The Essex Murder Triangle by James Henry

In 1990 I started working in Tiptree, a village between Colchester and Maldon in Essex. At the time I was living in Billericay, a commuter town twenty-five miles away to the west. The nearest big towns were Basildon and Chelmsford. Up until this point, I had always worked in London and while Tiptree was pleasant enough, it was a place noted for its superb jam, not its thrilling nightlife. I was twenty years old at the time and I found it hard to adjust to a slower pace of life. I’d never been to Colchester, let alone any of its outlying villages, and more often than not the local gossip and references were lost on me. One thing that came up time and again was the curious sounding, ‘Essex Triangle’, and the nearby small town of Coggeshall, in the heart of the triangle.

Legend had it that a disproportionate number of murders had been committed within this ‘triangle’, relative to the size of the population who lived there. The other thing I often heard about Coggeshall was that it was built on ley lines, and that all manner of weird happenings and hauntings occurred there. This all seemed suspicious and I paid no attention; I was not remotely interested in countryside myths. 

Within two years I opted to return to London.

Decades later, when I started writing crime novels, these hazy memories returned to me. By then I had moved to that very part of Essex that I had not taken to as a younger man; moreover, I knew it well and I decided I wanted to write about this familiar and often underrated landscape. In Blackwater, the first book in my new series, I had established my lead character DS Lowry in Colchester. For the second book, Yellowhammer, I would take him into the countryside, to Coggeshall and Kelvedon. 

Alas I never came across the infamous ley lines in Coggeshall, but shortly after Yellowhammer was published, I discovered a book called The Essex Triangle by Simon Thurlow, (with the subtitle Four decades of violence and mayhem in a sleepy pocket of rural England). On the cover is a photograph of the convicted murderer Jeremy Bamber, whose victims were discovered in 1985 at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, less than four miles from Tiptree. Inside the cover is a map of the ‘Essex Triangle’ itself: and, smack in the middle, is Coggeshall my current hometown. The triangle has become a circle; these myths and stories that were of so little interest to my 20-year-old self in the end became the very things that fuelled my imagination and inspire me to continue writing. 

Whitethroat by James Henry is published by Riverrun on 8^th July, £14.99

It's November 1983 in Essex and there are reasons to be cheerful. Uptown Girl is sitting pretty at the top of the charts, Risky Business is raking it in at the box office, and there are now four channels on the telly. However, social tensions are beginning to bubble beneath the surface: Mrs Thatcher has embarked on her second controversial term, and the situation in Northern Ireland is ever-escalating.
Yet in the garrison town of Colchester, it's another deadly standoff that is hogging the headlines. The body of a nineteen-year-old Lance Corporal has been discovered on the local High Street, the result of what appears to be a bizarre, chivalrous duel. It seems he was the victim of a doomed army love triangle. As such, the military police are wishing to keep the matter confined within military ranks.
This is all just fine, as far as Colchester CID is concerned. They have enough on their plate as is: with DI Nick Lowry in a tailspin following the breakdown of his marriage, WPC Jane Gabriel exasperated by the male-favoured system, Detective Daniel Kenton relying on substance abuse to quieten his demons from his last case; and their boss, DCS Sparks, shortly to become a first-time father at 55.
However, it is not long before the blood from the duel runs into civilian police affairs, and the trail presents CID with a local rogues' gallery. A savvy entrepreneur. A wayward skinhead. A member of the landed gentry. And a shadowy Mauritian travel agent with a chilling reputation. Soon, they will discover, a real estate deal, a racist, and the town's Robin Hood pub hold the key to the killing...

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus Publishing (Incl MacLehose Press, Riverrun and Jo Fletcher Books)

 June 2021

All Human Wisdom is by Pierre Lemaitre. In 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Pericourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Pericourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months. Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, Madeleine sets about rebuilding her life. She will be helped by an ex-Communist fixer, a Polish nurse who doesn't speak a word of French, a brainless petty criminal with a talent for sabotage, an exiled German Jewish chemist, a very expensive forger, an opera singer with a handy flair for theatrics, and her own son with ideas for a creative new business to take Paris by storm.

