A merciless killer on the street of Southampton, a vengeful killer hiring assassins. DI Helen Grace faces two adversaries at once!
Cat and Mouse is the 11th book in the Helen Grace series but it is the first that I have read. There is an aspect of the plot which I assume relates to a previous book but it works as a stand alone novel.
The plot develops at a fast pace combined with short chapters so I sped through the pages, eager to find out what would happen next! There are two separate plot strands linked by the lead detective Helen Grace. She has an old enemy who has eluded capture and she needs to be constantly vigilant as an attack could happen at any time. Professionally, she is dealing with a series of brutal murders that seem to have no connection except for the manner of death.
Helen also has a big issue with her boss who wants her out. She has the support of her team, especially her sergeant Charlie who is also a close personal friend. But Charlie has her own relationship issues playing on her mind and in the second half of the book her loyalties are divided between her friend and her career.
I really enjoyed this book and loved the twists as the investigation progresses. The murders are shocking and the emotional response of the grieving relatives makes us root for Helen and her team. I also really liked seeing Helen’s enemies’ perspective, and knowing the danger she was in gave a great tension and anticipation.
Cat and Mouse is a fabulous police thriller and I need to read the other books in the series as I love Helen’s character.
CAT AND MOUSE
The new DI Helen Grace thriller
By M.J. Arlidge
Published in hardback on 9th June 2022 by Orion Fiction, priced £12.99
THE LATEST COMPULSIVE AND GRIPPING DI HELEN GRACE THRILLER BY THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER MJ ARLIDGE
When you think you’re safe, When you think you’re all alone, That’s when he’ll come for you…
A silent killer stalks the city, targeting those home alone at night – killing without pity or remorse.
As panic spreads, Detective Inspector Helen Grace leads the investigation, but is herself a hunted woman, her every step dogged by a ruthless killer bent on revenge.
As she tracks the murderer, Grace begins to suspect there is a truly shocking home truth that connects these brutal crimes…
Check the windows, lock the doors – this is a twisted page-turner that will prey on your darkest fears, in the way only M.J. Arlidge can.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew (MJ) Arlidge has worked in television for the last twenty years, specialising in high-end drama production, including prime-time crime serials Silent Witness, Torn, The Little House and, most recently, the hit TV show Innocent. His debut thriller, Eeny Meeny, was the UK’s bestselling crime debut of 2014 and has been followed by nine more DI Helen Grace bestsellers including the latest, All Fall Down. In 2015, his audiobook exclusive Six Degrees of Assassination was a number-one bestseller.
The 10th book in the Calladine and Bayliss series, Dead Wicked sees the two lead detectives re-evaluating their personal and professional lives. Calladine has been acting DCI but doesn’t want to be stuck behind a desk so requests to return to his usual role. Bayliss’s partner walks out on her and their son but she instantly starts up a relationship with new member of the forensic team.
The case is nasty: drugs, murder, blackmail and ransomware. One of the main suspects is newly released from prison after a crime involving Calladine’s cousin. The new murders are in the same method as the old case. Can Calladine stop the killer before his own mother becomes the next victim…?
Calladine and Bayliss are very human and their personal issues bring a relatable and natural tone to the book. The arrival of a new DCI, Greco from one of Durrant’s other series, brings a new professional dynamic to the police team.
The murders are grisly and the computer hacking makes the book bang up to date. I have only read Dead Guilty (book 9 in the series) so am unsure if the historic crimes are ones that have been dealt with in earlier books.
I absolutely loved this book until the final chapter and epilogue which I felt needed a little more exploration of the motive and interrogation of the killer, but this didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment. It was a quick read as I literally couldn’t put it down! The action was fast paced, the momentum kept up with the short chapters and I was completely engrossed in the plot. I can’t wait for more of this series!
DEAD WICKED (Calladine & Bayliss #10) by Helen H Durrant
Looking for a brilliant best-selling crime mystery with great detectives?
DETECTIVES CALLADINE AND BAYLISS HUNT FOR A VICIOUS KILLER
The first victim is found on waste ground. His tongue has been cut out and stuffed down his throat.
Then another body is found dumped in a lake up in the hills. The same gruesome murder method is used.
And guess who the detectives’ new boss is? The incredibly difficult Stephen Greco.
