The F*ck IT List by John Niven. Blog Tour@Random Things Tours Thanks to Anne for the invite.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF KILL YOUR FRIENDS  AND THE AMATEURS

THE F*CK-IT LIST

JOHN NIVEN

Published by William Heinemann

26th March 2020

Hardback  |  £16.99

‘Gripping, terrifying and hilarious – John Niven is our Hunter S. Thompson.’ ADAM KAY

‘Fucking terrifying and brilliant and gripping and tragic and humane. Frank is a great character – normal and flawed and selfish and decent – and the whole premise of the book is powerful and moving because I belive in Frank! As a read, it becomes progressively more tense until the final pages when I was shouting, JUST KILL HIM! KILL THE FAT ORANGE FUCKER NOW!!!!!! … This should be mandatory reading for every U.S. citizen … Such a well-written book, with such vivid efficient prose, a powerful political plea disguised as a revenge novel. It’s brilliant … I hope everyone in the whole world reads it … It was an honour to read.’ MARIAN KEYES

‘Loved it. A ferocious revenge story which also manages to be sweetly uplifting. A book Donald Trump would call f*cking nasty.’  ROBERT WEBB

‘[The F*ck-it List] took me by surprise – a thriller with humanity as well as tension.’ IAN RANKIN

‘John Niven is a writer of wicked humour and outrageous charm – but he is a profoundly moral writer, too. And while this is a brilliantly observed revenge story, it’s also a terrifyingly unsettling satire of a world just around the corner. Its warnings will stay with me as long as its wit.’ MARINA HYDE

You are dying. Who do you kill? Set in a near-future America, an America that has borne two terms of Trump Presidency and is now in the first term of Donald’s daughter as president, Frank Brill, a retired small-town newspaper editor, lives in a world where the populist policies Trump is currently so keen to pursue have been a reality for some years and are getting even more extreme – an erosion of abortion rights, less and less gun control, xenophobic immigration.

Frank, a good man, has just been given a terminal diagnosis. Rather than compile a bucket list of all the things he’s ever wanted to do in his life, he instead has at the ready his ‘fuck-it list’. Because Frank has had to endure more than his fair share of personal misfortune. And he has the names of those who are to blame for the tragedies that have befallen him.

But eventually, as he becomes more accustomed to dishing out cold revenge and the stakes get higher and higher, and with a rogue county sheriff on his tail, there only remains one name left at the bottom of his fuck-it list.

Frank, a good man, has just been given a terminal diagnosis. Rather than compile a bucket list of all the things he’s ever wanted to do in his life, he instead has at the ready his ‘fuck-it list’. Because Frank has had to endure more than his fair share of personal misfortune. And he has the names of those who are to blame for the tragedies that have befallen him.

But eventually, as he becomes more accustomed to dishing out cold revenge and the stakes get higher and higher, and with a rogue county sheriff on his tail, there only remains one name left at the bottom of his fuck-it list.

MY THOUGHTS:

This was a book I went into not knowing what to expect. I’m glad I did and I was pleasantly surprised! Imagine you being in Frank’s position? You have been given a diagnosis of terminal cancer. What would you do? You would create a bucket list. Right?

Go over Niagra Falls in a barrel, see the Great Wall of China, tour all the states in the USA. etc.

Not in Franks case. He creates a F*ck It List. What that entails is simple . He sets out to find every person who has brought harm to his family and is determined to make them pay! Simple EH? Get them and make them pay. Only them, no need to involve others, just them. This is Frank’s intentions, nice and simple; but not as simple as it sounds.

John has written a fast paced book, full of excitement that will have tearing through the pages at a furious rate. His writing is of a good quality and the prose is crisp, with a believable story. I could see it happening especially in the USA which has Had a few years of the Trump administration. Not only is he on a mission but he has become the hunted. A rogue sheriff called Chops is on his trail. A 5 Star read from me !