July 2021

The Lesson is by Lisa Bradley. Someone's got to make him pay. Evie has just started her second year at University. She is young, beautiful and popular. She should be having the time of her life, except she has something to hide - a one-night-stand with her English Professor, Simon. Not wanting any of his other students to be used in the same way, Evie reports their relationship to University HR. But hours later, Village Vixen, the student gossip blogger, is baying for blood. She's found out about the accusation and is firmly on Simon's side. But how could Village Vixen possibly have known? Evie can't help but feel like she's being watched. As paranoia and fear set in, the one thing Evie knows for sure is someone has to teach Simon a lesson..

Whitethroat is by James Henry. It's November 1983 in Essex and there are reasons to be cheerful. Uptown Girl is sitting pretty at the top of the charts, Risky Business is raking it in at the box office, and there are now four channels on the telly. However, social tensions are beginning to bubble beneath the surface: Mrs Thatcher has embarked on her second controversial term, and the situation in Northern Ireland is ever-escalating. Yet in the garrison town of Colchester, it's another deadly standoff that is hogging the headlines. The body of a nineteen-year-old Lance Corporal has been discovered on the local High Street, the result of what appears to be a bizarre, chivalrous duel. It seems he was the victim of a doomed army love triangle. As such, the military police are wishing to keep the matter confined within military ranks. This is all just fine, as far as Colchester CID is concerned. They have enough on their plate as is: with DI Nick Lowry in a tailspin following the breakdown of his marriage, WPC Jane Gabriel exasperated by the male-favoured system, Detective Daniel Kenton relying on substance abuse to quieten his demons from his last case; and their boss, DCS Sparks, shortly to become a first-time father at 55. However, it is not long before the blood from the duel runs into civilian police affairs, and the trail presents CID with a local rogues' gallery. A savvy entrepreneur. A wayward skinhead. A member of the landed gentry. And a shadowy Mauritian travel agent with a chilling reputation. Soon, they will discover, a real estate deal, a racist, and the town's Robin Hood pub hold the key to the killing... 

The Murder Box is by Olivia Kiernan. Some games can be deadlyAt first, Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan believes the murder mystery game sent to her office is a birthday gift from one of her colleagues. But when Frankie studies the game's contents, she notices a striking resemblance between the 'murder victim' and missing twenty-two-year-old Lydia Callin. As Frankie and her team investigate, a series of grisly crimes connected to the game are discovered across Dublin city and Lydia's involvement with a shadowy network of murder mystery players becomes clear.On the hunt for Lydia's murderer, Frankie is drawn more deeply into the game. Every successful move brings her closer to the killer. But the real question is not what happens should she lose -- but what happens if she wins.

The Therapist is by Helene Flood. At first it's the lie that hurts. A voicemail from her husband tells Sara he's arrived at the holiday cabin. Then a call from his friend confirms he never did. She tries to carry on as normal, teasing out her clients' deepest fears, but as the hours stretch out, her own begin to surface. And when the police finally take an interest, they want to know why Sara deleted that voicemail. To get to the root of Sigurd's disappearance, Sara must question everything she knows about her relationship. Could the truth about what happened be inside her head?

Jean Garnier lives on the fringes - a lonely nobody who has lost everything dear to him. His girlfriend was killed in an unexplained accident, his mother has just been sent to prison - he has even lost his job after the sudden death of his boss. In one last, desperate cry for help, Jean sets up seven lethal bombs, hidden all over Paris and timed so that one will explode every 24 hours. After the first detonation, Jean gives himself up to the police. He has one simple demand: his mother must be released, or the daily explosions will continue. Camille Verhoeven is faced with a race against time to uncover the secrets of this troubled young man and avert a massive human disaster. Rosy & John is by Pierre Lemaitre and is a return to the award winning series featuring Camille Verhoeven.