A TWISTED KILLER . . . AND A WICKED TWIST
Meanwhile Ruth Bayliss’s personal life is falling part and someone is targeting local businesses with ransomware.
The prime suspect is a criminal Calladine thought he’d seen the last of.
WHO’S THE SERIAL KILLER AND WHO’S NEXT ON THE LIST?
Discover an absolutely unputdownable crime thriller from a best-selling author.
IN AN ENDING WITH A MASSIVE TWIST, THE DETECTIVES FIND EVERYTHING THEY BELIEVED IS WRONG.
If you like Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, Mel Sherratt, Ruth Rendell, or Mark Billingham you will enjoy this exciting new crime fiction writer.
DEAD WICKED is book ten of a new series of detective thrillers featuring D.S. Ruth Bayliss and D.I. Tom Calladine.
What readers are saying about the series
“I read it in one sitting.” Aileen
“This books has lots of twists and turns throughout and with a cracking ending to this brilliant book.” Nessa
“Really enjoyed this book.” Nerys
“Kept me guessing till the end.” Anna Maria
“I finished it in twenty-four hours and enjoyed every page.” Joan
THE DETECTIVES
Tom Calladine is a detective inspector who is devoted to his job. His personal life, however, is not so successful. Having been married and divorced before the age of twenty-one has set a pattern that he finds difficult to escape.
Ruth Bayliss is in her mid-thirties, plain-speaking but loyal. She is balancing her professional life with looking after a small child.
THE SETTING
The fictional village of Leesdon is on the outskirts of an industrial northern English city. There is little work and a lot of crime. The bane of Calladine’s life is the Hobfield housing estate, breeding ground to all that is wrong with the area that he calls home.
HELEN H. DURRANT
OVER 1 MILLION BOOKS SOLD!
Helen is one of the ‘baby boomer’ generation and began writing when she retired from her job at a local college. Born in Edinburgh to an English father and Scottish the family settled in a Pennine village between the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. It is an environment which has shaped her stories. Writing is a second career and, despite having a bus pass, keeps her busy, and tuned in.
A new case for DC Beth Young and her colleagues. A man is found alive but with devastating injuries. James Sinclair is a quiet man who stays in the background so why has he been attacked? Next, two bodies belonging to hgang members are pulled from the river with gruesome damage to their heads. Can there be a link?
We see the perspective of the Sculptor who has been given a contract to attack 3 people. The police uncover secret emails from James Sinclair to two other people but can they reach them before the Sculptor does…?
Meanwhile, the personal side of the police are brought out in Fear In the Lakes. Beth has discovered the identity of one of the men responsible for her facial injuries that have left a significant scar. A misognistic temporary cop joins the team while Thompson struggles following the death of his wife from Alzheimers.
Graham Smith’s third book in this series is just as good as the previous two. The cruelty that one human can inflict on another is graphically described but from a forensic point of view. This allows the reader to have revulsion for the end result whilst not reading the attack as it occurs so there is a slight detachment.
Some chapters are written from the perspective of the Sculptor so we can get a sense of anticipation as the next victim is hunted. Meanwhile, the personal side to the police officers makes them more human and the continuing narrative about Beth’s face injury unites this with other books in the series.
In summary: brilliant plot, great characters, can’t wait for the next in the series!
A case with no leads. A victim with no enemies. A killer with no conscience…
When Detective Beth Young is called to investigate a victim with multiple broken bones, nothing prepares her for what she finds. James Sinclair is fighting for his life, and Beth can’t shake the idea that the nature of his injuries suggest someone with a personal grudge against him.
But James’s devastated wife Laura insists that her kind, softly-spoken husband is a man with no enemies. She was the one with the fiery temper, but James was so calm, she’d never once managed to provoke even a cross word from him in their eight year marriage. And he was the same with everyone – she can’t name one person who might want to hurt him.
But she knows virtually no details about her husband’s childhood or his life before he moved to the Lake District as a young man, and Beth feels sure that the key to finding James’s attacker is hidden in the secrets of his past. Who was he really? And what is the significance of the coded messages that Beth finds hidden on his laptop?
Then two more bodies are found in one of the deep, picturesque lakes that the area is so famous for, exhibiting similar injuries to the ones James Sinclair suffered. How are they connected? And how many more people are at risk?
