Nick Quantrill’s Joe Geraghty Books: The Incredible “Hull”

British author Nick Quantrill opened his PI Joe Geraghty series with the 2010 Broken Dreams, set in Hull, England. Here Geraghty, a former rugby player turned private investigator, becomes involved in a murder and subsequent police investigation that involves the demise of the city’s fishing industry and explores the problem of how Hull can build a new future for itself. A reviewer for thisisUll.com felt that “Quantrill’s passion for this neglected part of East Yorkshire is evident in his writing and reminiscent of Ian Rankin’s love affair with Edinburgh.”

Nick, thanks for joining us at Scene of the Crime. Let’s start out with your connection to Hull, England. How did you come to live there or become interested in it?

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Neil White’s Lancashire Crime Novels: Garret and McGanity on the Job

British author Neil White is a criminal lawyer by day and a crime novelist by night. His books featuring reporter Jack Garrett and girlfriend DC Laura McGanity are set mostly in the Lancashire town of Blackley. White draws on his expertise and experience in the courtroom to provide reality-based fiction that has drawn acclaim from reviewers. The Blackpool Gazette hailed his first novel in the series, Fallen Idols, “a stunning debut.” Second in the series, Lost Souls, has, according to eurocrime.co.uk, “plenty of excitement, character development and tension…this book will make you squirm.” Closer Magazine called that same work “a fast-paced crime novel that will keep you guessing until the very end.”

White has published two further installments in the crime series. The Lancashire Evening Post felt that his third, Last Rites, “teems with menace, and the action builds to a terrific climax.” And White’s latest series addition, Dead Silent, is a “superb, tense, action-filled tale with lots of human interest and totally unputdownable,” according to Bookseller magazine.

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Leighton Gage’s “Irresistible” Chief Inspector Mario Silva

Leighton Gage is the author of the award-winning Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigations, set mostly in Brazil, where Leighton now makes his home. As Leighton notes on his homepage: “Silva has a big job. He’s a Brazilian Federal Cop. In his country there’s no FBI, no DEA, no Secret Service, no DHS, no CBP and most police corporations have no Internal Affairs Department. Mario and his colleagues have to do it all and more. And they do it while traveling a lot. The area of their responsibility is larger than the continental United States.”

The most recent title in the series, Every Bitter Thing, published this month, is “Gage’s gripping fourth mystery to feature quick-witted Chief Insp. Mario Silva,” according to Publishers Weekly. The New York Times called Silva “irresistible,” in its review of the same title. Other books in the series include Dying Gasp, from 2009, Buried Strangers, from 2008, and Blood of the Wicked, from 2007. Leighton’s books have earned praise from many corners. The New York Times found the series “top notch,” Publishers Weekly dubbed the books “intelligent and subtle,” and Booklist called it an “outstanding series,” adding, “Silva just may be South America’s Kurt Wallander.”

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Jackie Collins’s Lucky Santangelo Novels: They Ring True to What’s Going On

Photo by Greg Gorman

Jackie Collins needs little introduction to millions of readers around the globe. Her thirty or so novels of sex and sin have sold millions of copies. But mystery/thriller fans might be surprised to know that this British novelist and former actress (sister of Joan Collins) is also the author of a series of tough get-even novels featuring the Santangelo family, most of which are set in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

The books’ protagonist is plucky, adventuresome Lucky Santangelo, head of a Hollywood studio. Lucky’s tales often feature plots filled with not only steamy sex, but also crime and mystery.

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Yanks in the Glen

A valentine for Ireland.

I lived in the northwest of Ireland the year of the Iranian revolution, listening to the stages of the hostage crisis via BBC radio or reading of it in the Observer that I would hike over the headland to Glencolumbkille to buy on rainy, windswept Sundays. It was actually the book review section I was interested in; hard to ignore the headlines, though.

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