a back seat in March (not least because I’m busy writing my fourth crime thriller), so I’ve asked writer Pete Sutton for a guest blog explaining why he’s using crowdfunding to publish a bunch of short stories. Pete is the editor of Far Horizons magazine, and he’s crowdfunding in order to publish not just one, but THREE BOOKs of short stories that first appeared in Far Horizons! Here’s why…in his own words…

Far Horizons started with a simple idea. A bunch of writers on a Facebook group who were either unpublished or self-published wanted to create an anthology. That simple premise became Far Horizons e-magazine and we got enough stories and art to make a second then a third etc. Two years later the team and magazine have grown.  Our original remit hasn’t changed though. We exist to give new writers a voice. We will edit new writers until they become publishable. It is a labour of love.

The magazine has always been free. This has been to get the widest possible reach for the stories which are mostly from writers learning their craft. No-one gets paid at the moment and we offer adverts for the author’s work in payment for sending us their stories.

Our original idea to create an anthology is still sound, and so we have now created three.  Our hope is that by selling anthologies we’ll raise enough money to start paying our contributors. This is the main reason we are crowdfunding. The anthologies will be published regardless of how much money we make via the crowdfund. But we hope to raise enough money to cover our costs – and our real desire is to raise enough money to start paying our contributors.

We will do more anthologies and we will continue to publish the magazine (although the form may change after our second birthday). We also hope to publish some of the serials we have featured over the months as a thank you to the authors that have given us those serials.

Former Heroes we previously published but have remastered for this launch. It has stories in from published and self-published authors including David Gullen (Author of Shopocalypse and Open Waters), Gaie Sebold (author of the Babylon Steel and Shanghai Sparrow books), Sara Jayne Townsend (author of Soul Screams and Whispering Death) , Andrew Goodman (author of the Emperor Initiative series), Kate Charles (Author of Faisollus), Jim King (author of Trouble at the Docks) and Pete Sutton (author of A Tiding of Magpies and Sick City Syndrome). These are tales of men and women, and in one case a building, that have had a heroic heyday but that is now in their past. What do heroes do when they are no longer heroes?

Our most popular issue was our Zombie special so we saw there was an appetite for braaaains, er for well-told tales of the shambling undead. This anthology was filled through open submissions. We had a lot of fun reading all the stories and choosing the best to highlight.

Fantastically Horny started as a Facebook IM conversation. One of the staff writes erotica under a pen name and inquiring minds wanted to know if they put aliens or elves in, since they also write SF&F. We then wondered if anyone had ever put together a SF&F Erotica book. Which then inevitably led us to wanting to put together a SF&F Erotica book…

So we have ended up with not one, but three anthologies to launch. We hope that people feel inspired by our magazine and want to help us help new writers. Please head over to the Indiegogo and pledge. 

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Writer Pete Sutton is signed to Kensington Gore Publishing, who are about to launch his collection of short stories, “A Tiding of Magpies”, very soon. His novel, “Sick City Syndrome”, will follow later in the year. Read Pete’s excellent blog here, and follow him on Twitter at @suttope.