Smorgasbord Fantasia

Alex Grecian ’s first novel, The Yard , set in the 1889 in a Victorian London coming on the back of the horrors of Jack the Ripper’s atrocities on the city, is a lurid grisly historical thriller/crime novel. Set in the seedy underbelly of the most populous city at that time in the world, featuring a deranged killer who is butchering the policemen themselves, the Yard introduces us to the Murder Squad, a set of policemen tasked with investigating the most difficult murder cases that pile up in this city, especially with “Saucy Jack” having unshackled the chains off a deranged set of killers. The Yard takes us to the unexplored dark alleyways of London, featuring a trio of policemen – Inspector Walter Day, backed up by the ever-resourceful constable Hammersmith and aided by the progressive thinking pathologist Dr. Bernard Kingsley who is out to clean up London’s morgues and also the doctor society at large of primitive practices. The story starts off with the discovery of a trunk, stuffe...

All The Dangerous Things was my second book by Stacy Willingham and true to her form and expectations, her sophomore effort is once again, a runaway winner for me. Another dark psychological thriller with twists and turns galore, in All The Dangerous - Stacy gives us a heart wrenching story about guilt & grief . This is the story of Isabelle Drake, a mother whose eighteen month old baby has been kidnapped. While this is definitely one of the most high profile cases of this Southern city, a year after the incident, there are still no clues about this crime. It remains unsolved and Isabelle, racked with inconsolable grief and guilt at having lost her baby, has insomnia now. She hasn’t slept a wink during the last 364 nights, even as we open the story. The story cleverly applies a dual storyline plot device, frequently flashing back to her childhood spent in the South Carolina city of Beaufort and her tight bond with her younger sister Margaret and her childhood condition of Sleepw...

A Flicker in the Dark is Stacy Willingham 's masterful debut - a well-constructed clever suspense thriller full of twists and thrills. The story is set in the small town called Baton Rogue, in Louisiana and told through the POV of Chloe Davis, a successful psychologist in her early thirties, engaged and about to be married to this workaholic Pharma-sales rep Daniel. Chloe is shaken out of her idyllic dream life when a series of murders rock the small town. Taking her back twenty years, when the exact same thing had happened, when she was only twelve. Six teenage girls who were abducted and killed in her childhood town. But the shocker was when the police finally figured out that it was her own father, who had committed these heinous crimes. Chloe is rattled as she tries to piece together the clues, as to who could possibly be this 'copycat' killer in her neighborhood. Because these crimes not only cut open those scabs from her own childhood but also, threatens to blow apart...

 The first book that I finished in 2022 is a crime thriller, Razorblade Tears by S A Cosby ( author of Blacktop Wasteland , which incidentally I have bumped back to the top of my TBR) - What I have realized is that the best genre that lends itself well to the audiobook medium is crime/thriller. and SA Cosby has come to own this particular version of this genre fiction, call it literary action thrillers.  So Razorblade Tears, very much like his previous book, is set in the wildlands of Virginia and traces the lives of two hardened ex-criminals, one a booze-addled redneck living in a trailer and the other a black man, trying to eke out a respectable living by through an office selling landscaping services. Buddy Lee Jenkins and Ike Randolph are as different as two men can be, and yet so alike. Brought together by a common tragedy when both their sons, Derek and Isiah get mercilessly shot down outside an uptown restaurant where they were celebrating their wedding anniversary. Bot...