January 2017
The
River at Night is by Erica Ferencik. A thought came to me that I couldn't force
away: What we are wearing is how we'll be identified out in the wilderness.'
Win Allen doesn't want an adventure. After a miserable divorce and the death of
her beloved brother, she just wants to spend some time with her three best
friends, far away from her soul-crushing job. But athletic, energetic Pia has
other plans. Plans for an adrenaline-raising, breath-taking, white-water
rafting trip in the Maine wilderness. Five thousand square miles of remote
countryside. Just mountains, rivers and fresh air. No phone coverage. No
people. No help...
February
2017
"Esteban
refilled our glasses. 'We have a phrase in Spanish. 'Mil Cortes'. 'A thousand
cuts,' I
March
2017
Arthur
& Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes is by Michael Sims. Even the most learned of Baker Street
Irregulars will enjoy Sims' look at the making of Sherlock Holmes' Kirkus. As a
young medical student at the University of Edinburgh, Arthur Conan Doyle
studied under the vigilant eye of Dr Joseph Bell. He observed as Dr Bell
identified a patient's occupation, hometown and ailments both imagined and
genuine from the smallest details of dress, gait and speech. Although Doyle was
training to be a surgeon, he was meanwhile cultivating essential knowledge that
would help him to develop and define the art of the detective novel. From
Doyle's early days surrounded by poverty and violence, to his escape to
University and finally to his first days as a surgeon in his own practice,
acclaimed author Michael Sims traces the circuitous yet inevitable development
of Arthur Conan Doyle as the father of the modern mystery, whose most famous
creation is still the most well-known and well-loved of the canon's many
members. Through Sims's deft analysis of Doyle's childhood and adult life, the
incomparable Sherlock Holmes emerges as a product of Doyle's varied lessons in
the classroom and professional life. Building on the traditions of Edgar Allan
Poe, Emile Gaboriau, and even Voltaire, Doyle's new detective is not just a
skilful translator of clues, but a veritable superhero of the mind in the
tradition of his most esteemed teacher, Dr Joseph Bell. Sims's Arthur is just
as vivid Doyle's own Sherlock Holmes in this enthralling biography of the man
behind the most famous detective of all time.
April
2017
The Lake is by Lotte Hammer and Søren
Hammer. Everything comes with a
price. The skeleton of a young woman is
discovered, tied to a stone, in a lake deep in the Danish countryside. The
woman's identity is a mystery; no one matching her description has been
reported missing...After months of fruitless investigation by the local police
force, a media scandal brings the case to nationwide attention and is quickly
handed over to Konrad Simonsen and his team from the Copenhagen Police force.
It soon becomes clear that this unknown woman is the key to a sinister world of
human trafficking, prostitution and violence. A world where everything comes
with a price and no mistake goes unpunished.
May
2017
Sidney
Chambers and the Persistence of Love is by James Runcie. It is May 1971 and the Cambridgeshire
countryside is bursting into summer. Archdeacon Sidney Chambers is walking in a
bluebell wood with his daughter Anna and their ageing Labrador, Byron, when
they stumble upon a body. Thrust into another murder investigation, Sidney
discovers a world of hippies, folk music and psychedelic plants, where
permissive behaviour seems to hide something darker. This is the first of many
disturbing secrets that Sidney unearths beneath the deceptively tranquil
surface of the Diocese of Ely: a celebrated photographer is accused of rape; a
priceless religious text vanishes from a Cambridge college; the authentication
of a lost masterpiece proves a slippery business; and Sidney's own nephew goes
missing. Endeavouring to fit his clerical duties in around the demands of
sleuthing, Sidney continues to reflect on the divine mysteries of love, life
and faith, while wrestling with the earthly problems of parish scandals, an
alarmingly progressive new secretary, the challenges of parenthood, and a great
loss.
The
Violated is by Bill Pronzini. In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita,
California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A
registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes,
and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the
women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under
increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a
case that has no easy solution. Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through
alternating perspectives--Martin Torrey's wife, caught between her grief and
the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated;
the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his
own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles--until a surprising
break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion.
June
2017
Party
Girls Die in Pearls is by Plum Sykes.
Brideshead, bon-bons, cucumber sandwiches - and now a murder In the
decadent world of Oxford University, c.1985, Pimms, punting and