August 2021

Hell and High Water is by Christian Unge and is the first in a new Swedish crime series featuring Tekla Berg, a fearless doctor with a remarkable photographic memory With 85% per cent burns to his body and a 115% risk of dying, it's a miracle the patient is still alive. He only made it this far thanks to Tekla Berg, an emergency physician whose unorthodox methods and photographic memory are often the difference between life and death. Convinced that the fire was a terrorist attack - and that the patient was involved - the police are determined to question him. Almost as determined as those who would silence him at any cost. And while Tekla battles to keep him breathing, she can't shake the thought that something about him is strangely familiar. Tekla has always hidden her remarkable mind from her hospital colleagues, resorting to amphetamines to take the edge off the endless whirl of lucid memories. But now she'll need to call on all her wits as she's drawn into a mystery involving corrupt police, the godfather of the Uzbek mafia, and her beloved but wayward brother.

Velvet Was The Night is by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 1970s Mexico City: while student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes from her humdrum life in the stories of passion and danger that fill the latest issue of Secret Romance.She is deeply envious of her neighbour, Leonora, a beautiful art student who lives the life of excitement and intrigue Maite craves - so when she disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite jumps at the chance to uncover Leonora's secrets.Maite is not the only one searching for the missing girl. Elvis, a goon-for-hire who is longing to escape his violent life, has been assigned to find the student. Like Maite, he loves old movies, comics and rock 'n' roll and he's beginning to be interested in the mousy secretary who is fast becoming involved in a world of political intrigue.As Maite and Elvis follow Leonora's trail, they journey deeper into a world of student radicals, hitmen, government agents and Russian spies, who are all determined to unearth Leonora's secrets- at gunpoint.

September 2021

Private investigator Kitt Hartley and her twin sister Rebecca are preparing for a holiday in Scotland when cruise ship entertainer Errol Jackson appears at the door. Errol breaks the news that Bryce Griffin, a former smuggler and an old friend of Kitt's, has been murdered: his body found washed up by a lighthouse, bearing a gunshot wound. Kitt persuades Rebecca to cancel their trip and, together with Kitt's assistant Grace Edwards and best friend Evie Bowes, books onto the next cruise to Norway to help with the ongoing murder investigation. Aboard the cruise ship Kitt, Grace and Rebecca encounter burlesque dancers, casino dealers, drag queens and a talking parrot named Skittles - seemingly the only witness to Bryce's death. But what dark secrets are lurking below deck? Can Kitt catch the killer before it's too late? A Body by the Lighthouse is by Helen Cox.

The Wrong Goodbye by Toshihiko Yahagi pits homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession Japan. After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran's bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of "goods" to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind. Thereby implicated in a murder suspect's escape and relieved from active duty, Futamura takes on hack work for the beautiful concert violinist Aileen Hsu, a "boat people" orphan whose Japanese adoption mother has mysteriously gone missing. And now a phone call from a bestselling yakuza author, a one-time black marketeer in Saigon, hints at inside information on "former Vietcong mole" Tran and his "old sidekick" Billy Lou, both of whom crossed a triad tycoon who is buying up huge tracts of Mekong Delta marshland for a massive development schemeAs the loose strands flashback to Vietnam, the string of official lies and mysterious allegiances build into a dark picture of the U.S.-Japan postwar alliance.

The Midnight Hour is by Elly Griffiths. Brighton, 1965. When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the postmortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone. Frustrated by the police response to Bert's death and determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private detective duo Emma Holmes and Sam Collins. This is their first real case, but as luck would have it they have a friend on the inside: Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula, starring Seth Billington, Bert's son. But when they question Max, they feel he isn't telling them the whole story. Emma and Sam must vie with the police to untangle the case and bring the killer to justice. They're sure the answers must lie in Bert's dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly, days of Music Hall. But the closer they get to the truth, the more danger they find themselves in...

Over the course of several days one hot summer, a female student from Freiburg disappears, a father is murdered in a brutal attack, a teenage boy drowns in the Rhine in suspicious circumstances. It soon becomes evident to Chief Inspector Louise Boni and her colleagues at Freiburg's criminal police that the three cases are connected - and that others are now in terrible danger. Including Boni herself. In the fourth of the Black Forest Investigations, Louise Boni is confronted with the grim secrets of outwardly respectable citizens. Sometimes it takes very little to unleash the monster in man. Night Hunters is by Oliver Bottini.