• 

John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He is the author of the novella Music from the Big Pink and the novels Kill Your Friends, The Amateurs, The Second Coming, Cold Hands, Straight White Male, The Sunshine Cruise Company, No Good Deed and Kill ‘Em All.

The Gossip’s Choice by Sara Read/ Historical Fiction/Blog Tour@LoveBooksTours./Midwife

It’s All In The Mind by Julie Warren/ @RandomThingsTours/Biography

About The Book:

British popular culture would probably be very different had Larry Stephens not been born. We could now be living in a world without the Carry On films or Monty Python, and we may never have heard of Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers or Spike Milligan.

Stephens’ promising career as a jazz pianist was interrupted by the war, and after serving as an officer with the commandos he moved to London and struck up a friendship with Tony Hancock, becoming the sole writer of his stage material. Hancock introduced him to Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine and together they created The Goon Show, arguably the world’s most influential comedy programme. As one of the main writers throughout its nine-year run, Stephens’ experiences and acquaintances became themes and characters within the show.

For the first time, the life and work of this unsung hero of British comedy has been thoroughly explored. Using unrivalled access to Larry Stephens’ personal archive of letters, photographs and artwork, plus interviews with Stephens’ many notable friends, family members, comrades and colleagues, It’s All In The Mind tells the story of a boy from the Black Country whose short life had an enduring impact.

MY THOUGHTS:

Reasonable biography of Larry Stephens. A man who wrote scripts for The Goons, but was side-lined by Spike Milligan amongst others. Could have done with more detail but a lot of his scripts for the Goons and others he had written have been lost.

This book is told in two main parts. Larry’s young days and his time in the Army during WWII. Though Larry Was involved in using his talents as a musician to entertain his comrades he also saw things in combat that turned him to an introverted person in later life. If in the present he would surely have had treatment for the effects the war had on him.

After the war and back in civilian life Larry, a talented pianist and script-writer was involved in writing scripts for the celebrated Goons and also Tony Hancock amongst others.

Julie has written a biography that not only tells of Larry’s writing but also tells of the infighting between him and the Goons, Spike Milligan in particular.

Julie has also found lost scripts and she also recounts the downturn in Larry’s show business fortunes but also tells of his health problems which were compounded by his war experiences but mostly his dependence on alcohol.

I thought this book was well written and informed me about a person who was a complete mystery to me. It begs the question that if Larry had lived longer would he have been as well known as Milligan, Sellars and Bentine. If you like show-business biographies and are looking for something a bit different this might be the book for you.

THE AUTHOR:
Julie Warren is a virtual assistant specialising in research. She currently lives in Essex and pretends to channel Larry Stephens on Twitter. @lsggbg

Sister by Kjell Ola Dahl# Blog Tour @Orenda Books@Random Things Tours @Anne Cater@Nordic Noir

THE BLURB:

Oslo detective Frølich searches for the mysterious sister of a young female asylum seeker, but when people start to die, everything points to an old case and a series of events that someone will do anything to hide… Suspended from duty, Detective Frølich is working as a private investigator, when his girlfriend’s colleague asks for his help with a female asylum seeker, who the authorities are about to deport. She claims to have a sister in Norway, and fears that returning to her home country will mean instant death. Frølich quickly discovers the whereabouts of the young woman’s sister, but things become increasingly complex when she denies having a sibling, and Frølich is threatened off the case by the police. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that the answers lie in an old investigation, and the mysterious sister, who is now on the run… A dark, chilling and up-to-the-minute Nordic Noir thriller, Sister is also a tense and well-plotted murder mystery with a moving tragedy at its heart, cementing Kjell Ola Dahl as one of the greatest crime writers of our generation

MY THOUGHTS AND REVIEW:

This is my first read Kjell Ola Dahl and book nine in his Oslo detective series, which I read as a standalone. It worked well but now I have eight other books to put on my TBR! Oslo detective Frank Frolich is suspended and noe working as Private Investigator. He is Searching for the sister of a young asylum seeker.  As well as searching  for the young asylum seeker’s sister he finds himself embroiled in several other cases with people throwing money at him……;

and then deciding he can keep the money but drop the case.  Frolich is a pedantic investigator who will not drop a case he has his teeth in.

