The Reaper by Steven Dunne

Well, this was a strange one. I finished this in 2 days and really enjoyed it...or thought I did. As a story this rattled along at a fair old pace, every spare minute a chance to get back to it. But larer, given time to let things sink in, there was so much wrong with it.

The story itself was good enough. After the Reaper case, multiple murders of families in London DI Damen Brook loses his family and almost his sanity. He relocates to Derby and all seems 'ok' until another family is found murdered in the same manner as the Reaper killings. After all these years why has The Reaper struck again and why has he followed Brook to Derby?

The story follows two time lines, one in London, one in present day Derby and slowly the two converge to give answers but when those resolutions came it felt kinda 'muddy' to me. It's obvious from early on who The Reaper is but Brook cannot find proof and even ends up befriending the suspect in the hopes of tripping him up. It's this issue, this obsession, that leads to the break up of his marriage.

Now, what bugs me is the character of Brook himself. He's your typical screwed up cop, the kind we see in most crime fiction these days. Many of his colleagues don't like him but the ladies certainly do. At one point early on he sees an attractive young lady watching his house. She says she is a student visiting possible accommodation but in no time at all he is letting her stay the night at his - I mean, I know it advances the story and his character but who does that really? And, surprise surprise, she ends up in his bed (and that scene itself is the height of weird). Then there is his colleague who he had a one night fling with, and still quite fancies, and when he goes back to London on investigation duties his first choice to accompany him on the journey? Yup, you guessed correct. He books himself into the worst rehab clinic in the country at New Years in the hopes of getting some info from files on a former patient and in no time at all one of the residents has decided she wants a piece of DI Brook. I tell you, the women can't get enough of him.

The whole 'who is The Reaper' thing is a bit of a confusing, baffling mess, the writing isn't great but even so I think I'll be carrying on with this series, I'm just not sure when exactly

3/5*

Priest of Lies by Peter McLean

'Tomas's power grows, the nobility better watch their backs, in this dark and gritty epic fantasy series.

People are weak, and the poorer and more oppressed they are, the weaker they become--until they can't take it anymore. And when they rise up...may the gods help their oppressors.

When Tomas Piety returned from the war, he just wanted to rebuild his empire of crime with his gang of Pious Men. But his past as a spy for the Queen's Men drew him back in and brought him more power than he ever imagined.

Now, with half of his city in ashes and the Queen's Men at his back, the webs of political intrigue stretch out from the capital to pull Tomas in. Dannsburg is calling.

In Dannsburg the nobility fight with words, not blades, but the results are every bit as bloody. In this pit of beasts, Tomas must decide once and for all whether he is truly the people's champion...or just a priest of lies.'

This sequel to Priest of Bones starts well...

'Five hundred corpses.

That had been my wedding gift from Ailsa and the Queen's Men. From this woman I called my wife...'

and to be fair it just gets better from there. Tomas Piety and his Pious Men are a motley bunch and, as you would expect, are soon knee deep in intrigue.

What I really enjoyed about this book, and the series as a whole is that this is very much The Godfather set in a fantasy world. Piety is very much The Don Corleoni of Ellinsburg (small side point: Ellinsburg feels a lot like Edinburgh) and although he and his gang come across as villains at times it's easy to see that they do what they do for the right reasons. I've seen it said elsewhere that this is Peaky Blinders with swords and I couldn't put it better myself. Invest in this series of you haven't already, you won't be sorry

Thanks to Jo Fletcher Books and Netgalley for providing copy of this book and please have a look at the other blogger reviews on this Bookblast (below)

Salvation by Peter F Hamilton

'In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. A new technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transporation--including starships--virtually obsolete. Every place on earth, every distant planet mankind has settled, is now merely a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful...until a crashed alien spaceship is found on a newly-located world 89 light years from Earth, harboring seventeen human victims. And of the high-powered team dispatched to investigate the mystery, one is an alien spy...'

Salvation is the first book in a new trilogy from Peter F Hamilton and also is a new setting for him (not Commonwealth). As such there is a lot of set-up in Salvation which can make it seem a much longer read at times than it actually is but stick with it, when the pace picks up it REALLY picks up.

What I most enjoyed about this, as is often the case with PFH is getting to know the characters and here he has something special - the Utopials. These are a non gender specific society who require their children to have their genome modified so they live in alternating male and female 1000 day cycles. It seems confusing at first but quickly feels normal with the different pronouns taking less thought as a reader.

The 3 different time lines also unsettles the flow of the story at times but I guess that's because I felt more invested in the main thread (I do like a good mystery to solve). All time lines are relevant though and I'm sure PFH will tie everything together.

