TRIGGER WARNING: this book deals with domestic abuse and child murder
A truly shocking case for DS Maddie Ives as a woman is found dead and a man claims responsibility but she has her doubts about the truthfulness of his confession. Meanwhile others are psychologically tortured to coerce them into getting secret police and social worker documents: abuse victims that have been rehomed for their safety but are now back in danger…
The professional working relationships of the police are fraught due to events in the last book (there are spoilers so beware!) Maddie has gone from one secret romance to another whilst having an antagonistic relationship with her new boss.
I’ll admit that The Deadly Houses was a difficult book to enjoy due to the disturbing nature and intensity of the case. It is incredibly well written and I felt myself completely sucked into the plot and emotionally connected with the characters and the terrible circumstances they face.
The action is fast paced and relentlessly good. There is a mystery at the beginning as to why such awful things are happening and who is responsible. The drama is intense and believable, with terrible dilemmas that the characters face which make us as readers question what we would do in their place. The final chapters are truly horrific and devastating to read but utterly brilliant.
Overall, The Deadly Houses is an excellently dark and gritty police thriller.
Deadly Houses (Maddie Ives #6) by Charlie Gallagher
Discover the hottest crime thriller this summer.
THEY LOST THEIR FAMILIES, NOW THEY’RE COMING FOR YOURS
Four brutal men destroyed their own families. And they will do anything to get them back.
Detective Maddie Ives won’t let that happen.
She works with the people who will keep them safe. But then the team protecting them begin to be hunted down.
The social worker leading the case is found beaten and suffocated. A man turns himself in claiming to be the killer, but Maddie knows he’s lying.
FEAR WILL MAKE YOU DO THE UNIMAGINABLE
Three more victims are under pressure. If they fail, their families will die.
Detective Maddie Ives faces a heart-pounding race against time to connect the crimes. And she calls in Harry Blaker, still grieving the loss of his own daughter, to help.
YOU’RE NOT EVEN SAFE IN YOUR OWN HOUSE
Perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers, Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, Patricia Gibney or Mark Billingham.
DON’T MISS THE MOST GRIPPING THRILLER YOU’LL READ THIS YEAR!
PRAISE FOR CHARLIE GALLAGHER
“An exceptional thriller with a truly evil antagonist, this is a book that is nigh on impossible to put down.” Lou
“This is a brilliant read.” Billie
“Riveting crime fiction with twists and turns that make this a real page-turner.” Linda
“I haven’t come across such an evil, warped-minded villain for a long, long time.” Sarah
“I think this is the best yet — fantastic read from start to finish.” Nerys
“This is a truly sensational thriller that’s impossible to put down.”
“As the story hurtled towards its devastating denouement, I was caught totally by surprise at what happened.”
THE AUTHOR
Charlie Gallagher has been a serving UK police officer for more than ten years. During that time he has had many roles, starting as a front-line response officer, then a member of a specialist tactical team and is currently a detective investigating serious offences.
Emily and Max head off on a romantic retreat, trying to put the spark back into their relationship. Things have been tough for the couple with accusations of infidelity amid family bereavements. But it soon becomes clear that someone has followed them to the boat house and they could be in danger…
The Boat House is a psychological thriller set in the UK. The book is set in the present day as well as a past timeline which shows the lead up to the trip and the issues within the relationship.
Emily and Max are clinging on to their relationship despite a troubled few months. Emily has suffered two bereavements and has been worried about Max’s friendship with Leah. She has her own guilt about a friendship with, and attraction to, a hospice volunteer who she met while visiting her dying father.
Most of the book is written in the present day as Emily and Max try to make the most of their time away to reconnect. However, a series of sinister events make the couple uneasy and they begin to fear for their safety. In the back of my mind, I had Emily’s frantic emergency services phone call from the prologue so I didn’t know who to trust.
There is a rape about halfway through the book and I did guess from the author’s clues that this was one of Emily’s secrets so I don’t feel bad about issuing a trigger warning or risking a spoiler. There is no graphic detail but the aftermath is intense, unpleasant and emotional as Emily adjusts to her new reality.
The Boat House is a tense and dramatic thriller.
The Boat House
A dark secret. A deadly obsession. No place to hide.