The further he investigates the more he is puzzled but he is determined to not give up! There was never a dull moment amongst these pages. It was one huge mystery and mess that needed solving and who better to solve that than the mighty Detective Frolich.

Kjell has written a complex and enthralling tale that grabs the reader by his/her throat and will not let them go. Brilliant, highly recommended and something to keep you occupied in this dark times.

THE AUTHOR:

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published eleven novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich. In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. His work has been published in 14 countries, and he lives in Oslo.

 

18 Tiny Deaths by Bruce Goldfarb#Blog Tour@Anne Cater@RandomThingsTours @Forensics@Minatures

‘For most of human history, sudden and unexpected deaths of a suspicious nature, when they were investigated at all, were examined by lay persons without any formal training. People often got away with murder. Modern forensic investigation originates with Frances Glessner Lee – a pivotal figure in police science.’
18 Tiny Deaths is the remarkable story of how one woman changed the face of murder investigation forever.
Born in 1878, Frances Glessner Lee’s world was set to be confined to the domestic sphere. She was never expected to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she was to become known as ‘the mother of forensic science’.

This is her story. Frances Glessner Lee’s mission was simple: she wanted to train detectives to ‘convict the guilty, clear the innocent and find the truth in a nutshell’. This was a time of widespread corruption, amateur sleuthing and bungled cases. With the help of her friend, the pioneering medical examiner George Magrath, Frances set out to revolutionise police investigation.
Her relentless pursuit of justice led her to create ‘The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’, a series of dollhouse-sized crime scene dioramas depicting actual cases in exquisitely minute detail that Lee used to teach homicide investigators.

They were first used in homicide seminars at Harvard Medical School in the 1930s, and then became part of the longest running and still the highest regarded police training seminar in America.

Celebrated the world over by scientists, artists and miniaturists, these macabre scenes helped to establish her legendary reputation as ‘the mother of modern forensics’, influencing people the world over, including Scotland Yard.
Frances wanted justice for all. She became instrumental in elevating murder investigation to a scientific discipline.
MY THOUGHTS AND REVIEW:

This was a book about Frances Glessner Lee a woman I had heard nothing about; but now I’m glad I have discovered her. Frances was in lots of ways a self educated woman who one would think would not be involved in the investigation of crime or forensics.

I fact what struck Frances was how crime was or was not investigated. In her young days the people who were responsible for the investigation of crimes was a throwback from medievil England. This was the person known as the corner They had no training and if there were no eye witnesses people literally got away with murder!

There was a case of a dead baby being moved about through four districts so that four corners could collect their fees. Crime was big business!

Frances put into practise the ” Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’, a series of dollhouse-sized crime scene dioramas depicting actual cases in exquisitely minute detail that Lee used to teach homicide investigators.

She also worked with George Magrath and both were instrumental in setting up the office of Medical Examiner and this coupled with studies set up the field of forensics.

This book was in part a study of crime investigation, also a social history and also a male predjudice against women. Frances was also a woman of means and could have lived quite comfortably, but her strong sense of justice which drove her to strive for justice.

Bruce has written a comprehensive history, not only of the history of forensics but also a strong social history. I enjoyed this and I think you would too.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bruce Goldfarb is the executive assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland, US, where the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are housed. He gives conducted tours of the facility and is also a trained forensic investigator. He began his career as a paramedic before working as a journalist, reporting on medicine, science and health.

He collaborated with Susan Marks – the documentary filmmaker who produced the 2012 film about Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshells titled Of Dolls and Murder.

Frances Glessner Lee with one of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, 1949.
Three-Room Dwelling To enhance the ambiguity of the dioramas, Lee intentionally obscured the faces of most of the victims.
Blue Bedroom A shabby room is the grim locale for one man’s violent death. In the background, the factory where the victim worked.
‘Frances Glessner Lee’s dioramas of death have long been objects of fascination; now Bruce Goldfarb, the man who knows them best, has written a definitive account of how they came to be, and of the compelling, complex woman who created them. This book will beguile anyone with an interest in forensic science or the history of crime investigation.’ – Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession

18 TINY DEATHS THE UNTOLD STORY OF FRANCES GLESSNER LEE & THE INVENTION OF MODERN FORENSICS
BRUCE GOLDFARB ENDEAVOUR £16.99 HARDBACK, INCLUDING 16 PAGES OF COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OUT 2 APRIL
For more information please contact Victoria Scales on victoria.scales@octopusbooks.co.uk / 020 3122 6957 or Hazel O’Brien on hazel.obrien@octopusbooks.co.uk / 020 3122 6174

Rabette Run by NickRippington# Blog Tour@Sarah Hardy Book On The Bright Side Publicity & Promo Twitter: @BOTBSPublicity Facebook: Book On The Bright Side

Book Description:

Alice in Wonderland meets James Bond
EMERSON RABETTE has a phobia about travelling on underground trains, so when he is involved in a car accident his worst nightmare is about to come true.
A middle-aged graphic designer and father of one, Emerson’s entire future depends on him reaching an important business meeting. Without an alternative method of transport, he has to confront his biggest fear.
Things immediately go wrong when Emerson’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder kicks in and his fellow passengers become angry at the way he is acting. Thankfully a young woman called Winter comes to his rescue and agrees to help him reach his destination.
Once on the train, she thinks her job is done. But Emerson can’t help feeling he is being watched by his fellow passengers, including a soldier, a woman in a hat covered with artificial fruit and a man with a purple goatee beard.
Is it just his paranoia kicking in, or are they all out to get him?
And Winter is taken totally by surprise when Emerson takes flight after reading a message scrawled on the train’s interior.
It simply reads: ‘Run Rabette Run’.

MY THOUGHTS:

Emerson Rabette is on his way to a meeting. His company is downsizing and he wonders if he will have a job. Having no car he must confront he worse fear! The London Underground.  This  triggers of his OCD. He leaves home in plenty of time to allow for his “things” Despite taking his medication, which he must cut into three equal pieces. hehas his rituals and without them the voices in his head threaten chaos despite him knowing that this is all a lot of nonsense however he has little control over it. Hence his world is focussed around the three’s. Touching the third lamppost, going in and out of his door three times etc etc.

On his journey he sees the message ” Run Rabette Run!” This triggers off a series of events which takes Emerson on a fantastic journey which sees him involved in events that are beyond his understanding and leads the reader along with him; and what an ad venture we are on!

This is my first read of a novel by Nick and I would certainly read more by him.  His writing has conjured up a fantastic story and is of a standard that only adds to his tale.

The is a book full of humour and pathos and will take you through a full range of emotions. A good read that I would recommend to all who like a fast paced read.

