Crimes Of Passion - Love Kills

Put down the roses, back away from the mixtape, and check the alibi on that sonnet. Crimes of Passion – Love Kills (2015) by Sue Blackhall—from the unblushing files of Igloo Books—is the candy-heart shattered underfoot, a brisk tour of what happens when cupid misplaces the safety catch. It’s a scrapbook of amour turned alarming, proof that the heart is not just a metaphor but a repeat offender with access to sharp objects and terrible ideas.

Blackhall writes with that cool newsroom poise that treats red mist like a data point. She corrals an unruly bouquet of cases—jealousy detonations, triangle geometry gone non-Euclidean, vows that aged badly, and grand passions with terrible admin—and presents them as tidy narratives: who loved whom, who snapped when, which clue sulked in the corner, how the detectives untangled the mess, and what the courts decided after the violins stopped. No lurid swooning—just crisp storytelling, human detail, and the steady drumbeat of cause, choice, and consequence.

Inside, expect:

• Heat + motive + opportunity distilled into case files that actually add up.

• Forensic reality checks: phones that sing, fibres that gossip, timelines that won’t take sides.

• Psychology in plain clothes—obsession, control, rejection, and the intoxicant otherwise known as “we can fix this.”

• Media thunder vs. courtroom weather—headlines pant; evidence clears its throat.

• Around the world in heartbreak—from suburban cul-de-sacs to glamorous disasters, love proves multilingual and equally imprudent.

The vibe is humane and unsentimental: victims foregrounded, suspects de-mythologised, investigators given their quiet due. You come for the gasp; you stay for the structure—the way a text at 9:41 p.m. outranks a poem, and a receipt beats a promise every day of the week.

Why this copy? It sashays in from the gloriously blunt emporium Crappy Old Books, stamped Condition: Good—translation: square spine, clean pages, a polite whisper of shelf-life. Suitable for bedside reading (with doors locked), train tables, or strategic deployment when a friend says “it was romantic.” It was not.

Vital stats for your evidence-tinted nightstand:

• Title: Crimes of Passion – Love Kills

• Author: Sue Blackhall

• Publisher: Igloo Books, 2015

• ISBN: 9781784400699

• Condition: Good (tidy, legible, drama-resistant)

• Vendor: Crappy Old Books—the name confesses; the stock corroborates.

Buy it for the casework; keep it for the calm—that sensible voice reminding you that love letters are adorable, but call logs are admissible. After a few chapters you’ll evaluate Valentine’s Day like a detective, grade declarations by evidential weight, and insist, quite reasonably, that “forever” should always come with a timeline. Romance may flutter; proof endures.

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