Blue Murder- Cath Staincliffe

Janine Lewis is recently separated from her husband after finding him in bed with the home help.  They have 3 children together and she is pregnant with their fourth.  She is also the newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector of South Manchester police station called in to investigate the murder of a man found in his allotment.  Janine faces pressure from her boss who makes it clear that she has only been given the case because everyone else is too busy.  The case is moving slowly until three equally plausible suspects burst into the frame and Janine struggles knowing where to concentrate the team's efforts.  At the same time we learn more about her family life and how they are dealing with the separation of her and Pete.  Interwoven into all of this is the story of Jade, a seven year old who is not allowed to play near the allotments but found herself there on the morning of the murder.  She doesn't dare tell anyone what she saw as she doesn't want to get into trouble for being there.
I enjoyed this story, I hadn't seen the television series but may now hunt it out.  The characters at times felt a bit too 2 dimensional but that could be simply because this is the first book in a series.

Think of the children- Kerry Wilkinson

Think of the children is the the fourth book in the DS Daniels series which shot Kerry Wilkinson to fame as the earlier books rocketed up the Kindle chart.

On her way to work DS Jessica Daniels witnesses a car crash.  When she arrives at the car she finds the driver is dead but notices the boot of the car is open.  When she takes a look inside she finds the body of Isaac Hutchings, a young boy who has been missing for a couple of weeks.  This case soon becomes linked with a case from 14 years ago when another young boy went missing.  Jessica and Dave Rowlands are called in to see what the connections can be between the two cases and also to try adn identify the dead driver.

This is a good addition to the series, the relationships between the characters continues to develop and it is really nice to have a main character in a detective novel who seems fairly normal.

Our penguin made from an aubergine for my 5 year old's homework.

One, two...he is coming for you

Rebekka Franck and her daughter Julie have recently moved back in with her father after fleeing from her husband when he became ausive.  She starts working at the local newspaper on the day that the town has their first murder.  The team of Franck and Sune, the photographer, soon start looking deeper into the case than the police seem to and it is not long before they believe they are looking for a serial killer.

The book is well written, I thought I had worked it out who the killer was fairly early into the story but was pleased that it was a red herring.  The characters develop well throughout the course of the book with more and more coming to light about each of them as the story progresses.

I shall now be downloading the second book onto my kindle to see if it lives up to the first in the series.

White bones- Graham Masterton

John Meagher finds the skeletons of 11 women on his farm arranged in a strange pattern. Detective superintendent Katie Maguire is called to investigate but quickly discovers that they are very old bones. Meanwhile a teenage girl is abducted and resources have to be plowed into searching for her. Soon Maguire discovers that the two cases are linked. Whilst dealing with these cases she is also fighting her own demons at home- the death of her baby boy and her not-always-law-abiding husband.

I loved the main characters in this book, I thought they were really well built up. In parts the story was a bit gory, I found myself skim reading a couple of paragraphs! I saw half of the ending coming but not the entirety of it which I think makes it all the more satisfying.

Dark Side- Belinda Bauer

Jonas Holly is a local police officer whose beat takes in a number of small villages.  He is called in when an elderly, paralysed lady is found dead.  soon it becomes clear that she has been murdered and reinforcements are called in in the form of DCI Marvel and his team.  Marvel is a very rude, brusque individual who does not like Holly, or in fact many people.  Soon more dead bodies are found, the link between them all is they were suffering from some life limiting illness.  In amongst all of this Holly is dealing with his wife who is suffering from MS.

I really enjoyed this book, I foudn it was really gripping and I couldn't put it down.  I did feel that the ending didn't quite sit right with me though.

I loved the fact that the chapters in this book were a countdown to how many days were left in the investigation.  I didn't realise this was the second book in a series so I shall be hunting out the first one to see what happened prior to this story.

John Kear Coaching is Chaos

John Kear is a man who lives, breathes and loves rugy league.  This much is clear from his autobiography.  It is a very easy to read book, filled with some great anecdotes about well known Rugby personalities.  Kear is honest about the things he has got wrong as well as the times he has been hurt by people.  He is not naive though, he realises that his time in the game isn't forever and is up front with his opinions about changes that should be made to the sport.