NICK RIPPINGTON is the award-winning author of the Boxer Boys series of gangland crime thrillers.
Based in London, UK, Nick was the last-ever Welsh Sports Editor of the now defunct News of The World, writing his debut release Crossing The Whitewash after being made redundant with just two days notice after Rupert Murdoch closed down Europe’s biggest-selling tabloid in 2011.
On holiday at the time, Nick was never allowed back in the building, investigators sealing off the area with crime scene tape and seizing his computer as they investigated the phone-hacking scandal, something which took place a decade before Nick joined the paper. His greatest fear, however, was that cops would uncover the secrets to his Fantasy Football selections.
Handed the contents of his desk in a black bin bag in a murky car park, deep throat style, Nick was at a crossroads – married just two years earlier and with a wife and 9-month-old baby to support.
With self-publishing booming, he hit on an idea for a UK gangland thriller taking place against the backdrop of the Rugby World Cup and in 2015 produced Crossing The Whitewash, which received an honourable mention in the genre category of the Writers’ Digest self-published eBook awards. Judges described it as “evocative, unique, unfailingly precise and often humorous”.
Follow-up novel Spark Out, a prequel set at the time of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands War, received a Chill With A Book reader award and an IndieBRAG medallion from the prestigious website dedicated to Independent publishers and writers throughout the world. The novel was also awarded best cover of 2017 with Chill With A Book.
The third book in the Boxer Boys series Dying Seconds, a sequel to Crossing The Whitewash, was released in December 2018 and went to the top of the Amazon Contemporary Urban Fiction free charts during a giveaway period of five days. A digital box set, the Boxer Boys Collection, came out in September last year.
Now Nick, 60, is switching direction feeling that, for the moment, the Boxer Boys series has run its course. His latest novel, Rabette Run, will be released in the Spring and Nick says, ‘It is a gritty psychological thriller with twists and turns galore. Think Alice in Wonderland with tanks and guns.’
Married to Liz, When Nick isn’t writing he works as a back bench designer of sports pages on the Daily Star. He has two children – Jemma, 37, and Olivia, 9.

links:
Website: http://www.theripperfile.com
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/buckrippers
Twitter: @nickripp
Instagram: @nickrippingtonauthor
Where to find Nick’s books…
Amazon Author Page in the UK:

Amazon Author Page in the US:

To celebrate Nick’s blog tour my readers can get Rabette Run in digital format for the bargain knockdown price of 99p during the week April 7-14

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rabette-Run

The Forever House by Tim Wagonner Blog Tour@RandomThingsTours @Anne Cater@FlameTreePress

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THE FOREVER HOUSE
Tim Waggoner Publication date: Mar 2020 Publication date: Mar 2020
“Bram Stoker Award-winner Tim Waggoner consistently delivers the goods when it comes to hard-hitting horror fiction, with compelling characters and dangerous horrors at every turn.” – This is Horror This is Horror
The Eldreds, a sinister family who feed on the negative emotions of humans, move to a sleepy cul de sac, where they lure their neighbors to face challenged designed to heighten their darkest emotions. But which will prove more deadly in the end, the Eldred…or the humans?
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched recently in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices
MT THOUGHTS:

This is my first read by Tim and I really enjoyed it! This is my first horror read for a while. It was a slow burn rather than a in your face novel.

A sleepy cul- de -sac with a dark past of its own, a vacant house which was the scene of a horrific murder where a mother kills her whole family and then herself. Can this house hold on to its past or does it require a push?

The empty house is finally sold to a family called the Eldreds. The Eldreds aren’t the sort of folks that anybody would race to send the welcome wagon out to, either. It’s that everything about the Eldreds—from their car , to their names, to the strange inability to actually get a good look at any one of them are so frightfully unusual..

The neighbours are invited to a cookout by the Eldreds and that is where the problems start for everyone.

Tim writing is of a quality that enthrals the reader. What I particularly like is Tim’s bogey man is always just outside your line of vision. Are they real or can the Eldreds tap into your fears.

I would recommend this book to you if you like your horror slow and creepy rather in your face.

THE AUTHOR:

Tim Waggoner Tim Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and since then he’s published over forty novels and five collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. His novels include Like Death, considered a modern classic in the genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He’s written tie-in fiction for Supernatural, Grimm, the X-Files, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, and Transformers, among others, and he’s written novelizations for films such as Kingsman: the Golden Circle and Resident Evil: the Final Chapter. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Journal, Writer’s Workshop of Horror, and Where Nightmares Come From.
In 2017 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, and he’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. His fiction has received numerous Honourable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year, and in 2016, the Horror Writers Association honoured him with the Mentor of the Year Award. In addition to writing, he’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College