For your enjoyment...by Cathy Ace

End of year recommendations - always tough, and I haven't read as much as I'd hoped this year. I've decided the best thing to do is to list those books which have stuck out for me, and try to help you understand what they are like. Not everything is everyone's cup of tea - but, whatever you read, enjoy the Festive Season, and thanks for your support, Cathy  

For juveniles: CHASE – Get Ready To Run by Linwood Barclay

This book won the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for best Juvenile/YA book in 2018, and it’s great fun! Here’s what the judges said about it – they speak more eloquently than I could:

The plot is inventive and captivating from the opening chapter where the reader is taken into the mind of a dog as Chipper, the Border Collie, escapes from a top secret, scientific facility. This is a highly imaginative but believable story exploring the potential of cyber crime using a dog to mask the nefarious goals of his handlers. The book has strong boy and girl characters with the girl, atypically, being the computer expert and the boy expressing well the emotions and difficulties of being an orphan. It quietly introduces an emerging boy girl relationship suitable for the juvenile age group. The author employs age appropriate language and uses humour to temper the more frightening aspects of the story.

For those who enjoy an escapist adventure with wit, whimsy and dead bodies: A SPOT OF TOIL AND TROUBLE by Catriona McPherson

I’m catching up with my TBR pile and, although Catriona has a new book out in the Dandy Gilver series, I just read this one!  GREAT FUN!

Scotland, 1934.

Aristocratic private detective Dandy Gilver arrives at Castle Bewer, at midsummer, to solve the tangled mystery of a missing man, a lost ruby and a family curse.

The Bewer family's latest wheeze to keep the wolf from the door is turning the castle keep into a theatre. While a motley band of players rehearse Macbeth, the Bewers themselves prepare lectures, their faithful servants set up a tearoom, and the guest wings fill with rich American ladies.

Meanwhile, Dandy and her sidekick Alec Osborne begin to unravel the many secrets of the Bewers and find that, despite the witches, murders and ghosts onstage, it's behind the scenes where the darkest deeds are done.

A lone man on a lonely road? PAST TENSE by Lee Child

I settle into a Lee Child Reacher book with a certainty that I’ll enjoy it! This one is an instant CLASSIC!

Jack Reacher hits the pavement and sticks out his thumb. He plans to follow the sun on an epic trip across America, from Maine to California. He doesn’t get far. On a country road deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been: the town where his father was born. He thinks, What’s one extra day? He takes the detour.

At the same moment, in the same isolated area, a car breaks down. Two young Canadians had been on their way to New York City to sell a treasure. Now they’re stranded at a lonely motel in the middle of nowhere. The owners seem almost too friendly. It’s a strange place, but it’s all there is.

The next morning, in the city clerk’s office, Reacher asks about the old family home. He’s told no one named Reacher ever lived in town. He’s always known his father left and never returned, but now Reacher wonders, Was he ever there in the first place?

As Reacher explores his father’s life, and as the Canadians face lethal dangers, strands of different stories begin to merge. Then Reacher makes a shocking discovery: The present can be tough, but the past can be tense . . . and deadly.

Fancy some dark deeds and damaged souls? DAMAGED by Martina Cole

Martina Cole never disappoints, so if you want Brit Grit at its best, this is for you!

DCI Kate Burrows might be retired, but when the bodies of missing schoolgirls start turning up in Grantley, she's the first person DCI Annie Carr calls for help.

Life for Kate and ex-gangster Patrick Kelly is thrown into chaos when his long lost son turns up out of the blue, bringing trouble with him. This new case could be just what Kate needs.

But as the body count grows, Kate and Annie face a race against the clock.

Without any clear leads, can they stop the killer before another schoolgirl dies?

I'd be honoured of you'd consider reading my work. You can find out all about it here:  http://www.cathyace.com/

I have a new book coming out on January 9th (PRE-ORDER now!) - and it's a bit different for me! Here are a couple of blurbs from two fellow Criminal Minds:

"A close-knit community in a quaint Welsh village in an area of outstanding beauty. Sounds cozy. But Cathy Ace's stunning new standalone, THE WRONG BOY, is about as cozy as a cornered snake. Told in a rising chorus of authentic voices, the story is deft and disturbing, creepingly claustrophobic, and with a grip that tightens to a choke-hold before its shattering conclusion."  Catriona McPherson, multi-award-winning author of ‘Go To My Grave’ 

“Drenched in Welsh atmosphere, forbidding weather, and mysterious folklore, THE WRONG BOY is a gem of a thriller that bewitches right up to the twisted ending you won’t see coming. Masterful plotting and characters so real, you’ll swear you know them. Ace is a master portraitist.” James W Ziskin, multi-award-winning author of The Ellie Stone Mysteries

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