No Name Lane

I was given this book as a gift from a very good friend of mine. Thanks mate because I found it be an absolutely thrilling novel full of twists and turns with really believe able characters (which makes a change?)As result that I have purchased his other novels which are just as good.FILM, TV PRODUCERS DIRECTORS ETC. THIS AUTHORS BOOKS WOULD MAKE GREAT FILM OR TV SERIES.Andrew AustraliaTHANKS MR LINSKEY GREAT BOOK WHEN IS YOUR NEXT ONE COMING OUT.ANDREW AUSTRALIA

I've just found a new favorite author!The story line was original and had lots of plot twists that kept you guessing until the very end. The characters were all well developed and easy to identify with. So much so that I just finished No Name Lane and look forward to the next one in the series just to find out what Ian, Helen and Tom are up too.

I loved this book. Twists and turns and seemingly washed up people. Mr. Linskey put me on a thrill ride and never let go.Great plot, fabulous characters, and a surprising ending. I know Mr. Lindsey is now on my list of authors to follow. He knows how to grab the reader into his story and not let go until "the end."

It took me one huge effort to finish this book to the very end. What is really surprising are the star-filled positive reviews on this mediocre and uninspiring offering. First time I've read a book by Howard Linskey and I'll pass on any of his other books.

Such a good read. Characters were great. Hard to put down. I will be reading more of Howard Linskey. I highly recommend reading.

Great development of characters . A real whodunnit.

Set in the 80's there are some good characters and nice references to a recently forgotten world of journalism and other habits. However I found the story a bit sign posted and lacking an edge to it.

Thank you

Recently I’ve read some raving reviews for Howard Linskey’s latest novel The Chosen Ones, so I decided to start the series from the beginning with No Name Lane. Doesn’t it have a brilliant title? After finishing it, it has left me asking the question: why have I waited this long to read a Howard Linskey novel? I’m definitely going to be catching up with the rest of the series and I think you can probably tell that I quite enjoyed this one.Although it is quite a long book, at nearly five hundred pages, it certainly didn’t feel long and the tension and pace never dropped. In the North East of England a serial killer has been targeting young girls and now they may have struck for the fifth time. A nationwide manhunt is launched to help find the missing girl which DC Ian Bradshaw is investigating, and soon a body is found; but it isn’t the body of the young girl as everyone fears, but a corpse that has been buried there for decades. Is there are link between the two cases or are they entirely separate?The plot moves along at a swift pace. We meet journalist Tom Carney who has recently been cast out of the tabloid newspaper he works for after almost destroying the career of a politician and damaging the newspapers reputation. With his career potentially in tatters he links up with Helen Norton who took his position at the previous newspaper he worked for. He isn’t going to let what has recently befallen him bring him down; he is out there chasing down the next story which he can hopefully bring to his boss which in turn will reinstate his career.Tom and Helen were two characters who I really liked. Helen and Tom both work for very different newspapers; Helen is a journalist for her local newspaper and Tom a major newspaper in London. I thought it would be interesting to see if their personalities would click and I thought it was great to see a strong friendship beginning to develop between them. It’ll be interesting to see where Tom is going to choose to take his career next. He is certainly confident and ambitious and this comes across in his dealings with DC Ian Bradshaw and his boss at the tabloid. I was on Tom’s side throughout the book after the treatment he received from his boss.The two mysteries which are investigated in the book are gripping. We have the young girl who has gone missing in the present day and the discovery of a decades old corpse. Howard kept me wondering if they were going to weave together and if the person responsible for the murder of the young man recently discovered would ever face justice for their crime. Both investigations add intrigue and tension as you begin to ask yourself what is really going on this town. What has gone wrong?The time period the book is set is in the 1990s. Howard uses the time period to the plots advantage and there are some frightening scenarios played out. Corruption in the police force is one of the themes which Howard studies in this book and this comes across in an authentic way for the time period that it is set in. The setting is also expertly drawn on. Howard’s writing makes the town in which the crimes have taken place, feel as though it is cut off from the rest of the country and it does create a very ominous tone. You can sense that out there, there is a killer waiting to make their next move and that time is quickly running out for their next victim and for the police to finally bring the perpetrator to justice.I’m really looking forward to finding out more about Tom, Helen and Ian. If you’re after an authentic and gripping police procedural that is gritty and has some fantastic characterization, then I highly recommend this book. A fantastic read.

