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Neil Lancaster is a former Military Police officer and Metropolitan Police detective, and so, as a writer of police procedurals myself, I was excited to read something by somebody who really knows what he is talking about!
Dead Man's Grave is the first in a new series starring DS Max Cragie, a former Metropolitan Police detective who relocates from London to Scotland, after an armed operation goes wrong.
The book starts with the discovery of a grave by the head of one of Scotland's most notorious crime families, inscribed with the ominous words 'This Grave Can Never Be Opened' . The murder of the crime boss uncovers a blood feud dating back to the 1890s and leads to the unmasking of a corruption conspiracy at the heart of Police Scotland.

As you'd expect from a man with Lancaster's experience, the book is packed with authentic police procedure, but more importantly, it's a damned good read! The plot is complex, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. Several times throughout the book, the story seems to be heading for a conclusion, but Lancaster throws in a sudden swerve that takes the story off in a different direction, until it finally reaches an explosive and satisfying conclusion. 
From the outset, the characters leap off the page; from Cragie's gloriously foul-mouthed boss DI Ross Fraser, to the sparky DC Janie Calder, they are all expertly realised. Cragie and Calder make for a compelling duo, with just enough revealed about their backstory to hint that the series has legs.


In the interests of disclosure, Neil and I share the same publisher, which in part is how I obtained this advanced reader's copy. But as I have always   made clear, books only appear on this blog if I have genuinely enjoyed them and think others will also.
So I have no hesitation in making this a #RecommendedRead.


Dead Man's Grave is available for pre-order from HQ Stories, and is published in July 2021. 

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Today's #RecommendedRead is something a little different for me. Having read a number of police procedurals and thrillers over the past few weeks, I was looking for something with a different pace and less structure, and so I jumped at the chance to read a copy of Caroline England's domestic psychological thriller.


I will say from the outset, that this is a masterclass in slow-burn plotting.
The protagonist of the book is Ellie, a mother of three living in suburban Greater Manchester. All we know, when the book opens is that something happened almost twenty years previously during a stoned game of truth or dare in a student house in Leeds...
Ellie's story slowly unfolds in the present day as events in her somewhat humdrum domestic existence are interspersed with hidden memories of a confusing childhood, flashbacks to her traumatic student days and muddled night terrors.
Her relationships with her parents, her partner, and the collection of friends and former flatmates that remain part of her social circle are all re-examined. The description of modern family life is rendered expertly, with a forensic eye for detail; everything feels plausible and somehow grounded.
But the real skill in this book is the way in which tiny clues are seeded throughout the book. What really happened back then? What is really happening today? With this sort of slowly unfolding story, the reader has time to think about what they suspect really took place and try to second guess what the next revelation will be, or the real explanation behind strange events - yet time and time again, England confounded my predictions.
​The truth when it is finally revealed is shocking, yet all the evidence was there and it all adds up. The final denouement is fiendish.


This was my first Caroline England novel, but reading through the comments from other authors, I can see why she is so highly regarded.
I highly recommend this.