Max Hunter, my boyfriend, booked the beautiful boat house on the Norfolk Broads as a surprise autumn break
A week away to heal after a fraught few months following my father’s death. A chance to put the lies and secrets behind us and to start afresh. But in the silence it feels like someone is out there. Watching, waiting and taunting me.
When strange things begin to happen, I know this isn’t going to be the relaxing break it’s supposed to be.
As I become more jumpy, Max’s patience begin to wear thin. He thinks I am imagining things. But he doesn’t know the huge secret I am keeping, so big it could destroy us.
I have every right to be fearful and I have to make sure he never finds out the truth. But what if I am already too late?
Keri Beevis is the internationally bestselling author of several psychological thrillers and romantic suspense mysteries, including the very successful Dying to Tell, published by Bloodhound. She sets many of her books in the county of Norfolk, where she was born and still lives and which provides much of her inspiration.
Nicole organises a retreat for her work colleagues at her beach house in Dorset. The group arrive with a whole heap of secrets they are keeping from each other…
The Beach House is a psychological thriller set in the UK.
Nicole and Audrey host a podcast but it may be on the brink of failing. Nicole invites her team to stay with her in order to work together on ideas to salvage the show. But all of the women have something to hide and the secrets may have devastating consequences.
The beach house is almost an extra character, and certainly creates a claustrophobic tension. This is set up in the opening chapter and straightaway suggests a sinister undertone. There is a past dimension to the book as it features a party which occurred six weeks earlier. We are drip-fed little clues slowly about the women’s secrets. My mind was grasping at trying to figure out the connections and I did manage to work out some but not all of the twists!
I enjoyed the style of writing and the way that the chapters focus on one of the characters or the party. The author stacks up the layers of clues for the reader to guess at the secrets before they are finally revealed. All of the main characters have vulnerabilities and flaws to make them more realistic and rounded while the lack of a first person narrator makes their perspectives equal.
The Beach House is a tense and enjoyable psychological thriller. I have previously read and reviewed Queen Bee by Nina Manning.
The Beach House
It should have been the perfect weekend…
Work colleagues Nicole, Margo, Paisley and Audrey all appear to be looking forward to a weekend away at Nicole’s luxurious beach house on the Dorset coast. It should be a chance for the women to kick back, relax and regroup after a stressful moment at work.
But this is no normal girls’ getaway. And the beach house is no normal home. This place holds dark secrets for Nicole, which threaten to be revealed when its doors are opened.
And unbeknownst to host Nicole, each of the three other guests all have secrets of their own…and some of them could be deadly.
Nina Manning studied psychology and was a restaurant-owner and private chef (including to members of the royal family). She is the founder and co-host of Sniffing The Pages, a book review podcast. Her debut psychological thriller, The Daughter in Law, was a bestseller in the UK, US, Australia and Canada. She lives in Dorset.
You get a link from a friend but once you download the app you are enrolled in a deadly chase. Could you kill a stranger to save your family?
The App is a horror thriller set in the UK.
Remember chain letters when you were a kid? I never completed them but a little bit of me was always a little scared about binning them. This book brings the premise bang up to date. Marty receives a link from a friend and downloads an app. His family are threatened if he doesn’t comply with the rules. He has the chance to win £100,000 every week if he hunts down and kills a random person.
The hunters need to narrate their attacks and this was a great device for showing us the moral dilemma that the hunters feel. Their desire to protect their family and prevent their own deaths is a powerful incentive but the app videos show that some cannot face the challenge and are killed. This in turn encourages others to abide by the rules out of fear.
The plot is not delivered in a linear way and the timeline jumps around a bit to show us various perspectives. We see the victims’ viewpoint too and this increased the tension as they are confused about the multiple attempts on their lives.
I really found this book chilling. The idea is so credible that it makes me fear it could come true. The emotions of the characters are well described and easy to relate to which brought them to life.
It will come in the form of a link. Maybe in your DM’s on a social media account, the junk folder of your emails or a WhatsApp message from a friend.
You’ll be enticed by the chance of winning one hundred thousand pounds on offer every Friday, wired straight into the winner’s bank account.
It’s not a joke.
This part is genuine.
