Pinckley Prizes For Crime Fiction

 

Alafair Burke, Margot Douaihy, and Sascha Rothchild are the recipients of the Pinckley Prizes in Crime Fiction for 2022 and 2023. 

The prizes, named to honor the memory of Diana Pinckley, were presented on 22nd March in New Orleans. The Pinckley Prizes partner with the Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans, of which Diana Pinckley was a founding member.

Alafair Burke is the winner of the 2023 Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. 

Burke is the New York Times, Edgar Award nominated author of twenty crime novels. Published in more than twenty languages, her books have been featured on “Best Book” lists from the Today Show, Entertainment Weekly, People, O (Oprah Magazine), The Boston Globe, Washington Post, Sun Sentinel, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and numerous other outlets. She has been called “a genius for plot” and “one of our greatest contemporary mystery writers.” She is the current President of Mystery Writers of America and the first woman of color to be elected to that position. In addition to the standalone novels that have earned her a reputation as “a virtuoso” of domestic suspense, she authors “two power house series” featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher and Portland Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid. In addition to her own work, 

Alafair also co-authored the "Under Suspicion” series with Queen of Suspense Mary Higgins Clark. Alafair traces a lifelong fascination with crime to the fact that she grew up in Wichita, Kansas, where a serial killer was active during her formative years. In a world where the killer could be anyone, Alafair found comfort in crime fiction. Her mother, a school librarian, helped her navigate from Encyclopedia Brown to Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and eventually to Sue Grafton.

Margot Douaihy is the winner of the 2023 Pinckley Prize for Debut Fiction for her lyrical crime novel Scorched Grace. The second book in the Sister Holiday Mystery series, Blessed Water, was released on 12 March 2024.

The judges selected Scorched Grace for the novel’s delightful new vision of the noir sleuth: Sister Holiday is lavishly tattooed and plays lead guitar in her punk band Original Sin. She also happens to be a novitiate in the order of the Sisters of the Sublime Blood. She came to New Orleans to make amends for her past transgressions and solves crimes along the way. Douaihy’s writing is playful, the language as luscious as the setting, while the true heart of the story emerges with blazing warmth and compassion for troubled souls.

Sascha Rothchild is the winner of the 2022 Pinckley Prize for Debut Novel for her first book Blood Sugar.

The 2023 judges were impressed with the smart plotting and distinctive voice of Sascha Rothchild's Blood Sugar. Its protagonist, Ruby Simon, is one of the most seductive of psychopaths—clever, self-justifying, and so inventive that the reader can't wait to see what she does next. Rothchild's screenwriting skills translate beautifully to this novel, which also rises to its Miami setting, from Ruby's South Beach days of clubbing to her practice as a therapist. And who wouldn't love a serial killer who meets her best friend when he leaves a note in her Abnormal Psych textbook? Fast, funny, and sharp, Blood Sugar is filled with memorable moments and characters.

 

MWA Announces 2022 Grand Master, Raven and Ellery Queen Award Recipients

 

Today Mystery Writers of America (MWA) announces the recipients of its special awards. The board chose Laurie R. King as the 2022 Grand Master, the 2022 Raven Award recipient is Lesa Holstine, and Juliet Grames will receive the Ellery Queen Award. They will accept their awards at the 76^th Annual Edgar Awards Ceremony, which will be held April 28, 2022, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York City.

“Mystery Writers of America is thrilled to honour Laurie R. King as MWA’s 2022 Grand Master,” said MWA President Alafair Burke. “For more than a quarter century, King has entertained readers around the world with her writings, which range from historical fiction to contemporary police procedurals to gripping standalones and scores of anthology contributions. She is also a generous supporter of readers and fellow writers and a leader within the literary community. She exemplifies the excellence that defines the Grand Master Award, and we are delighted to recognise her achievements".

MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality. Laurie R. King is the bestselling author of 30 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories, beginning with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (named “One of the 20th Century’s Best Crime Novels” by the IMBA.) She has won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Lambda, Wolfe, Macavity, Creasey Dagger, and Romantic Times Career Achievement awards, has an honorary doctorate in theology, and is a Baker Street Irregular. Her recent books include Castle Shade and How to Write a Mystery (co-edited with Lee Child.) She has been a member of Mystery Writers of America since 1993 and served on the NorCal and National boards.