Beth knows she is in a race against time to hunt a vicious killer who is both elusive and incredibly dangerous. A killer who knows what James did in the past. Who likes to be one step ahead. But who – if they realise they’re being hunted – might come for Beth next…
Author Bio:
Graham Smith is the bestselling author of four explosive crime thrillers in the Jake Boulder series, Watching the Bodies, The Kindred Killers, Past Echoes and Die Cold. Watching the Bodies spent over two weeks at number one in the Amazon UK chart and Amazon CA charts. Graham is also the author of the popular DI Harry Evans series and has collections of short stories and novellas. His latest novels with Bookouture are set in Cumbria and the Lake District, featuring DC Beth Young.
He is the proud father of a young son. As a time served joiner he has built bridges, houses, dug drains and slated roofs to make ends meet. Since 2000 he has been manager of a busy hotel and wedding venue near Gretna Green, Scotland.
An avid fan of crime fiction since being given one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books at the age of eight, he has also been a regular reviewer for the well-respected review site Crimesquad.com since 2010.
When not working, his time is spent reading, writing and playing games with his son. He enjoys socialising and spending time with friends and family.
Dead Guilty is the first Calladine and Bayliss book that I have read but I have read one of Helen H. Durrant’s books from another series previously (Next Victim). There were several points in the book that refers to events in the preceeding books and this frustrated me a little as I wanted more detail (time to go and read those other books!)
A child is abducted. Calladine’s own home is broken into. Vigilantes walk the streets. Drugs are being distributed.
How are these crimes linked?
This is the challenge that the police are challenged with solving. At first they seem to be separate events but as more evidence for each case presents itself, the police realise that they are closely linked. The next problem is that high up in the police hierarchy is someone who doesn’t want the answers found…
In this book we see a lot more of Calladine than we do of Bayliss. His personality shines through the book as we see the end of his romantic relationship, the announcement that he is to be a grandfather, and his interactions with both criminals and their victims. The drugs crimes feel personal as they take place in his neighbourhood.
This is a very good police procedure novel and it is easy to get drawn into the emotions of Calladine as he struggles to uncover the truth in light of obstacles including obstruction from his own superiors.
DEAD GUILTY (Calladine & Bayliss #9) by Helen Durrant
Looking for a brilliant best-selling crime mystery with great detectives?
Detective Calladine and Bayliss hunt for a missing child in a mystery with a shocking ending.
Sophie Alder is the three-year-old daughter of local factory owner, Richard Alder. Richard and his wife Annie are locals from the rough housing estate who’ve made it big.
Plus, there’s a crime wave in Leesworth and the police can’t cope. One thief even dares to break into Calladine’s house.
A number of local men have formed a vigilante group. On one of their patrols they catch the burglar and he ends up dead.
The investigation is complicated and the detectives keep hearing about a shadowy figure called “Street,” the mastermind behind the increase in drugs and theft.
With two more murders and Calladine’s personal life in turmoil, the detectives face against time to find “Street” and the missing child.
In an ending with a huge twist, the detectives find everything they believed is turned upside down.
If you like Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, Mel Sherratt, Ruth Rendell, or Mark Billingham you will enjoy this exciting new crime fiction writer.
DEAD GUILTY is book nine of a new series of detective thrillers featuring D.S. Ruth Bayliss and D.I. Tom Calladine.
THE DETECTIVES
Tom Calladine is a detective inspector who is devoted to his job. His personal life, however, is not so successful. Having been married and divorced before the age of twenty-one has set a pattern that he finds difficult to escape.
Ruth Bayliss is in her mid-thirties, plain-speaking but loyal. She is balancing her professional life with looking after a small child.
THE SETTING
The fictional village of Leesdon on the outskirts of an industrial northern English city. There is little work and a lot of crime. The bane of Calladine’s life is the Hobfield housing estate, breeding ground to all that is wrong with the area that he calls home.