Someone can and will win the money.
But at what cost?
Marty Benson gets the link sent to him by a friend. So what is the harm in looking?
He clicks it, downloads the app and enters a few basic details.
A message prompts him to wait while he’s loaded onto the system.
An hour later, another message.
• Do not delete the app.
Do not tell anyone outside of your family about the app.
Send the link to one person who is close to you.
* Do not throw your phone away.
* Always narrate while streaming.
If you break any of the rules, we’ll kill a member of your family. Then we’ll kill you.
Marty is sent a picture of his wife, who is shopping with her mother in Oxford Street.
As Marty struggles to breathe, he clicks the links and watches the most recent streams, realising what happens within the
app.
Every Friday morning, a person is randomly picked from social media.
They now have a bounty on their head—a death warrant. But they don’t know it.
Their profile appears on the app’s main page; all their details are displayed.
Every app member must play the game at least once a month or face the consequences.
Kill the person randomly selected from social media.
Win one hundred thousand pounds.
As Marty watches the terror unfold and everyone streaming the hunt within the app, he realises he has to do something.
But how do you stop a murder, when everyone could be the killer?
Author Bio
I have always loved scary stories, especially ones that shocked me, left me terrified, looking under my bed or in the wardrobe before going to sleep.
There was just a fantastic buzz whenever I watched or read something that took my breathe away.
I remember going to my nan’s house in Ireland as a youngster with my mother and sister, on the West Coast, staying in a cottage, surrounded by miles of fields and my family sitting around the table in the kitchen at night telling ghost stories. Going out and exploring derelict farmhouses in the middle of nowhere. I remember clearly the field at the end of the road was supposed to be haunted by headless nuns. My cousins often remind me of the great times we had, frightening each other and running for our lives whenever we’d see something that didn’t look right.
This is why I love nothing more than to tell a story.
I’m so grateful when people not only read my thrillers but also take the time to get in touch and leave a review. To me, that is the greatest feeling, hearing from people that have enjoyed my work. I know then that I’m doing something right.
I’m 49, married and have two beautiful children. Currently, I’m a full-time plumber but would love nothing more than to make a living from my writing. I hope I write stories and people continue to enjoy them for years to come. That would be completely amazing and a dream come true.
Nia travels to the Isle of Wight to housesit for her aunt. She moves into a close knit community but notices that the perfect neighbourhood is based on secrets…
Good Neighbours is a psychological thriller set on the Isle of Wight.
The book starts with the creation of a voodoo doll which sets the sinister tone for the plot. Nia’s aunt has had to go abroad suddenly and asked her to housesit. We are introduced to Nia and I felt immediately unsettled by her descriptions of how she behaves and dresses to appease her husband. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was hiding something about her relationship and I was right!
The neighbours all seem very friendly, perhaps TOO friendly, and Nia starts to suspect that there are secrets. Then someone is found dead and the dark undercurrents become more prominent. The supernatural element of the voodoo doll and the religious cult that features add an extra dimension to the plot and the uneasy atmosphere.
I really liked Nia’s character and enjoyed seeing her emerge from her husband’s shadow as the book progressed. She grows in confidence and this allows her to investigate the death of her friend even though she could be putting herself in danger.
Good Neighbours is an entertaining and atmospheric psychological thriller.
Good Neighbours
It was meant to be a safe place to start again…
In need of an escape from her failing marriage, Nia agrees to house-sit her aunt’s cottage on the Isle of Wight. She feels sure the cosy close in a quaint harbour town will be a safe place to hide and figure out what to do next.
But things are not all as they seem in the close, and the neighbours who welcome her with open arms, are keeping secrets. When Nia finds the body of one of her new friends lying on the beach, she feels sickeningly sure that the killer is dangerously near to home.
Who killed her friend and why did she have to die? And if Nia discovers the answers she’s looking for, is she next on their hit list? Good neighbours may become good friends, but they can also make deadly enemies…
Mary Grand is the author of five novels and writes gripping, page-turning suspense,
with a dark and often murderous underside. She grew up in Wales, was for many years
a teacher of deaf children and now lives on the Isle of Wight where her novel,
The House Party, which was published by Boldwood in July 2020, is set.