On being notified of the honour, King said, “I am sure I’m not the only person who greeted the announcement that they had been given this extreme honour of the mystery world first with silence, then with, “Really? Me??” I mean, any list that begins with Agatha Christie and touches on such gods as Ross MacDonald and Daphne du Maurier, Ngaio Marsh and John Le Carré, Tony Hillerman and—well, you get the idea. ‘I am honoured’ is an inadequate response (You are sure you counted the votes, right?) when what I mean is, ‘I am stunned, dumbfounded, gobsmacked.’ And honoured too, of course—intensely, humbly, and gratefully.”

Previous Grand Masters include Charlaine Harris, Jeffery Deaver, Barbara Neely, Martin Cruz Smith, William Link, Peter Lovesey, Walter Mosley, Lois Duncan, James Ellroy, Robert Crais, Ken Follett, Martha Grimes, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block, P.D. James, Ellery Queen, Daphne du Maurier, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and Agatha Christie, to name a few.

The Raven Award recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing. For 2022, Mystery Writers of America selected librarian, a blogger, and book reviewer Lesa Holstine.

Upon learning she would receive the Raven Award, Lesa Holstine reacted with disbelief, “You’re kidding!” Holstine said, “I’m grateful to the MWA Board, and to mystery writers everywhere who have provided so much enjoyment over the years.”

Previous Raven Award recipients include Malice Domestic, Left Coast Crime, Marilyn Stasio, The Raven Bookstore, Sisters in Crime, and Oline Cogdill.

Holstine has worked in public libraries since she was 16. For almost 50 years, she’s shared her love of books, especially mysteries, with library patrons, and is presently the Collections Manager at the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library in Evansville, Indiana. She is in the 18^th year of writing her award-winning blog, Lesa’s Book Critiques, has been the blogger for Poisoned Pen Bookstore for over four years, and reviews mysteries for Mystery Readers’ Journal and Library Journal, where she was named Reviewer of the Year in 2018. She has received the 2011 Arizona Library Association Outstanding Library Service Award and the David S. Thompson Special Service Memorial Award. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and serves on the Left Coast Crime Standing Committee.

The Ellery Queen Award was established in 1983 to honour “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry.” This year the Board chose to honour Juliet Grames, SVP, Associate Publisher at Soho Press, where she has curated the award-winning Soho Crime imprint since 2011. Her debut novel, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, was published by Ecco/HarperCollins and has been translated into ten languages.

On learning she would receive the Ellery Queen Award, Grames said, “I am astonished and moved by this great honour. There is no community I could be prouder to work in: the creators in our genre are not only artists but activists and thoroughly good people. It is a great privilege to nurture and amplify their voices, and I humbly thank every author who has ever trusted me with that privilege. It is also a great privilege to work for a publisher, Bronwen Hruska, whose values—both literary and philosophical—align so perfectly with mine. This recognition belongs to them, although I am honoured to be their representative.”

Previous Ellery Queen Award winners include Reagan Arthur, Kelley Ragland, Linda Landrigan, Neil Nyren, Charles Ardai, and Janet Hutchings.

The Edgar Awards, or “Edgars,” as they are commonly known, are named after MWA’s patron saint Edgar Allan Poe and are presented to authors of distinguished work in various categories. MWA is the premier organization for mystery writers, professionals allied to the crime-writing field, aspiring crime writers, and those who are devoted to the genre. The organization encompasses some 3,000 members including authors of fiction and non-fiction books, screen and television writers, as well as publishers, editors, and literary agents. For more information on Mystery Writers of America, please visit the website: www.mysterywriters.org

More Than Malice Programme Schedule of Events

 

Please Note: Registration for individual panels is not required. All of the panels will be accessible to everyone who is registered for More Than Malice. The panels will also be recorded and available for viewing at any time during the Festival, and for a designated amount of time afterwards. Registering for More Than Malice grants access to all of the panels and discussions.

