The Sleeping Doll
By Jeffrey Deaver

Kathryn Dance, an investigator with the California Bureau of Investigation is the lead cop handling the escape of psychopathic killer Daniel Pell, dubbed "Son of Manson" by the press for his "family" of young runaways and his most horrendous crime, the murders of computer engineer William Croyton, Croyton's wife and two of their three children. The only child left alive, nine-year-old Theresa, is known as the Sleeping Doll. Pell, charismatic and diabolically intelligent, continually eludes capture, but Dance, a specialist in interrogation and kinesics (or body language), is never more than a few suspenseful minutes behind. Dance is nicely detailed, and procedural scenes where she uses somatic cues to ferret out liars are fascinating. The book sags in its long middle, but toward the end Deaver digs into his bottomless bag of unexpected twists and turns, keeping readers wide-eyed with surprise.

This is a BRA book club selection and I don't normally read crime. The Sleeping Doll is a ripper of a yarn. Great characters with terrific development through the book, fast paced, you won't want this read to end but you won't be able to keep from devouring each line.

The Death Chamber
By Sarah Rayne

A great read for the car or a holiday. Lots of twists and turns, with several time periods, telling the story of Calvary Gaol, standing bleak and forbidding on the Cumbrian hillside.

This evil place exerts a curious influence over Georgina Grey; her family's history closely bound up in the penitentiary's dark and terrible past. It was predominantly used as a gaol to house and hang those criminals who were given death sentences, including women. Television presenter Chad Ingram is fascinated by Calvary as well. He plans to conduct a new experiment in the long-vacant structure within the brooding desolation of the old execution chamber. Someone with a horrid past is set on suppressing the truth of Calvary, and is willing to go to any lengths to ensure that its shocking past remains buried.

A great read - one to pass on to friends to enjoy too.

Spider Light
By Sarah Rayne

Antonia Weston's life was shattered years ago by a personal tragedy made all-too-public. She moves to the sleepy town of Amberwood, hoping to start afresh. But someone knows exactly who she is and they are determined not to let Antonia forget the past. A trained psychiatrist, Antonia becomes intrigued by Latchkill, a former asylum and Twygrist, an abandoned mill. Both buildings have macabre histories, and as a series of disturbing incidents occur, it would seem the past is very much alive. . .

Rayne does an excellent job of evoking an atmosphere of edgy suspense. She handles multiple narratives with ease and manages to leave no loose ends. I don't usually read crime novels but the gothic atmosphere of this novel, along with the mystery of Amberwood, made it really appealing. Well worth a read.

An Ice Cold Grave
Harper Connelly Mysteries Book 3
By Charlaine Harris

After being struck by lightning as a teenager, Harper Connelly has developed the unique ability to find the dead and see how they died. She and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, run a business in which they travel the country assisting law-enforcement personnel and family members of the dead. In her third case, Harper is hired by a woman to find her missing grandson. In fact, numerous teenage boys have disappeared from Doraville, North Carolina. Harper finds the bodies, but still reeling from coming into contact with her first serial killer, she is attacked and injured. She stays in Doraville to recover and assist in the investigation. Harris' series makes the most of its unusual premise, using the paranormal elements to good effect. She has also created a winning heroine; Harper is a caring person who gives closure to victims' families often at great cost to herself as she deals with the skepticism of the law-enforcement community. Her developing relationship with Tolliver grows and changes in this installment.

The plot kept me reading page after page until the book was done. "An Ice Cold Grave" is a satisfying read that I'd recommend to fans of mysteries, thrillers and paranormal fiction. While you don't have to read "Grave Secret" and "Grave Surprise" to understand this book, it's definitely not a waste of your time to do so.

Grave Surprise
Harper Connelly Mysteries Book 2
By Charlaine Harris

At the start of Harris's winning second supernatural caper to feature Harper Connelly, a skeptical anthropology professor, Clyde Nunley, tests Harper's gift of clairvoyance in a historic Memphis cemetery, where Harper correctly senses a fresh corpse in the wrong grave. Strangely, the body turns out to be a missing 12-year-old girl, Tabitha Morgenstern, whom Harper failed to locate in Nashville on a case two years earlier. The hotel suite of Harper and her manager and stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, both of whom fall under suspicion, becomes a magnet for a medley of amusing characters, including Memphis cops, Tabitha's assorted relatives and a drunken Clyde Nunley, who, shortly after accusing Harper of fraud, is found dead in the same grave as Tabitha.

Peppered with the author's trademark deadpan wit, this book should help make Harper and Tolliver as popular as Sookie Stackhouse, the heroine of Harris's vampire mystery series.

Grave Sight
Harper Connelly Mysteries Book 1
By Charlaine Harris

Ever since Harper Connelly survived a zap from a lightning bolt, she's been able to find dead people, a skill that makes the protagonist in the first installment of Harris's new series a tad more bizarre than the mind-reading heroine of the author's Sookie Stackhouse books (Dead as a Doornail, etc.). Harper travels to the Ozark town of Sarne, Ark., to find a missing teenage girl's body, accompanied by her stepbrother, Tolliver, who acts as her manager and bodyguard and with whom she shares a thinly disguised physical attraction that they manage to keep at bay by engaging in casual sex with various partners. Finding the body takes no time at all, but leaving town afterward isn't so easy. When Harper's life is threatened and Tolliver ends up in jail on trumped-up charges, it quickly becomes apparent that something sinister is going on in Sarne. Harris delivers a knuckle-gnawing tale populated with well-developed, albeit edgy characters. A nifty puzzle toward the end will challenge the most jaded mystery buffs.

This is the first book in a new series and it promises great things. Harper is a darker protagonist than Sookie, and the tone of the book is more serious; there is humor, but it's painted with a much lighter brush. Also, while Harper's "power" is certainly fantastic, the novel otherwise is entirely grounded in reality. The characters seem so real, it's hard to believe they were just invented for this book. This new series is a winner.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
By Susskind Patrick

Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: this is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets as a new-born child, but grows up in an orphanage to discover he has an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Soon, he is obsessively creating the most sublime fragrances in Paris. Yet there is one odour he cannot capture. It is exquisite, magical - the scent of a young virgin. And to get it, he must kill. And kill. And kill.

A novel both horrid and repelent, it draws you in with it's imagery. Perfume relates the fascinating and horrifying tale of a person as gifted as he was abominable. Born without a smell of his own but endowed with an extraordinary sense of smell, Grenouille becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. With brilliant narrative skill Susskind exposes the dark underside of the society through which Grenouille moves and explores the disquieting inner universe of this singularly possessed man.

The film is a visual feast - luscious and erotic, cruel and fascinating. You do need to have read the novel to truly appreciate the film and understand it's dark themes fully.

Lottie
By Reg Egan

When Ethel Griggs dies suddenly in the Victorian country town of Omeo in January 1928, rumours about her husband's blatant affair with 20- year-old Lottie are rife. Police order Ethel's body to be exhumed and Ethel is found to have died from arsenic poisoning. Her husband, Rev. Ron Griggs, is charged with the murder.

This was a BRA book club choice. I wouldn't normally pick up this kind of book but I did enjoy it. It's a fictionalised version of a true story. What a cold fish Ron Griggs is - a horrid little man with grandious ideas of his importance in the world. I felt great pity for Ethel and cheered her journey of self-discovery and mourned her return to Ron and her death. A good, reasonably quick read.