DISCOVER YOUR NEXT FAVOURITE MYSTERY SERIES NOW
THE CALLADINE & BAYLISS MYSTERY SERIES
Book 1: DEAD WRONG
Book 2: DEAD SILENT
Book 3: DEAD LIST
Book 4: DEAD LOST
Book 5: DEAD & BURIED
Book 6: DEAD NASTY
Book 7: DEAD JEALOUS
Book 8: DEAD BAD
Book 9: DEAD GUILTY
THE DCI GRECO BOOKSBook 1: DARK MURDER
Book 2: DARK HOUSES
Book 3: DARK TRADE
Book 4: DARK ANGEL
MATT BRINDLE
Book 1: HIS THIRD VICTIM
Book 2: THE OTHER VICTIM
HELEN H. DURRANT
OVER 750,000 books sold of her Calladine & Bayliss and DI Greco Series
I’m one of the ‘baby boomer’ generation. I was born in Edinburgh to an English father and Scottish mother. My father was from the North West of England and this was where the family settled.
I know the area well, both the good and the bad, and so I set my books here. Sitting between two counties, Lancashire and Yorkshire, and between the city and the hills, it offers a rich mix of the industrial and the countryside and all the character therein. I always planned to write crime novels — to create the characters in my books. Since my retirement from a busy teaching job in FE, this is what I’ve done — almost to exclusion of anything else!
I have a grown-up family and five grandchildren. They see me as something of an eccentric — always on my laptop writing away. Writing is something of a second career and, despite having a bus pass, keeps me busy, young and tuned in the world as it currently is.
I described Graham Smith’s previous book The Silent Dead as exquisite and this sequel does not disappoint at all!
We pick up a new case for DC Beth Young and her colleagues when a woman is found murdered and violated. The team quickly establish a link with 3 previous murders that had not been solved.
However, the perpetrator has gone to great lengths to incriminate the mayor in this latest murder. Derek Forster is a man who is charming and powerful and Beth is convinced that he must have made some dangerous enemies. She grows close to him as he offers to set up a charity to support rape victims.
As well as the police procedure and the mayor’s viewpoint, we also see the perspectives of the killer and his next victim which makes both sides of the plot more human and ramps up the anticipation.
There is a big twist at the end, just as the team think the case is concluded but I won’t give away details and spoil the surprise!
I really enjoyed this book. It wasn’t as graphic as the last book although the clinical detail of the injuries is unpleaseant but, as with the previous book, it is factual rather than gratuitous.
Beth continues to develop as a police officer and negotiate her relationships with her senior colleagues. She is a fab character, passionate and dedicated. She is also driven to find the men who injured her with a bottle and destroyed her modelling career. In this book she finds one of them…
The woman’s limbs were so thin; the skin on her arms as translucent as tracing paper. Around her neck lay a faint string of purple bruises. In one so frail, darker, angrier marks might be expected but Beth knew the bruising would have stopped the moment her heart stopped beating.
When a walker finds the body of a woman by the shores of Lake Ullswater, the police are put on high alert. Felicia Evans was known to be a tough character, but who would have strangled her?
Detective Beth Young quickly spots the links to three cold cases. Three women strangled and discarded in the stunning, wild hills of the Lake District.
As Beth begins tracking down witnesses, the team receives an anonymous letter claiming the charming mayor of Carlisle is behind the murders. There’s pressure from the top to clear his name. But Beth is determined to find the truth no matter whose feathers she ruffles in the process.
Beth knows the clock is ticking. The killer is hunting again. And it’s down toher to find who’s responsible before another woman becomes his prey…
A gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller from bestselling author Graham Smith, perfect for fans of Joy Ellis, LJ Ross, and J.R. Ellis.
Author Bio:
Graham Smith is the bestselling author of four explosive crime thrillers in the Jake Boulder series, Watching the Bodies, The Kindred Killers, Past Echoes and Die Cold. Watching the Bodies spent over two weeks at number one in the Amazon UK chart and Amazon CA charts. Graham is also the author of the popular DI Harry Evans series and has collections of short stories and novellas. His latest novel with Bookouture is set in Cumbria and the Lake District, featuring DC Beth Young.
He is the proud father of a young son. As a time served joiner he has built bridges, houses, dug drains and slated roofs to make ends meet. Since 2000 he has been manager of a busy hotel and wedding venue near Gretna Green, Scotland.
An avid fan of crime fiction since being given one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books at the age of eight, he has also been a regular reviewer for the well-respected review site Crimesquad.com since 2010.
When not working, his time is spent reading, writing and playing games with his son. He enjoys socialising and spending time with friends and family.