All times below are EASTERN

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Wednesday, July 14th

6:00 - 6:30: OPENING CEREMONIES

6:30 - 7:00: LOUISE PENNY and VERENA ROSE In Conversation

7:00 - 8:00: Author Speed Dating (Round 1)

Thursday, July 15th

5:00 - 6:30: READING THE COZY MYSTERY

7:00 - 8:00: Author Speed Dating (Round 2)

Friday, July 16th Panels

11:30 to 12:30                                                     2:30pm to 3:30pm

Seeking Agatha                                                        Read What You Like

It happened: True Crime                                       Women Across The Years

1:00pm to 2:00pm                                           4:00pm to 5:00pm

Culture Clash                                                             Diamonds of Detection 

Keep it Confidential                                                  Adrenaline Junkie

6:00 - 7:00: Will Dean and Val McDermid In Conversation

8:00 - 9:00: Alafair Burke and Laura Lippman In Conversation

Saturday, July 17th

11:30 to 12:30                                        2:30pm to 3:30pm

Past as Prologue                                        Nice Work of You Can Get It

Voices Carry                                                Keep it Short

1:00pm to 2:00pm                              4:00pm to 5:00pm

Come On- A My House                              Can't Get Here from There 

It Takes A Village                                        League of Lisas

5:30 - 6:30 Agatha Awards Presentation

Books to Look Forward to from Simon & Schuster

October 2020

With a killer on the loose. As the scorching summer sun beats down on St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly, DI Ben Kitto and his team are training for the annual Swimathon, until they discover a body hanging from Pulpit Rock, dressed in a bridal gown. On a tiny island. An obsessive killer is hunting for female victims. Kitto has no choice but to stop anyone leaving St Mary’s, but soon another woman is attacked. Everyone is a suspsect. The killer must be a trusted member of the community. Kitto’s investigation is being watched closely, the killer always one step ahead, as the next victim is chosen . . . No One is Safe. Pulpit Rock is by Kate Rhodes.

When the body of a twenty-four-year-old man is found on Sunk Island, a quiet stretch of land in Yorkshire, two facts immediately stand out. First: the killer wanted the body to be found. Second,the dead man was a police officer, and he had been working undercover. Meanwhile,aimless 20-something Becca has multiple jobs to keep her head above water. At night, in the local pub, she serves punters and tries to work out what she wants to do with her life. One thing that keeps her going is Andy, a regular she always has a laugh with -and maybe something more. And then Andy vanishes. Becca is convinced that the shady manger of her pub has something to do with his disappearance. But in order to discover the truth, she'll have to put herself in danger. All for someone she doesn't truly know... Someone Who Isn't Me is by Danuta Kot.

The Couple in Room 13 is by John Rector. Seven strangers. One body. A decision that will change everything. Nate and Sara are broke – and on the run from the past. When a shady hitchhiker offers them cold hard cash for a lift, they can't afford to say no. But when the man dies in the back seat, with more than two million dollars in his possession, Nate and Sara are forced to make a difficult decision. And, with a blizzard closing in, trapping them for who knows how long in a motel with five strangers, it’s a decision they won’t be able to run from…

Following his brutal quest for revenge, former Navy SEAL James Reece has fled the United States, emerging deep in the wilds of Mozambique. But he can't stay hidden for long - when a string of horrific terrorist attacks plagues the Western world, the CIA tracks him down and recruits him. Now a reluctant tool of the United States government, Reece must travel the globe, targeting terrorist leaders and unravelling a geopolitical conspiracy that will have worldwide repercussions . True Believer is by Jack Carr.

November 2020

A Piece of My Heart is by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. Television producer Laurie Moran and her fiancée, Alex Buckley, the former host of her investigative television show, are just days away from their mid-summer wedding, when things take a dark turn. Alex’s seven-year-old nephew, Johnny, vanishes from the beach. A search party begins and witnesses recall Johnny playing in the water and collecting shells behind the beach shack, but no one remembers seeing him after the morning. As the sun sets, Johnny’s skim board washes up to shore, and everyone realizes that he could be anywhere, even under water.

The Game is by Luca Veste. They know what you did. You receive a call, an email, a text – someone knows your secret and they want to ruin you. And they're out for blood. If you don’t do what they say, they’ll tell everyone what you’ve been hiding. They will come after you, destroy you, and they aren’t afraid to kill. It's time to play the game.