They say you die three times. The first time for me was when my heart stopped beating beneath his hands by the lake. The second was when what was left of me was lowered into the ground in front of Ivan and Raksha at Solna church.The third will be the last time my name is spoken on earth. After a childhood of neglect, Inni is a rebellious teenager, a volatile young woman, a drug addict, a sex worker, an unreliable mother . . . She lives her life on the margins, but it is a life that is full, complex, full of different shades of dark and light, until it is brutally ended one summer's day on a lake shore at the heart of a distant, rain-washed forest.On the surface, this is the story of Inni's death - but really it is about her life before, and the lives that carry on afterwards. It's about her children, her parents, her childhood, adolescence and the chain of choices, tragedies and accidents that lead her to life on the streets and take her into the wrong crowd, the wrong places, and finally the wrong car with the wrong person. The Antarctica of Love is by Sara Stridsberg.

October 2021

The far side of the Moon, 1973. Three astronauts are trapped in a tiny Apollo module, and one of them has murder on the mind From internationally bestselling astronaut Chris Hadfield comes an exceptional Cold War thriller from the dark heart of the Space Race. As Russian and American crews sprint for a secret bounty hidden away on the Moon's surface, old rivalries blossom and the political stakes are stretched to breaking point back on Earth. Houston flight controller Kazimieras 'Kaz' Zemeckis must do all he can to keep the NASA crew together, while staying one step ahead of his Soviet rivals. But not everyone on board Apollo 18 is quite who they appear to be. The Apollo Murders is by Chris Hadfield.

A small town in outback Australia wakes to a crime of medieval savagery.A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb's northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and Aboriginals, between immigrants and the towniesStill mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate. Within minutes of his arrival, it's clear that Cobb is not the same place he left. Once it thrived, but now it's a poor and derelict dusthole, with the local police chief it deserves. And as Manolis negotiates his new colleagues' antagonism, and the simmering anger of a community destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the ghosts of his past begin to flicker to life. The Stoning is by Peter Papathanasiou.

November 2021

Dangerous Vacation and Other Bruno Tales is by Martin Walker. A bumper collection of stories featuring Bruno, France’s favourite cop, all set in the beautiful Dordogne valley - the perfect escape. With titles like ‘Bruno and the Chocolate War’; ‘Bruno and the Birthday Lunch’; ‘Oystercatcher’; ‘A Market Tale’ and ‘Fifty Million Bubbles’, you may be sure that champagne and gastronomy will feature as well as cosy crime in ‘Dangerous Vacation’. Bruno strides through these tales, keeping calm, settling local disputes and keeping his beloved town of St Denis safe. Only on one occasion does he panic: in ‘Bruno’s Challenge’, his friend Ivan, proprietor and chef of the town’s popular eatery, suddenly collapses on the eve of a large anniversary dinner, and he asks Bruno to take over the restaurant. After a few protests followed by some deep breaths, the inimitable Bruno meets his challenge, as always. 

Sue Keller is lost, orphaned in her mid-twenties and craving comfort. Then Sue meets Annie. It’s been twenty years, but Annie could never forget that face. She was Sue’s live-in nanny at their big house upstate, and loved Sue like she was her own. Friends now, they were once closer than mother and daughter. But gradually, Sue begins to uncover the truth about Annie’s time in the Keller household all those years ago, particularly her sudden departure – or dismissal – and the dark secrets that bind these women together. Nanny Dearest is by Flora Collins. 

Turf Wars is by Oliver Norek. Since Capitaine Coste and his team's last case, calm appears to have returned to the SDPJ93 - but not for long. The summary execution of three young dealers - one them shot in the head in full view of a police surveillance team - is the signal for hell to be unleashed in the suburb of Seine-Saint Denis. Cocaine stashed in pensioners' apartments; a psychopathic gang leader of just thirteen at large among the high rises; a cult militia recruited from the boxing clubs run by the council; a deputy mayor found tortured to death in his own home. And, if all this wasn't enough to contend with, when a police intervention in a local estate fuels the residents' resentment towards authority, Coste finds himself faced with an army of merciless thugs capable of enacting a genuine revolution.