The Jump Gates reminded me a lot of Stargate and I am glad they are there as instant travel has made for a lack of Starships (I guess I'm a minority but as a Sci-Fi reader I don't much enjoy large sections of story onboard ships)

So, a slow burn of a novel but worth persevering with. The end surprised me and now I can't wait to get hold of the second in the series Salvation Lost.

4/5*

Thanks to Ellen Casey and Pan Macmillan for inviting me to review this book and providing the copy

The A-Z of Skateboarding by Tony Hawks

 Welcome to Day 3 of the blog tour for Tony Hawks' The A-Z Of Skateboarding.

Imagine, if you will, two men separated by a single letter S. One is Tony Hawk, skateboarding legend, the other is Tony Hawks, comedian, author and a man approaching the end of his tether. The problem, you see, is that fans of the former keep contacting the latter for skateboarding advice, tips etc. Even though they have to go through Tony Hawks website. By this point they should realise they have the wrong Tony, but no...they persist.

So Tony the comedian decided to fight back by responding to these emails, requests etc. in the most ridiculous way and the results of this are the book here reviewed. It serves to highlight what Tony Hawks sees as the pointlessness and futility of Skateboarding and comedy gold at its best. I'll be honest, I laughed at this book and I laughed hard. I think you would too.

Thanks to Anne Cater, as always, for inviting me to take part in this tour and to Unbound for providing the review copy.

Please, if you get the chance, have a look at the posts by the other reviewers on this tour

Chop Shop by Andrew Post

 Welcome to Day 3 of the blog tour for Andrew Post's Chop Shop.

Things are not going well for Amber and Jolene, friends and business partners at the Hawthorne Funeral Home. They are failing in one of the 'safest' jobs there is but just when they approach rock bottom a chance to save everything appears - someone wants to buy body parts. All is going well until... you know the drill... problems arise with one of the corpses they have sold. Then things turn nasty.

Add in gangsters, and a 'back room' Dr with a missing dead body that he could really do with not being dead at all and what you have here is a horror/thriller/farce with a very black sense of humour running through it. I found the two leads, Amber and Jolene a bit hard to get on with at first, to be fair but after a while I saw them as an incarnation of the tv show 2 Broke Girls and from there it just clicked.

There's a lot going on with this book and it was ridiculous at times but I actually really enjoyed it (more than I expected to when I started it). Would I recommend it? Oh yes, very much so.

 Thanks to Anne Cater, as always, for inviting me onto this tour and Flame Tree Press for supplying me with a review copy.

Please try and find time to take a look at the posts by other reviewers on this tour

Bold Lies by Rachel Lynch

 Welcome to Day 7 of the blog tour for Bold Lies, the 5th in the DI Kelly Porter series.

DI Kelly Porter is based in The Lake District and so far all the books in this series have been set in and around that glorious landscape. With Bold Lies though we get a change of scene (if only for a short while. When a dead body turns up on her patch and two more in a secret lab in London it soon becomes apparent that there are links so DI Porter is off to the capital and her old stomping ground. Waiting for her there is her old partner, a not very nice chap (but well written) who 'threw her under the bus' to benefit his own career.

This is, as always, a twisty, turny tale and the two different locations worked well with the London characters giving the series a bit of fresh blood. We also get to see more of DI Porter's back story and obviously how things are progressing in her life 'now' so plenty to get your teeth into.

I recommend reading the whole series to get the full benefit of the excellent storytelling but Bold Lies also works well as a stand-alone tale.

Many thanks to Ellie Pilcher and Canelo for inviting me onto this blog tour and please

In Other Words by John Garrett

While at my parents house last week my dad passed me this book to read. Being a lifelong Blade and having known the author since a school days trip to France I didn't need asking twice.

What this is is a collection of interviews with former Sheffield United players, stretching from the pre war era to more recent times. There are players I remember and ones I don't and what comes across from them all is a love of this club that is ours. Seeing how football has changed over the decades, through the words of those who were there, is still a real eye-opener.

These interviews have all been taken from the match day programme UTB (Up The Blades) and as I dipped in it brought back many memories for me - going to the Junior Blade enclosure with JG himself as schoolkids, years as a season ticket holder with my old pal Darren Thornton where we saw many of the folks interviewed here - Good Times.

As I remember, as a youngster my dad gave me the chance to choose for myself which Sheffield team I wanted to follow taking me to see both Blades and Owls. As I recall, each trip to Hillsborough it rained (seriously, that's all I remember about it) whereas the trips to The Lane still feel fresh. In reality there was no choice to make 😉

Anyway, back to the book. This is a really well put together collection that would be of interest to football fans in general, not just fans of Sheffield United

4.5/5*

John Garrett is also the author of Sheffield United - The Biography (with Gary Armstrong), Folklore and Fables and 125 Years of Sheffield United FC. (seriously, what he doesn't know about the club isn't worth knowing)

Thanks for the loan of the book dad, I'll be getting my own copy soon