9th Mar 2020 – White Tulip

PUBLISHERS BLURB

The papers want blood.

The force wants results.

The law must be served, whatever the cost.

July 1973. The Glasgow drugs trade is booming and Bobby March, the city’s own rock-star hero, has just overdosed in a central hotel.

Alice Kelly is thirteen years old, lonely and missing.

Meanwhile the niece of McCoy’s boss has fallen in with a bad crowd and when she goes AWOL, McCoy is asked – off the books – to find her. McCoy has a hunch.

But does he have enough time?

MY REVIEW

#3 in the DI Harry McCoy series, but it can be read as a stand-alone.

Set in 1703’s Glasgow, a violent time full of drugs, alcohol and some really nasty people, and that’s just the police!

Young Alice Kelly has gone missing and it’s a race against time to find her.

But, McCoy is assigned to a different case as his acting boss wants the glory of the Kelly case.

So McCoy is sent to investigate the Bobby March case. Bobby, a well known rock star (he could have been one of the Rolling Stones you know!) has been found dead with a needle in his arm…..so OD ?

McCoy is also asked by his actual boss, Murray to find his niece, Laura, as she has run away from home again. He wants this done on the quiet and McCoy wonders why?

This brings to life the reality of inner city poverty, the violence of gangs, the drugs, alcohol, music and even the IRA in the 70’s.

I can’t say much more for fear of spoiling this amazing tale. It will drag you through the grim world of the dark side of Glasgow, with its truly great characters, good and downright evil, and a complex plot. This is Noir with a capital N, it’s gritty, violent and downright grim at times, but it’s thoroughly engrossing from the first page to the last.

Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour, for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.

You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/2wL4swv

About the Author

Alan Parks has worked in the music industry for over twenty years. His debut novel Bloody January was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He lives and works in Glasgow, and is available for press and events.

Will appeal to fans of Ian Rankin, Denise Mina, Peter May, William McIlvanney and Val McDermid, as well as TV series such as Idris Elba’s Luther

Publication date: 30 January 2020

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

PUBLISHERS BLURB

Hamburg state prosecutor Chastity Riley investigates a series of arson attacks on cars across the city, which leads her to a startling and life-threatening discovery involving criminal gangs and a very illicit love story…

Night after night, cars are set alight across the German city of Hamburg, with no obvious pattern, no explanation and no suspect.

Until, one night, on Mexico Street, a ghetto of high-rise blocks in the north of the city, a Fiat is torched. Only this car isn’t empty. The body of Nouri Saroukhan – prodigal son of the Bremen clan – is soon discovered, and the case becomes a homicide.

Public prosecutor Chastity Riley is handed the investigation, which takes her deep into a criminal underground that snakes beneath the whole of Germany. And as details of Nouri’s background, including an illicit relationship with the mysterious Aliza, emerge, it becomes clear that these are not random attacks, and there are more on the cards…

MY REVIEW

Hamburg is having a spate of car burnings, inconvenient but nothing more, until the body of Nouri Saroukhan is found in one. He was a member of a notorious crime family, but they claim to have disowned him. Did this have anything to do with his relationship with Aliza, a woman from an opposing family…?

This is where Chastity Riley begins the investigation, accompanied by Stepanovic they see the worst and scariest of people as they try to get to the truth.

Chastity is a fantastic character, she’s heartbroken, not sleeping, constantly smoking and drinking and says exactly what she thinks. Tough on the outside but soft inside, which is why she’s a bit of a mess. But when it comes to work, she is solid.

This is noir at its darkest, it deals with fear, of brutality and violence, organised crime, immigration and corruption. There is also humour, a love story (very Romeo and Juliet) and a little romance too.

This really is a unique crime thriller in that the language used is almost poetic, it draws you in and won’t let go. It has a fantastic style of writing that gives a modern day setting the feel of a classic noir. Original, stylish, fascinating and totally gripping from start to finish.

Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour, for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.

You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3cEx7ny

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

PRAISE FOR SIMONE BUCHHOLZ

‘This is a punk-rock album translated into a hard-bitten tale of low-life scum and a lone officer. Fierce enough to stab the heart’

Spectator on Blue Night

‘Lyrical and pithy’

The Sunday Times Crime Club on Blue Night

‘Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-is sense of time and space … a palpable hit’

Barry Forshaw, Financial Times