Today it’s my turn on the blog tour for A Bonsai Tree Called Geoff. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

Am I the best cop on the streets?.. No.

But do I go to work with a positive attitude and put 100% into every incident I attend?.. Also No.

What I do is write about the funny, interesting and bizarre jobs I go to.

These are the stories that I probably shouldn’t share…

Arresting a bride at her wedding

An Aztec-style sacrifice

Subversion in the ranks

A naked dog thief

An accidental kidnapping

Disappointing a nun…

True tales from the front line of policing, where fact is often stranger than fiction!

Review:

I read a lot of crime fiction, but I’m very conscious that work for the police isn’t always like it is portrayed in the books and the movies, so I jumped at the chance to read A Bonsai Tree Called Geoff and find out more, especially what the title is about. It’s definitely not as exciting as I thought it would be, but John Donoghue does a fantastic job of bringing life to the mundane tasks he does, of which the title story is one of my favourites. I loved his writing style, particularly the innuendo and I laughed out loud more than once!

As well as the stories from his career, it was also great to meet the author’s colleagues, both those he got on with well and those with whom there was a little more friction. I particularly liked the stories involving Gwen, and I could picture the office environment really clearly.

In addition to the funny stories, there are also some incidents that are heartbreaking and it is clear that these have left just as much of a mark on the author. There is a interesting chapter about the author’s time at the Police Treatment Centre following a particularly violent incident and I found this fascinating as I was not aware that these places existed.

I’ve definitely learnt a lot by reading A Bonsai Tree Called Geoff but I’ve also been entertained by the many different sides of human life that John Donoghue meets on a daily basis. This book will definitely appeal to crime readers who are looking to read something slightly different.

A Bonsai Tree Called Geoff is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: