Mo Hayder anyone?

[MonkeyTennis34]

I bumped into an old teacher friend who was raving about MH.

She said they are extremely grisly but really good page turners.

The only crime I've read is Robert Galbraith!

She is good, riveting even. But The Treatment has a storyline that's just horrifying and after reading Poppet, I swore I'd never use that word as a term of endearment ever again! Very sadly, and as I'm sure your friend told you, Mo Hayder died not so long ago. She was only 59 and had MND.

Her books are great but DARK.

There is a scene in Tokyo which has never left my brain. And The Treatment definitely needs a trigger warning

Fantastic books. But very dark.

Sadly she died in 2021.

Just recently I read her biography on Wikipedia. She had a surprising other life when younger and she played Mr Rumbold's "sexy" secretary in Our You Being Served? If you're old enough to know what I'm on about...

I was a reader of hers and they are compelling books but I stopped after The Treatment. If you're a parent I wouldn't advise reading it OP. Really disturbing. If you want to read crime fiction there is loads more good stuff out there.

I am sorry to read that she's died though and of such a savage illness. And I didn't know about her Are You Being Served past! I do remember that secretary. Will look on Youtube.

Hmm....maybe I'll give her a miss.

Any ideas for another good crime series??

Not Ian Rankin. Read the first one, Noughts and Crosses....it was ok.

Val McDermid's Karen Pirie series carries emotional weight without overwhelming you with horror and she depicts Edinburgh beautifully. (I've read one or two of her Jordan and Hill books - they were a bit much for me. But if you liked the Wire in the Blood TV series, go for it because the writing's powerful.) She's also very good on standalones. I thought A Place of Execution was brilliant but - there's very often a but with crime fiction - it draws on the Moors Murders to an extent. CJ Sansom wrote some of the best historical crime fiction ever. It's set during the Tudor period and there are some scenes that are terribly cruel - Sansom doesn't flatter the powerful with whitewashes. Peter James writes the Roy Grace series set in Brighton (I don't know the city at all, but it comes over really well for me in his books.) If Galbraith has won you over to London as a location, Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan series might appeal. One upside is Maeve's DI, a man so much out of the Gene Hunt (Life on Mars) playbook I want to drag him into a stationery cupboard every time I see him on the page.😁 A downside is a depiction of DV that's so appalling it could trigger a rhino. I've never been there mercifully, but it's so graphic and immediate it's like watching it happen to a loved one and not being able to help her.

She was a great great friend of mine totally lovely the first time I went to her house she had a lot of her books in the garage which she gave me. Jeez I slept with the light on for weeks just the unbelievable dark side of writing The Treatment was stuff of nightmares. Much sadly missed ❤️

Mo Hayder probably isn't the best place to start if you're venturing into crime novels. Ann Cleeves may be more suitable. If you've watched Vera or Shetland you'll be familiar with her work. Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne series is another. If you'd consider something more international then Yrsa Sigurdardottir is an Icelandic writer whose first series centres around a solicitor.

Oh I am so envious that you knew her. I loved her books so much and re-read them several times. Yes, they were macabre, but elegantly so.

Several of the scenes she wrote have stayed in my mind ever since. And DI Jack Caffrey.....yes please (he could only ever be played by Aiden Turner).

She was a fabulous human being so talented so funny and beautiful inside and out

I stopped ready Mo due to the gruesomeness of the books. I much prefer the Dr Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths.