Davitt Awards 2022 Shortlists Announced

 

Sisters in Crime Australia has announced the shortlists for the 2022 Davitt Awards for best crime books by Australian women.

The shortlisted titles in each category are:

Adult Crime Novel 

Unforgiven by Sarah Barrie, (HQ Fiction)

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz, (A&U)

You Had It Coming by B M Carroll, (Profile Books)

All That I Remember About Dean Cola by Tania Chandler, (Scribe)

Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down, (Text)

Shelter by Catherine Jinks, (Text)

The Beautiful Words by Vanessa McCausland, (HarperCollins)

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy, (Hamish Hamilton)

The Family Doctor by Debra Oswald, (A&U)

The Second Son by Loraine Peck, (Text)

The Silent Listener by Lyn Yeowart, (Viking)

Young Adult Crime Novel

The Gaps by Leanne Hall, (Text)

Dirt Circus League by Maree Kimberley, (Text)

Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn, (A&U Children’s)

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland, (Penguin)

Children’s Crime Novel

Night Ride into Danger by Jackie French, (HarperCollins)

The Detective’s Guide to Ocean Travel by Nicki Greenberg, (Affirm)

Ella at Eden #6: The London Thief by Laura Sieveking, (Scholastic)

Nonfiction Crime Book

Empowering Women: From Murder and Misogyny to High Court Victory by Susie Allanson with Lizzie O’Shea, (Wilkinson Publishing)

Larrimah: A Missing Man, an Eyeless Croc and an Outback Town of 11 People Who Mostly Hate Each Other by Caroline Graham & Kylie Stevenson, (A&U)

The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek by Kate Holden, (Black Inc.)

Banquet: The Untold Story of Adelaide’s Family Murders by Debi Marshall, (Vintage)

Debut Crime Books

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz, (A&U)

Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham, (Journey to Words)

Larrimah: A Missing Man, an Eyeless Croc and an Outback Town of 11 People Who Mostly Hate Each Other by Caroline Graham & Kylie Stevenson, (A&U)

The Waterhole by Lily Malone, (Lily Malone Publishing)

Unsheltered by Clare Moleta, (Simon &Schuster)

The Family Doctor by Debra Oswald, (A&U)

The Second Son by Loraine Peck, (Text)

Shiver by Allie Reynolds, (Hachette)

Crime Writer by Dime Sheppard, (Ruby Books)

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland, (Penguin)

The Silent Listener by Lyn Yeowart, (Viking).

This year’s judging panel was made up of medical autopsy expert Philomena Horsley; YA expert and reviewer Joy Lawn; Sisters in Crime’s president Moraig Kisler; and authors Janice Simpson, Emily Webb and Jacquie Byron. The judges selected the 33 shortlisted titles from a longlist of 169 books.

The six category winners will be announced at a gala dinner in Melbourne on Saturday, 27 August. No prize money is attached to the Davitts; the winner of each category receives a trophy.

Last year’s winners included Sally Hepworth for The Good Sister (Macmillan) and Leah Swann’s Sheerwater (Fourth Estate).

For more information, see the Sisters in Crime website.

Crime Thrillers for Winter and Christmas by B.P.Walter

Winter and Christmas has been a time for mysteries and thrillers for many years, with readers seeking warmth from both pulse-racing, tension-driven stories or cosier, more leisurely whodunnits. I’ve always been drawn to crime fiction at this time of year – I think it’s the sense of comfort driven from order being made out of chaos. Pandemics aside, this time of year can be very hectic, thanks to bustling shops and Christmas gatherings, so there’s something intrinsically soothing about finding order and method on the page even if it sometimes alludes us in real life. My novel The Woman on the Pier isn’t detective-focused, but it does feature a central character setting off to solve a particular mystery and make the guilty (or person she perceives to be guilty) face up to their alleged crime. I’ve always found this structure compelling on the page and I hope readers find the book similarly enthralling if they choose to curl up with it by the fire on a cold winter’s night. And on the subject of curling up with a book (perhaps by the Christmas tree with a few mince pies), I’ve brought together below five of my favourite winter-based thrillers, both new and old, that would make for perfect seasonal reading.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

Fans of 2019 movie Knives Out should certainly turn to this Christie gem from 1938. That terrifically enjoyable film features a lot of nods to Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, with bickering families, mysterious outsiders, a bloody death of the family patriarch and an ingenious solution. Christie apparently wrote this because her brother-in-law complained that the murders in her books were ‘getting too refined’ and apparently wanted to read a story with ‘a good violent murder with lots of blood’. Well that’s certainly what she delivered here, with the bloody throat-cutting and nightmarish sounds happening at the top of an old manor house. Once you’ve finished the book, 1994 ITV adaptation of the novel starring David Suchet is also definitely worth a watch, especially for the superb casting, helping it skilfully handle certain tricky aspects of the plot that are hard to pull-off well onscreen. 

The Dark by Emma Haughton

Now moving to something bang up-to-date, Emma Haughton’s thriller The Dark is one of the most impressive books I’ve read all year. It’s an autumn tradition of mine to take myself off on a reading retreat (not an established one, I just book myself into a hotel and just read book after book after book). When you’re doing really sustained amounts of reading, it’s common to want breaks and do something else for a bit – however this did not occur with this utterly gripping novel of arctic-based murder. Playing out in a confined environment, this is essential reading for those who enjoy Agatha Christie’s more single-setting based novels (And Then There Were None of course comes to mind) and the recent (and similarly enthralling) hit BBC drama Vigil. 

Silent Night by Nell Pattison 

This is a novel so covered in a cold, chilly atmosphere (thanks to its superb scene-setting) the pages themselves practically crack with frost as you turn them. Following the investigation that unfolds after a death at a school trip for deaf students, Nell Pattison’s characters are very vividly drawn and the haunting terrain of the snowy woods is eerily evoked. 

Shiver by Allie Reynolds

One of those books you can’t help but fly through, Allie Reynold’s debut thriller Shiver is an excellent whodunnit that at times borders on suspense-horror. Like The Dark, it’s also a well-pitched examination of what happens when you group people together for a tense period in an extreme situation, with the secrets in their past steadily coming to the surface. 

The Lighthouse by P.D. James

This is the only of my five not specifically set in winter, but it still makes of absorbing reading on dark, chilly evenings. I think I also have a lot of associations with this book and Christmas, since it was the first of P.D. James’s novels I read, back when I was 13 years old and suffering from flu in December. It was the perfect medicine: James’s mysteries are so well-thought-through, and this one takes place within the confines of a wonderfully atmospheric location: a restful retreat for the rich on an island just off the Cornish coast. Expect brutal killings, pleasingly methodical crime-solving and a very tense final act. 

The Woman on the Pier by B P Walter (Published by Harper Collins) Out Now

Two strangers meet on the pier Only one walks away... Screenwriter Caroline Byrne is desperate to know why her daughter Jessica died, murdered in Stratford when she was supposed to be at a friend's in Somerset. When Caroline discovers the messages Jessica had been sending a boy named Michael, she realises it's because of him. Because he failed to meet her that day. He's the reason why her daughter is dead. And so she makes a choice. He's the one who's going to pay. That is her promise. Her price.

More information about B P Walter can be found on his website. You can also find him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @BarnabyWalter and on Instagram @bpwalterauthor. 

The inspiration behind Shiver / Mind Games and Bodies in the Ice By Allie Reynolds

 

A hand protruding from the ice. That’s the gruesome image that provided the first spark of inspiration for my thriller Shiver. 

Many years ago, I was a freestyle snowboarder, once in the top ten UK. I spent five winters living and training in the high mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. I was obsessed with the icy white world at the top of a mountain. Even back then, I was a keen writer. I kept a journal where I tried to capture this incredible environment on paper, knowing that one day I wanted to write a novel set there. 

The high mountains are full of natural dangerous like cliffs, avalanches and changeable weather conditions. Glaciers can be riddled with crevasses – sometimes hidden by a thin layer of snow or ‘snow bridge’ so if you take just one step in the wrong direction, you could literally fall to your death. Snowstorms can blow in at short notice, cutting off roads and stranding people. All in all, it seemed perfect setting for a thriller but it took me years to hit upon the idea for Shiver.

Years later, while living in sunny Queensland, Australia, a news article caught my eye about some climbers out hiking in the French Alps that summer, who spotted a hand and two shoes protruding from the ice. They’d called in rescue teams who had uncovered the body of a man who’d gone missing thirty years earlier. The article went on to explain that with climate change causing glaciers to retreat, many more bodies are expected to emerge. I couldn’t get the creepy idea of bodies in the ice from my head. 

I did some further research and was shocked to learn that Mont Blanc area, where I’d spent my first winter season, was currently believed to hold 161 bodies of alpinists who’d gone missing over the years. I knew the high mountains were dangerous but I never realised they were quite so deadly. 

It struck me then that if someone goes missing in such terrain, we might not learn for years if their death is an accident or something more sinister – or perhaps they aren’t really there at all. The mountains provide a perfect place to disappear. When I asked myself who might wish to do away with someone in the mountains, the answer seemed obvious: a sporting rival.

As a former athlete, I love reading sports memoirs and sports psychology books. In particular, I’m interested in the mental aspect of sports. It’s been said that winning in a sport is as much as 90% a game of the mind – that two athletes might be equally naturally talented but the one who plays a better mental game will win every time. 

In a YouTube video I was fascinated to hear one athlete say this about his rival: he’s one of the most competitive people on earth. He plays real mind games. What exactly did he mean by ‘mind games’? Further research revealed countless tales of the sorts of games athletes play, in sports such as basketball, golf, boxing, soccer and rugby, where big money is on offer for the top players. Tactics included intimidation, trash talking (for example saying terrible things about another player’s wife or daughter), and generally trying to get under their opponent’s skin to rile them and make them crack. 

Thankfully I didn’t find any examples of such tactics being played in extreme sports like freestyle snowboarding, but my imagination went to work. In a dangerous sport and a dangerous environment, mind games could have deadly consequences, which made them perfect material for a psychological thriller. 

Athletes make great thriller characters, too, in my opinion. Focussed, driven… and quite possibly ruthless. I’m always surprised we don’t see more of them in crime and thriller novels. A storyline began to form in my head about a close-knit group of snowboarders vying to be the best. If they’re equally matched in terms of physical ability, they may have to resort to other measures to get ahead. How far might someone go to win? 

I’m happy to say that I didn’t play or experience any ‘mind games’ while I was snowboarding. If I had, I might not be here to tell the tale. But if you read Shiver, I hope you enjoy the mind games the characters play with each other and the reader – from the safety of your armchair.

Shiver by Allie Reynolds is out 28th October in paperback, priced £7.99 (Headline).

They don't know what I did. And I intend to keep it that way. When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can't seem to let go. The five friends haven't seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don't know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth. In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.

Books to Look Forward to From Headline

 January 2022

Opals… In the desolate outback town of Finnigans gap, police struggle to maintain law and order. Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable youngsters and billionaires do as they please. Bodies… Then an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine. Nothing about the miner’s death is straight-forward, not even who found the body. Homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan. But Finnigans Gap has already ended one police career and damaged others, and soon both officers face damning allegations and internal investigations. Have Ivan and Nell been set up, and if so, by whom? Secrets… As time runs out, their only chance at redemption is to find the killer. But the more they uncover, the more harrowing the mystery becomes, and a past long forgotten is thrown into scorching sunlight. Because in Finnigans Gap, nothing stays buried for ever. Opal County is by Chris Hammer.

Real Easy is by Marie Rutkoski. It’s 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She’s not used to taking anyone under her wing – after all, between her disapproving boyfriend and his daughter, who may as well be her own child, she has enough to worry about. But when Samantha overrides her better judgment to drive a new dancer home, they are run off the road. The police arrive at the scene of the accident – but find only one body. Georgia, another dancer, is drawn into the investigation as she tries to assist Holly, a detective with a complicated story of her own. As the point of view shifts from police officers and detectives to club patrons, the women circle around a list of suspects, all the while grappling with their own understanding of loss and love. As they get closer to the truth they must each confront a fundamental question: How do women live their lives knowing that men can hurt them?

February 2022

All That Lives is by James Oswald. An archaeological dig at the old South Leith parish kirkyard has turned up a mysterious body dating from around 700 years ago. The experts wonder if she wasn’t murdered and dumped, but some suspect that this gruesome discovery is a sacrifice, placed there for a specific purpose. Then a second body is unearthed. This victim went missing only thirty years ago – but the similarities between her death and the ancient body’s suggest something even more disturbing. Drawn into the investigation, McLean finds himself torn between a worrying trend of violent drug-related deaths and uncovering what truly connects these bodies. When a third body is discovered, and too close for comfort, he begins to suspect dark purpose at play – and that whoever put them there is far from finished.

March 2022

Winter, 1607. A man is struck down in the grounds of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Before dawn breaks, he is dead. Home to the Montagues, Battle has caught the paranoid eye of King James. The Catholic household is rumoured to shelter those loyal to the Pope, disguising them as servants within the abbey walls. And the last man sent to expose them was silenced before his report could reach London. Daniel Pursglove is summoned to infiltrate Battle and find proof of treachery. He soon discovers that nearly everyone at the abbey has something to hide – for deeds far more dangerous than religious dissent. But one lone figure he senses only in the shadows, carefully concealed from the world. Could the notorious traitor Spero Pettingar finally be close at hand? As more bodies are unearthed, Daniel determines to catch the culprit. But how do you unmask a killer when nobody is who they seem? Traitor in the Ice is by K J Maitland.

April 2022

It Starts at Midnight is by Harriet Tyce. New Year’s Eve, when the clock strikes twelve. A lavish party in one of Edinburgh’s best postcodes is sent spiralling into chaos when two guests fall tragically from the roof, impaled on the cast iron railings below. For Tess, it was about more than reuniting with long lost friends. Recently diagnosed with an illness that could be terminal, it was her last chance to make things right. Having grown apart from her husband Marcus, she knew this would be the perfect opportunity to renew their vows, surrounded by everyone they love. Their time is running out. Tess’ closest companion Sylvie knows this better than anyone. She’s trying desperately to offer her friend some closure from the guilt that has plagued them both for decades. But as midnight approaches and the countdown begins, it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want a resolution. They want revenge.

From the detective who helped catch the Golden State Killer, a memoir about investigating America's toughest cold cases, and the rewards - and toll - of a life spent solving crime. For a decade, from 1973, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn off the lights. Then he vanished, and the case remained unsolved. In 1994, when cold-case investigator Paul Holes came across the old file, he swore he would unmask GSK and finally give these families closure. Twenty-four years later, Holes fulfilled that promise, identifying 73-year-old Joseph J. DeAngelo. Headlines blasted around the world: one of America's most prolific serial killers had been caught. That case launched Paul's career into the stratosphere, turning him into an icon in the true-crime world. But while many know the story of the capture of GSK, until now, no one has truly known the man behind it all. In Unmasked: Crime Scenes, Cold Cases & My Hunt for the Golden State Killer Paul Holes takes us through his memories of a storied career and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including Laci Peterson's murder and Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping. But this is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones; the inability to walk away from a challenge - even at the expense of his own happiness. This is a story about the gritty truth of crime solving when there are no 'case closed' headlines. It is the story of a man and his commitment to his cases, and to the people who might have otherwise been forgotten.

June 2022

The Gatekeeper is by James Byrne. Dez’ Limerick is a “retired” British mercenary, checking out sunny Southern California when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time, interrupting the kidnapping attempt of a military equipment corporation CEO’s daughter. Helping her to uncover a deadly plot buried within her own company, Dez exposes a sinister conspiracy that turns out to be bigger, more dangerous, and more personal at every explosive turn. 

The tide’s coming in. Every wave seems to lap a little higher. Erasing, bit by bit, the traces of what I did. Kenna arrives in Sydney to surprise her best friend. But Mikki and her fiancé Jack are about to head away on a trip, so Kenna finds herself tagging along for the ride. Sorrow Bay is beautiful, wild and dangerous. A remote surfing spot with waves to die for, cut off from the rest of the world. Here Kenna meets the people who will do anything to keep their paradise a secret. Sky, Ryan, Clemente and Victor have come to ride the waves and to disappear from life. But what did they leave behind? And how will they feel about Kenna turning up unannounced? As Kenna gets drawn into their world, she sees that everyone has their own fears to overcome and secrets to hide. What has her best friend got involved in and can she protect her? Because there’s one thing that each member of the tribe keeps telling her: nobody ever leaves. A word of warning. This place isn’t perfect, nor are the people here. There’s a darkness inside all of us and The Bay has a way of bringing it out. Everyone here has their secrets but we don’t go looking for them, because sometimes it’s better not to know. The Bay is by Allie Reynolds.

Books to Look Forward to From Headline Publishers

January 2021

On a bright sunny day in Port Silver, ex-journalist Martin Scarsden misses a call from his girlfriend Mandy. Checking his voicemail later, all he hears is her terrified scream before the phone cuts off. Back at the house, he finds a policeman unconscious on the floor, and Mandy gone. So starts a twisting tale of intrigue and danger, as Martin probes the past of the woman he loves, a woman who has buried her former life deep. And for the first time, Mandy finds denial impossible, now the body of a man has been discovered - a man to whom she was engaged to marry. It's time to face her demons once and for all; it's time she learned how to trust. Trust is by Chris Hammer.

Run For Cover is by Michael Ledwidge. On the run from a shadowy cabal of the world's most powerful men, ex-Navy Seal Michael Gannon heads to the safest place he can think of: his war buddy's ranch in the wilds of Utah. But when his friend's brother is found dead in the rocky mountains, Gannon realizes he can't stay off grid. Is the death connected to a string of grisly murders occurring in national parks...or something even more sinister? Flushed from cover, Gannon finds himself sucked into a lethal conspiracy that has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government.

February 2021

Shiver is by Allie Reynolds. When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can't seem to let go. The five friends haven't seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don't know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth. In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.

The charred remains of an elderly woman are discovered in a burned-out game-keepers cottage, hidden away in woodland to the west of Edinburgh. Clearly no accidental fire, Detective Inspector Tony McLean suspects that neither is this simply a grim arson attack. There is far more to the victim than her humble surroundings might suggest, and something ritualistic to her horrific murder. Nor will it be the only case of death by fire that Tony and his team will be faced with. This is only the beginning, and with such evil clouding the air, Tony begins to wonder what else will burn . . . What Will Burn is by James Oswald.

Finlay Donovan is Killing It is by Elle Cosimano. Finlay Donovan, single mum and floundering crime writer, is having a hard time. Her ex-husband went behind her back to fire the nanny, and this morning she sent her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an unfortunate incident with scissors. Making it to lunch with her literary agent is a minor victory but, as she's discussing the plot of her latest crime novel, the conversation is misinterpreted by a woman sitting nearby as that of a hit-woman offering her services to dispose of a 'problem' husband. And when the woman slips Finlay a name and a promise of a large sum of cash, Finlay finds herself plotting something much bigger than her novel. And, after all, they do always say: write what you know. . .

March 2021

Blackout is by Simon Scarrow. Berlin, December 1939As Germany goes to war, the Nazis tighten their terrifying grip. Paranoia in the capital is intensified by a rigidly enforced blackout that plunges the city into oppressive darkness every night, as the bleak winter sun set.When a young woman is found brutally murdered, Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is under immense pressure to solve the case, swiftly. Treated with suspicion by his superiors for his failure to join the Nazi Party, Schenke walks a perilous line - for disloyalty is a death sentence.The discovery of a second victim confirms Schenke's worst fears. He must uncover the truth before evil strikes again.As the investigation takes him closer to the sinister heart of the regime, Schenke realises there is danger everywhere - and the warring factions of the Reich can be as deadly as a killer stalking the streets . ..

What if today was your last day... A bomb has exploded during a fashion show, killing a beautiful model on the catwalk. The murderer is still at large... and he may strike again. Yet this is the least of Police Commissioner Christian Verger's worries. His fiancee Viola has left him. He has to keep his tumultuous past a secret. To make things worse, his voice assistant Alexa is 99.74% sure he will die tomorrow. Moving from snowy 1980s Montana to chic 1990s Manhattan to a drone-filled 2030s Britain, Future Perfect is by Felicia Yap and is an electrifying race to solve a murder before it's too late. Yet it is also a love story, a riveting portrait of a couple torn apart by secrets, grief and guilt. A twisted tale of how the past can haunt a person's future and be used to predict if he will die... or kill.

Breakout is by Paul Herron. A lethal storm. The most deadly prison. Who will survive the night? Jack Constantine - a former cop who killed one of his wife's murderers in an act of vengeance - is serving his time in Ravenhill penitentiary, a notorious 'supermax' home to the most dangerous convicts in the country. When an apocalyptic superstorm wreaks havoc across the USA, the correctional officers flee the prison...but not before opening every cell door. The inmates must fend for themselves as lethal floodwaters rise and violent anarchy is unleashed. Teaming up with Kiera Sawyer, a Correctional Officer left behind on her first day of work, Constantine has one chance of survival - he must break out of a maximum security prison. But with the building on the verge of collapse, and deadly chaos around him, time is running out...

April 2021

1606. A year to the day that men were executed for conspiring to blow up Parliament, a towering wave devastates the Bristol Channel. Some proclaim God's vengeance. Others seek to take advantage.In London, Daniel Pursglove lies in prison waiting to die. But Charles FitzAlan, close adviser to King James I, has a job in mind that will free a man of Daniel's skill from the horrors of Newgate. If he succeeds.For Bristol is a hotbed of Catholic spies, and where better for the lone conspirator who evaded arrest, one Spero Pettingar, to gather allies than in the chaos of a drowned city? Daniel journeys there to investigate FitzAlan's lead, but soon finds himself at the heart of a dark Jesuit conspiracy - and in pursuit of a killer. The Drowned City is by K J Maitland.

A Darker Reality is by Anne Perry. The threat of a second world war means no one is safe... Elena Standish, a young English photographer working for MI5, is on holiday in America, attending her grandparents’ golden wedding anniversary party in Washington DC, when one of the guests is murdered. It is a hit and run by a car that belongs to Elena’s grandfather and he is immediately arrested. With connections to many political circles, including a close link to the President, Elena’s grandfather is convinced that his enemies are trying to frame him. And with the help of handsome British spy James Allenby, Elena must uncover the truth before it is too late... 

Forfeit is by Barbara Nadel. Double murder. Dark secrets Bitter betrayal It is the early hours of the morning when Turkish TV star Erol Gencer and Syrian refugee Wael Al Hussain are found dead at a house on the outskirts of Istanbul, but it is unclear whether Erol killed Wael before committing suicide or if it was a double murder. Inspector Mehmet Suleyman is on leave, as his teenage son is visiting from Ireland, but when Detective Kemil Gursel’s transsexual ex-lover, Pembe, is also murdered shortly after confessing that Wael had been one of her clients, Suleyman knows he must step in to help Kemil solve this complex case. Meanwhile, retired inspector Cetin Ikmen is pursuing the truth behind Wael’s wife’s story that she and Erol’s wife, Betul, had met over a year ago and plotted to kill each other’s husbands. From different directions, Ikmen and Suleyman close in on a killer whose double life has lead to greed, betrayal and murder... 

Inspector Lu Fei is a weary cop in a remote, northern Chinese town where the theft of a few chickens counts as a major crime. But when a young woman is brutally murdered - with her heart, lungs and liver removed - he suddenly finds himself under intense scrutiny from the ruling party in Beijing. Determined to find her killer, Lu Fei must navigate a society where politics can be deadly, corruption is rife, and the powerful are protected. As evidence connects the case a string of unsolved murders, Lu must decide what he is prepared to risk in search of justice. City of Ice is by Brian Klingborg.