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus Publishing, MacLehose Press and Riverrun

July 2020

Summer, 1658, and the Republic may finally be safe: the combined Stuart and Spanish forces have been heavily defeated by the English and French armies on the coast of Flanders, and the King’s cause appears finished.   Yet one last, desperate throw of the dice is planned. And who can stop them if not Captain Damian Seeker?   The House of Laminations is the final gripping book in this acclaimed and award- winning series of historical thrillers by S G Maclean. Will Seeker’s legacy endure? 

Tell Me How it Ends is by V B Grey.  Delia Maxwell is an international singing sensation and adored by millions. Lily Brooks has watched Delia all her life. Now she has a dream job as her assistant – but is there more to her attachment than the admiration of a fan? Private investigator Frank is beginning to wonder.   As Lily steps into Delia’s spotlight, Frank’s suspicions of Lily’s ulterior motives increase. If Delia thought she had put her past behind her, she had better start watching her back. 

It's November 1983 in Essex and there are reasons to be cheerful. Uptown Girl is sitting pretty at the top of the charts, Risky Business is raking it in at the box office, and there are now four channels on the telly. However, social tensions are beginning to bubble beneath the surface: Mrs Thatcher has embarked on her second controversial term, and the situation in Northern Ireland is ever-escalating.  Yet in the garrison town of Colchester, it's another deadly standoff that is hogging the headlines. The body of a nineteen-year-old Lance Corporal has been discovered on the local High Street, the result of what appears to be a bizarre, chivalrous duel. It seems he was the victim of a doomed army love triangle. As such, the military police are wishing to keep the matter confined within military ranks.  This is all just fine, as far as Colchester CID is concerned. They have enough on their plate as is: with DI Nick Lowry in a tailspin following the breakdown of his marriage, WPC Jane Gabriel

exasperated by the male-favoured system, Detective Daniel Kenton relying on substance abuse to quieten his demons from his last case; and their boss, DCS Sparks, shortly to become a first-time father at 55.  However, it is not long before the blood from the duel runs into civilian police affairs, and the trail presents CID with a local rogues' gallery. A savvy entrepreneur. A wayward skinhead. A member of the landed gentry. And a shadowy Mauritian travel agent with a chilling reputation. Soon, they will discover, a real estate deal, a racist, and the town's Robin Hood pub hold the key to the killing...  Whitethroat is by James Henry.

"Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'"  At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery.  These Are Not Gentle People is by Andrew Harding and is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a murder story, a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller.

August 2020

Pete Riley answers the door one morning to a parent's worst nightmare. On his doorstep is a

stranger, Miles Lambert, who breaks the devastating news that Pete's two-year-old, Theo, isn't his biological child after all - he is Miles's, switched with the Lamberts' baby at birth by an understaffed hospital.  Reeling from shock, Peter and his partner Maddie agree that, rather than swap the children back, it's better to stay as they are but to involve the other family in their children's lives. But a plan to sue the hospital triggers an official investigation that unearths some disturbing questions about just what happened on the day the babies were switched.  And when Theo is thrown out of nursery for hitting other children, Maddie and Pete have to ask themselves: how far do they want this arrangement to go? What are the secrets hidden behind the Lamberts' smart front door? And how much can they trust the real parents of their child - or even each other?  Playing Nice is By J P Delaney.

A corpse that wakes up on the mortuary slab.  A case of spontaneous human combustion.  There is little by the way of violent crime and petty theft that Capitaine Victor Coste has not encountered in his fifteen years on the St Denis patch - but nothing like this. Something unusual is afoot, and Coste is about to be dragged out of his comfort zone. Stranger still, anonymous letters addressed to him personally have begun to arrive, highlighting the fates of two women, invisible victims whose deaths were never explained. Just two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned.  The Lost and The Damned is Olivier Norek's first novel and draws on all his experience as a police officer in one of France's toughest suburbs - the same experience he drew on as a writer for the hit TV series Spiral.