No Name Lane apparently marks a distinct change in style for Howard Linskey from his earlier material featuring a Newcastle gangland hard man and whilst I hadn't come across his work before, on the evidence of this novel I certainly wish I had done so! Linskey tells a cracking yarn and delivers a compelling narrative which thoroughly engaged me from start to finish, with a welcome social commentary and three lead characters who are all believably flawed. Impressively, this is a novel which segues between two stories and manages to make light work of switching from the 1993 narrative to the time of 1936. No Name Lane also offers a fascinating view of the rationale behind the crimes as readers hear from the perpetrator attempting to justify a warped logic behind their behaviour. That Linskey delivers an emotional connection to the serial killer makes this all the more powerful and readers will empathise with the many drivers which have combined to leave a man viewing this as their only option.A punchy start introduces the three principal characters who feature and all three are seeking to either salvage their careers or certainly give them a decent kick start. Frustrated DC Ian Bradshaw, out of favour with his colleagues and ostracised after a period of depression is seeking to resurrect something from his attempts to prove he has the makings of a decent police officer. Tom Carney, cocky Northern boy made good has just hit the big time with a job in London on the biggest red top in the country, only for a front page headline to blow up in his face and leave him suspended and taking the rap. Helen Norton replaced Carney in his role as crime correspondent on the Durham Messenger, a regional newspaper with a reputation for solid and unspectacular journalism. With a boss that edits every word she writes and away from her Surrey home and boyfriend, what had seemed a dream first job isn't all that she envisaged.The novel is set in the main in 1993, and captures the weary cynicism of the early nineties brilliantly and a police culture which is worlds away from the politically correct approach of today. A time when the police force was regarded by many as an old boys club, often blurring the thin line between those they apprehend and their own behaviour. That the police force in 1993 was more of a political beast with a less sensitive to culture towards depression and those who were considered misfits is without doubt. Howard Linskey also highlights the cosy relationship between the media and police of the era where leaks were regarded with resignation, a time which seems an age before the press standards furore.With a serial killer having taken four young girls and left their bodies in clearly visible locations in the surrounding countryside, the North East is under siege and waiting on the next move of a madman. When he strikes again it is in the insular village of Great Middleton, former home town of Tom Carney and a paltry 1,200 residents. Fifteen-year-old victim Michelle Summers seems to mark a change in the perpetrators modus operandi after four girls who were all significantly younger. As the wait for a body goes on the discovery of a long dead corpse buried under a playing field reveals that Great Middleton is home to more than one shocking crime. DC Ian Bradshaw along with three colleagues all assigned to the dead-wood team of the squad and tasked with identifying the man who has lain buried for almost sixty-years. It is this case which occupies the focus on the first part of the novel as opposed to the serial killer on the prowl, but this is not to its detriment as it unravels to reveal a hidden secret which has seismic consequences of its own.The police focus of the investigation into the decades old skeleton is largely focused on the rather unremarkable door-to-door enquiries and Bradshaw and his dead-wood sidekick make little progress. Meanwhile, the two journalists make light work of getting their questions surrounding the history of the village answered, perhaps because this is a community which still bears the scars of the miners crisis and has a long memory. When Bradshaw and his partner (DC Vincent Addison) decide to take matters into their own hands and encroach on the more pressing serial killer investigation they are lambasted for meddling with a sensitive investigation, potentially jeopardising a future prosecution. It is a frustrated DC Bradshaw who bumps into old schoolfriend Tom Carney with fellow journalist Helen that evening, and the trio come to a begrudging understanding that pooling their knowledge could be mutually beneficial for all of them. As we learn more about the three main players I found Tom Carney to be filled out in a lot more depth than either Ian Bradshaw or Helen Norton and I hope that Howard Linskey addresses this in his follow-up.The focus on redemption was clear, with an outcast DC Ian Bradshaw up against it and journalist Tom Carney returning to his old stomping ground with his tail between his legs and ego severely dented, thus the ending felt pretty much set in stone, but just how Linskey gets to that point will leave many readers reeling as the underdogs live to fight another day. The social angle is also mastered well and Linksey manages to highlight the social norms and attitudes of two entirely different eras in terms of both investigational techniques and the culture within the police force. I was particularly impressed with how insightful Linskey proved to be as he shed light on the incident which resulted in Bradshaw's mental health problems. An absolutely scintillating finish will leave the reader in awe with the twists and turns and the accomplished manner in which Howard Linskey ties everything up was the icing on the cake for me!There was more than enough promise between the pages of No Name Lane to show that with a minor bit of polishing this could be a first class police procedural/journalistic series. The social commentary angle was already covered well and Linskey is a masterful storyteller and with DC Ian Bradshaw showing a little bit more nous and intuition for his chosen career, this could be a more than satisfactory series. It was with a wry amusement that in the closing pages Bradshaw commented to Tom Carney that he was more of a copper than a reporter! Perhaps a role reversal would have been more apt! I have already purchased the follow-up to this novel, Behind Dead Eyes, but I will need DC Ian Bradshaw to rely on more than simply luck and show some evidence of a more rigorous police procedural angle to proceedings.Review written by Rachel Hall (@hallrachel)

I've actually abandoned this halfway through. It's like reading Midsomer Murders. A small village setting with disappearing girls and old skeletons turning up. A large cast of characters I struggled to get to grips with - I knew who was who, but each section with the various protagonists wasn't very long and it all felt disjointed. Coupled with the need to suspend disbelief too far for a police procedural. I know fictional detectives have to go off piste somewhat or there would be no story, but these went further than was credible even with a giant bucket of salt. For example, two DCs turning up to a missing girl's house to speak to the stepfather, then taking him to a police interview room without a lawyer and without anyone else knowing about it........and all while they were supposed to be on another case. Just no.

At first I had some doubts about this novel; I had not met up with Howard Linskey via his earlier stories and found the opening rather flat and clichéd. However, I persisted and soon found myself held by an increasingly compelling crime thriller. The characters take a while to emerge into individuals but they do develop convincingly. A number of them are engaging, Ian Bradbury and Helen Norton particularly. The latter, I found a refreshing change from the hard-boiled female police/journalists met so frequently in this genre. There is a subtle understatement in the relationships, which shift as the novel progresses, and again I found this more appealing than the fractious confrontations more common.The plot is intricate enough via its separate threads to hold interest at the suspense level, and for me Linskey balances the situations he sets up with skill. Past and present are nicely interwoven as are the police/journalist interactions. The north east setting didn’t strike me as of especially central importance, though the minor characters did at least suggest a convincing community life. In the last analysis what began as a somewhat routine crime novel threw up a distinctive world and I was gripped sufficiently to swallow the whole in a little under three days. I shall return to Howard Linskey with considerable expectations.

" Yeah " I have found an author of gritty northern crime that I haven't read before. This book is the fourth in a series about Detective Ian Bradshaw with journalists Tom Carney and Helen Norton. The two journalists have a knack of routing out information that the police would find hard to get hold of so they make a great team. Although it's the fourth in the series there was just enough background information for it to work well as a stand-alone but obviously, the series would be best read in order which is something I now aim to do.