Kill the King is by Sandrone Dazieri. Reeling from a deadly bombing in Venice and her investigative partner Dante’s disappearance, Detective Colomba Caselli retreats to the rural countryside to nurse her wounds. When an autistic teenager appears in her yard, covered in blood, he leads her to a brutal crime scene where nothing is what it seems. As Colomba gets pulled into the investigation and the body count continues to grow, she is implicated in the violence. She is convinced that a powerful villain is working in the shadows to cause the carnage and frame her, but the only person who can help her is Dante—and he hasn’t been seen in over a year and is presumed dead. Colomba is sure he’s alive and out there somewhere, but will she find him before it’s too late? And can she clear her name and be free of the far-reaching legacy of the villain known as the Father...

Bosch on the Bayou at Bouchercon 2021

To keep our spirits up during this surreal period of COVID-19 confinement - one must plan for when we can next see our friends, colleagues and fellow advocates of the Crime and Mystery Fiction Genre.

Sadly, many 2020 crime, mystery and thriller fiction events have been cancelled in the wake of this RNA-Virus - such as Bouchercon 2020 [Sacramento, USA], Theakstons’ Crime Writing Festival 2020 [Harrogate, UK], Crimefest 2020 [Bristol, England] to name a few. 

We’re waiting to see if Adam Hamdy, David Headley and Liz Curle’s Capital Crime 2020 [London, England] will occur, as it is after the summer and we pray that we will have the COVID-19 situation under control by then.

Thriller writer KJ Howe, with ITW’s technical bloke Jeff Ayers, and the team behind International Thriller Writers Inc, have come up with a good plan, following the cancellation of New York’s Thrillerfest 2020 [due to fears of COVID-19] – so the ITW gang have a planned Virtual event, details HERE

We got word from the Bouchercon Board of Directors, that it’s all steam ahead for Bouchercon 2021 [New Orleans, USA]; and that the work of Michael Connelly is to be celebrated as he will receive the lifetime achievement award for his writing.

We are delighted that former journalist Michael Connelly and his novels, stories [many featuring that singular creation Harry Bosch] and film / TV is to be celebrated during Bouchercon 2021.

In 2018, the Crime Writers Association recognised a lifetime achievement award in London, when he was presented with the CWA Diamond Dagger.

We recorded the 2018 event, with CWA Chair Martin Edwards' introduction, and Mike Connelly’s acceptance speech –

For many readers (myself included), Michael Connelly is one of the greatest living crime writers working today, and for many - his creation Harry Bosch of the LAPD is one of fiction’s greatest detectives. And now Amazon Prime’s BOSCH series reaches its sixth season, with Titus Welliver playing the eponymous Investigator. All seasons of Bosch are available to stream online at Amazon Prime.  

Reports from Jeff Peirce’s The Rap Sheet on our visits to the Hollywood set of Season One can be accessed HERE while our location visit for Season Two at Venice Beach [Los Angeles] can be accessed HERE

Literary commentator / critic, horticulturist and sports presenter Michael Carlson published an excellent feature for Shots Magazine THE ABSTRACT ART OF BOSCH, which can be accessed HERE

And if you are readying yourself to watch Bosch Season Six, remember part of the narrative arc comes from Michael Connelly’s THE OVERLOOK. It was originally a story serialised in the New York Times, but eventually found itself as a novel – I spoke with Michael at the time about this lean and extraordinary post-911 narrative [one that features Larry Gandle as Bosch’s Boss] – it is archived HERE  

Joining Michael Connelly, as Guests of Bouchercon 2021, are :-

Steve Berry – Thriller Guest of Honour

Craig Johnson – American Guest of Honour

Charles and Caroline Todd – Historical Guests of Honour

Jo Nesbo – International Guest of Honour

Alafair Burke – Toast Mistress

Jonathan Maberry – Kid’s Bouchercon Guest of Honour

And for some reason, I’m also excited to attend.

Much thanks must go to the Dynamic Duo, of best-selling thriller writer Heather Graham and the extraordinary Connie Perry [and their team], for chairing the event, and returning us back to New Orleans after the extraordinary event in 2016.

Here’s archive video of the opening ceremonies -

And Jeff Pierce at the Rap Sheet has commentary and pictures HERE and remember 2021’s Bouchercon is a return trip for Mike Connelly to New Orleans, as he was interviewed by Harlan Coben – Archived video HERE

So as the crime, mystery and thriller clan gather, after so long, I’d start planning for Bouchercon 2021: Blood on the Bayou

More information HERE

Hope to see you at the biggest celebration of Crime and Mystery Fiction, Bouchercon 2021 and I’d register as soon as possible as registrations are coming in thick and fast.

AND STAY WELL / TAKE PRECAUTIONS AND READ BOOKS TO ESCAPE

Alafair Burke: Behind The Better Sister

Here’s the quick summary of The Better Sister: Chloe Taylor thinks she has it all—a handsome husband (Adam), thoughtful stepson (Ethan), and thriving career (author, editor, budding cultural icon)—until she finds Adam murdered at their East Hampton beach house. Things manage to get even more complicated when police focus their suspicions on Ethan and his biological mother comes to town to try to help.

An added wrinkle? Ethan's mother (and Adam's ex-wife) is Chloe's estranged older sister, Nicky. 

Even that brief synopsis makes it clear that the book will delve into the fine line between sisterly loyalty and rivalry.  But I view The Better Sister as the third book in a thematic trilogy, following The Ex and The Wife, that explores the complexity of female relationships and the diverse roles that women play in contemporary society. As we juggle busy lives, we often show different faces to our spouses, exes, children, parents, siblings, and co-workers, all while trying to know and be true to ourselves.  

 Chloe and Nicky know each other only as siblings.  Adam knew them both as wives.  To teenaged Ethan, Chloe and Nicky are each a different type of mother to him.  And both women have independent existences where they can live without familial obligation.  It’s in that independent realm where the women of this trilogy of books have, I hope, provoked some thoughts about the often gendered nature of threats, abuse, and violence in our culture.

In The Ex, an accomplished criminal defense lawyer steps in to defend her ex after he’s accused of a mass shooting. The Wife is about Angela Powell, who’s dragged into the spotlight after her high-profile husband is accused of sexual assault, but has a survival story of her own. In The Better Sister, Chloe Taylor is a target for online threats and harassment because of her journalistic work related to the #MeToo movement. 

Each book in the trilogy shows smart, capable women searching for every ounce of fortitude to make their own mark on the world while also living up to obligations that fall to them in their status roles—as an ex, a wife, a mother, or a sister. Sometimes that work requires redefining what it means to be “better.”

The Better Sister by Alafair Burke is published by Faber & Faber in April (£12.99)

Books to Look Forward to from Faber and Faber

January 2019

The second book in the Rebekah Roberts series - a taut mystery and a brilliant exploration of the demons we inherit... Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish

life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva's old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.   Run You Down is by Julia Dahl.

February 2019

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions. Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . . Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.  Muscle is by Alan Trotter

The Elegant Lie is by Sam Eastland. The year is 1949. In the bombed-out ruins of Cologne, Hanno Dasch is king. Director of the most successful black market operation in post-war Germany, Dasch has kept his clients supplied with goods so extravagant and rare that they were almost impossible to find even at the height of Germany's conquests. Nobody but Dasch, his enigmatic daughter and the war criminal he keeps as his bodyguard know how he

does it. None of this has escaped the attention of Allied Intelligence, who face not only the systemic corruption of a country where everything is in short supply, but the growing threat of Stalin's KGB. Fearing that Dasch will soon expand his business to include dealings with Russia, and invite the further meddling of Russian agents in the west, the CIA sets in motion an undercover operation to infiltrate and, ultimately, destroy Dasch's empire. A disgraced American Army officer, Nathan Carter, is recruited to approach Dasch and to ingratiate himself with promises of stolen army supplies. As Carter moves further and further into the labyrinth of Dasch's world, it soon becomes clear that the black market ring has already been compromised, but by someone even more dangerous than the Russians. Carter stumbles upon a counterfeiting ring, with whom Dasch has unwittingly gone into business, which seems to have been created with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet economy, something it could easily do with the superlative quality of the forged bills it is producing. With Carter caught in the middle, and facing the danger that his cover might be blown at any moment, a race begins between the Russian and American spy agencies to uncover who is responsible, before the situation escalates to war.

March 2019

'

They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.' When Hen and Lloyd move into their new house in West Dartford, Mass., they're relieved to meet, at their first block party, the only other seemingly-childless couple in their neighbourhood, Matthew and Mira Dolamore. Turns out they live in the Dutch Colonial immediately next door. When they're invited over for dinner, however, things take a sinister turn when Hen thinks she sees something suspicious in Matthew's study. Could this charming, mild-mannered College Professor really be hiding a dark secret, one that only Hen, whose been battling her own problems with depression and medication, could know about? Lloyd certainly doesn't seem to believe her, and so, forced together, Hen and Matthew start to form an unlikely bond. But who, if anyone, is really in danger?   Before She Knew Him is by Peter Swanson.

Former Broadway star Tommy Jump isn't getting the roles he once did; as his final run as Sancho Ponza draws to a close, Tommy is getting ready to give up the stage, find a steady paycheck, and settle down with his fiancee. Cue Special Agent Danny Ruiz. An old school friend of Tommy's, now with the FBI, Ruiz makes Tommy an offer that sounds too good to refuse. All Tommy has to do is spend six months in prison, acting as failed bank robber 'Pete Goodrich'. Inside, he must find and befriend Mitchell Dupree, who has hidden a secret cache of documents incriminating enough to take down New Colima, one of Mexico's largest drug cartels. If Tommy can get Dupree to reveal where the documents are hidden, the FBI will give him $300,000. More than enough to jumpstart a new life. But does he have what it takes to pull off this one final role?  The Last Act is by Brad Parks.

April 2019

A Good Enough Mother is by Bev Thomas.  The hardest lies to spot are the ones we tell ourselves. Dr Ruth Hartland rises to difficult tasks. She is the director of a highly respected trauma therapy unit. She is confident, capable and excellent at her job. Today she is preoccupied by her son Tom's disappearance. So when a new patient arrives at the unit - a young man who looks shockingly like Tom - she is floored. As a therapist, Ruth knows exactly what she should do in the best interests of her client, but as a mother she makes a very different choice - a decision that will have profound consequences.

The Better Sister is by Alafair Burke.  For a while, it seemed like both Taylor sisters had found happiness. Chloe landed a coveted publishing job in New York City. Nicky got married to a promising young attorney named Adam McIntosh and became a mother to a baby boy named Ethan. But now, fourteen years later, it is Chloe who is married to Adam. When he is murdered at the couple's beach house, she has no choice but to welcome her estranged sister - her teenage stepson's biological mother - back into her life. When the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect, the sisters are forced to confront the truth behind family secrets they both tried to leave behind in order to protect the boy they love, whatever the cost.

Mercy River is by Glen Erik Hamilton. When Van Shaw receives a distress call from his fellow Afghan War veteran, Leo Pak, he has to leave the urban hazards of Seattle to head far south to a town called Broken Ridge, deep in the wild heart of rural Oregon. Leo faces charges of murdering a local gun dealer, and while Van doesn't doubt his friend's innocence, he knows he faces conviction. As Van starts his own covert investigations, the small town is suddenly awash with Army Ranger veterans, converging for a raucous annual Rally. Was it only this reunion that brought Leo to town? Or is someone at the Rally setting Leo up to cover for their own dark designs?

May 2019

Phoebe stands on Pulteney Bridge, tights gashed from toe to thigh. The shock of mangled metal and blood-stained walls flashes through her mind as she tries to cover her face so she won't be recognised. It wouldn't do to be spotted looking like this. She's missing a shoe. She feels sick. Phoebe thought murder and murder happened. Thoughts are just thoughts, they said. Now she knows they were wrong. At home, Phoebe arranges the scissors and knives so they point toward her mother's room. She is exhausted, making sure there's no trace of herself - not a single hair, not even her scent - left anywhere in the house. She must not let her thoughts unravel, because if they do, there's no telling who might be caught in the crossfire, and Phoebe will have to live with the consequences.  Crush is by Kate Hamer

The Paris Diversion is by Chris Pavone.  Kate Moore - a mother with an interesting past - is living the quiet life in another European city, or trying to. On her way to drop her children off at school in the city centre, the cafes and streets of Paris start to come alive around her. Kate's husband Dex, meanwhile, charged with finding a particular present for their son's birthday, is struggling to focus on the job in hand as a financial matter at work seems to be playing on his mind. As worrying reports begin to circulate from key locations around the city, and the sound of wailing sirens becomes increasingly hard to ignore, could their day and, indeed, their lives be about to change forever?