Tony Bassett, Voices from the Dead (The Book Folks crime thrillers, 2025)
DS Sunita Roy and her boyfriend and colleague DI Tom Vickers happen to be attending a wedding at a Queensbridge hotel, when a guest reports witnessing a murder from her balcony, through one of the windows in the opposite building. The victim is successful beauty expert Candy Goodhope.
Who could have murdered her in her hotel room? The boyfriend? The husband? The business rival?
In another case, Miranda Higley is waiting for her ex-husband to lay a new floor for her when she is brutally attacked.
It helps that there is an eyewitness, and the police also have CCTV evidence and numerous people to interview who were with Candy on the day. These characters, as we meet them, are interesting and colourful. Even the perps are sympathetic. Sunita is often accompanied by Tom or DC Brett Dawson, so we hear her thought processes though dialogue.
The Plot is exciting, with enough surprises to keep us hooked, and the Pace is just right. We learn the clues at just the same time that the police do, so there’s plenty of time to assimilate it all.
Bassett’s crime novels feature very realistic (it seems to me) police procedures, meaning we get right down into the story. He takes us through the investigation process, as day by day new clues are discovered. It never turns out to be who you suspect, and the boss always gets it wrong at first. Sunita’s uncanny ability for lateral thinking saves the day. And though we get all the clues, it always takes a bit of a stretch of Sunita’s ingenuity to solve the crime.
I loved how we didn’t understand the rationale behind the title until the very end, making it a kind of punchline.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I leave this review voluntarily.
Susie Helme 
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