Six Wounds by Morgan Cry

To make the perfect Spanish whodunnit cocktail, take one dead gangster, mix in six shifty expats, add one ruthless baddie and garnish with a suspicious police officer . . .

Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca. When the dead body of a prominent London gangster is discovered in the cellar of her bar she quickly becomes the number one suspect.

With the police closing in, the local expats turning on her and a psychotic rival to the dead gangster in the background, Daniella knows she needs to nail the real killer, and fast.

About the author

Here, Gordon Brown is writing as Morgan Cry. Gordon has written six crime thrillers to date, along with a number of short stories. He also helped found Bloody Scotland, Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival, is a DJ on local radio (www.pulseonair.co.uk) and runs a strategic planning consultancy. In a former life Gordon delivered pizzas in Toronto, sold non-alcoholic beer in the Middle East, launched a creativity training business, floated a high tech company on the London Stock Exchange, and compered the main stage at a two-day music festival. He lives in Scotland and is married with two children

Review

So I might have just found a new favourite author! Now I have heard about Gordon for quite a while now - I think I may even have some of his books in my ever-expanding tbr pile but I just hadn't gotten around to them. What a mistake that was!!! I have been pushed for time lately for blogging and I was reading this last night when I was scrolling Facebook and up pops his author chat for the UK crime book club - serendipity. It was such fun, so go check it out. Indeed just check out the group in general as it's fabulous!

Anyway, back to Gordon. This book has a wee sprinkle of weegie magic to it. As I hadn't read the first book I was finding my way in the first couple of chapters and thought this all sounds like Glasgow in the sun! Then when I heard Gordon’s chat I realised that ‘Six Wounds’ is his voice. It oozes his personality - witty, oh so clever, plays and twists upon the themes of ‘Costa del Crime’, has a heart of gold and is a solid piece of crime fiction. Better than solid, it's something special. It drops stunning visuals as you read, has an amazing host of characters in Daniella and the Ex-Patriots and is truly a great homage to the whodunit genre of yesteryear. Agatha Christie gets name-dropped far too often in pr marketing for crime authors - so and so is the new Agatha Christie… But in this case it's clear that Gordon loves this era of crime fiction, subtle references both in the book and the chat last night alludes to this. Plus, he does manage to pull off a spectacular whodunit. It even had me fooled at times. Thankfully, unlike some Christie books, you do have an inkling of what's going on. Or do you? I feel like there should be the Eastender’s ‘duff duff’ now.

‘Six Wounds’ was thoroughly entertaining and had me laughing out loud, which is rare for me. It was such the pick up I needed - I am currently playing the horrible is it covid or a cold game, so having some west coast humour and a dose of sunshine was a tonic indeed. Every single character was perfectly drawn, not too much of a cliche but enough that you recognise them. Daniella is a tour de force of a protagonist with a strong voice, highly intelligent, and a vulnerable side that juxtaposes superbly with that steely fierce core and I can tell there will be a lot of character development and background still to come! Please say there is more to come… Daniella may be the central force but Zia, Gordon, Saucy, The Twins and Skid are just as finely drawn. Indeed I can imagine Zia watching Eurovision tomorrow and his scathing and catty remarks.

I'm not even going to talk about the plot as I don't want to ruin it for anyone but I know you will enjoy it. If you do end up wanting to read more after this book, Gordon did mention that if you go to the publisher's website you can read some short stories featuring Daniella. He has also co wrote with the fabulous Douglas Skelton a novella featuring Daniella in her old life in Glasgow.

He is also having a book launch at Waterstones in Glasgow in June which I am going to go to and I might even bring him a bottle of Irn Bru extra!