Shotsmag

Written by Mike Ripley Ripster Revivals #25 RIPSTER REVIVALS #25 Yet another mash-up of musings on crime fiction ancient and modern. Think of it partly as the ramblings of someone who has read more thrillers than he needed to, some so you don’t have to, and some you should look forward to.

Thomas and Mercer publishing have released two remarkable novels this January that are difficult to pigeon-hole. These two novels were not crime fiction per se, nor horror fiction per se but they were page turners that combined elements of both genres that kept me up way past my bedtime. They also provoked deep introspection. So what were these two books?

Written by John Parker Few contemporary crime writers have blended noir, horror and literary fiction as successfully as John Connolly. Born in Dublin in 1968, Connolly first worked as a journalist for The Irish Times before turning to fiction, and he quickly established himself as one of the most distinctive voices in modern crime writing. His debut novel, Every Dead Thing, introduced readers to private investigator Charlie Parker.

Written by Dean Koontz Home Book Reviews Features Interviews News Columns Authors Blog About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy | Contact Shots Editor

This is a novel that when concluded leaves the reader bereft, but enriched by the themes, characters and insight it reveals. The novel is one that unravels slowly, but provokes such deep thought, I found myself annotating it as I read – marking paragraphs for re-examination and future reflection. Though released in Hardcover, Ebook and Audiobook formats in September 2025, it will be available in mass-market paperback in September 2026.

With the incredibly hot weather enveloping Europe, I was kept cool by this immersive historical narrative based around the icy grip of a Finnish winter in 1939. Meticulously researched, it tells the true story of how the small country of Finland newly independent from Soviet Russia, fought valiantly against Stalin’s vast hordes when they invaded to reclaim their former territory. World War Two commenced when Hitler and his forces of Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.

Written by Mike Stotter cshVUHhvdifs[b0h Home Book Reviews Features Interviews News Columns Authors Blog About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy | Contact Shots Editor

This debut novel by the enigmatic Erlendur Arason is the first Icelandic crime thriller of the "Reykjavík Shadows" series. It features the likeably naive Torfi Pall Saeversson, a supervisor at the Bristol Hotel [in downtown Reykjavík] who finds himself accidentally at the centre of a murder that may prove to conceal other horrors.

Cavanagh’s latest chapter in the life of former con-artist turned defense attorney Eddie Flynn is a violently disturbing thriller built around a New York Courtroom. It also provokes deep contemplation into how extreme wealth coupled to a lust for power becomes deadly in a capitalist society. It is of little surprise that the author is an experienced trial lawyer with a robust sense of humour and proportion.

October 1962. Fred Otash is freewheeling around Los Angeles. Once a police Officer, latterly ‘Private Eye to the Stars’, Otash finds himself back on the side of the Angels, if you can say that about law enforcement in Ellroy’s work, as he assigned with the LAPD on an investigation into communist influence in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course, in Ellroy’s fiction every action has multiple hidden motivations.