September 2020

The Old Enemy is by Henry Porter.  Ex-MI6 officer Paul Samson prefers to work privately these days. He has been tasked with guarding a young woman, Joni Freemantle. He doesn't know who she is, or why she's important, but the money's good enough for him not to dig too deeply.   Then a shooter disguised as a homeless man abducts her before his eyes and Samson wishes he'd asked more questions. When his former colleague, Robert Harland, is found dead, the news comes with the threat that Samson's own life - and that of others he holds dear - is on the line.   Samson is sure he knows why there's a target on his back. What he doesn't know is who put it there - the Americans or the Russians?   Two things quickly become clear. One, it was a big mistake to lose Freemantle. And two, Robert Harland, ever the consummate spy, has one final, crucial part to play from beyond the grave.

When librarian and budding private investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder.   A year ago Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found. Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery. Can Kitt and Grace uncover the truth?  Death Awaits in Durham is by Helen Cox.

After the Silence is by Louise O’Neill.  Nessa Crowley's murderer has been protected by silence for ten years.  Until a team of documentary makers decide to find out the truth.  On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella's wild party at their big house a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder.  The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no-one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever. Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsella's carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry's guilt and Keelin's complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa.

The legendary Laestadius becomes a kind of Sherlock Holmes in this exceptional historical crime novel.  It is 1852, and in Sweden's far north, deep in the Arctic Circle, charismatic preacher and Revivalist Lars Levi Laestadius impassions a poverty-stricken congregation with visions of salvation. But local leaders have reason to resist a shift to temperance over alcohol.  Jussi, the young Sami boy Laestadius has rescued from destitution and abuse, becomes the preacher's faithful disciple on long botanical treks to explore the flora and fauna. Laestadius also teaches him to read and write - and to love and fear God.   When a milkmaid goes missing deep in the forest, the locals suspect a predatory bear is at large. A second girl is attacked, and the sheriff is quick to offer a reward for the bear's capture. Using early forensics and Daguerrotype, Laestidius and Jussi find clues that point to a far worse killer on the loose, even as they are unaware of the evil closing in around them.   To Cook a Bear is by Mikael Niemi and explores how communities turn inwards, how superstition can turn to violence, and how the power of language can be transformative in a richly fascinating mystery.

Radio Life is by Derek B Miller.  In this riveting political thriller, The Commonwealth, a post-apocalyptic civilisation on the rise, is locked in a clash of ideas with the Keepers, a fight which threatens to destroy the world . . . again.  When Lilly was first Chief Engineer at The Commonwealth, nearly fifty years ago, the Central Archive wasn't yet the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world, protected by scribes copying every piece of found material - books, maps, even scraps of paper - and disseminating them by Archive Runners to hidden off-site locations for safe keeping. Back then, there was no Order of Silence to create and maintain secret routes deep into the sand-covered towers of the Old World or into the northern forests beyond Sea Glass Lake. Back then, the world was still quiet, because Lilly hadn't yet found the Harrington Box.  But times change. Recently, the Keepers have started gathering to the east of Yellow Ridge - thousands upon thousands of them - and every one of them determined to burn the Central Archives to the ground, no matter the cost, possessed by an irrational fear that bringing back the ancient knowledge will destroy the world all over again. To prevent that, they will do anything.  Fourteen days ago the Keepers chased sixteen-year-old Archive Runner Elimisha into a forbidden Old World Tower and brought the entire thing down on her. Instead of being killed, though, she slipped into an ancient unmapped bomb shelter where she has discovered a cache of food and fresh water, a two-way radio like the one Lilly's been working on for years . . . and something else. Something that calls itself 'the internet' . . .

October 2020

The Postcript Murders is by Elly Griffiths.  PS: Thanks for the murders.   The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. DS Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing to concern her in carer Natalka’s account of Peggy Smith’s death.   But when Natalka reveals that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her . . .   And that Peggy Smith had been a ‘murder consultant’ who plotted deaths for authors, and knew more about murder than anyone has any rightto...   And when clearing out Peggy’s flat ends in Natalka being held at gunpoint by a masked figure . . .   Well then DS Harbinder Kaur thinks that maybe there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.   PS: Trust no one.

To Say Goodbye is by Marcello Fois.  When Michele, a young autistic child goes missing, Commissario Sergio Striggio is put in charge of the investigation. Searches turn up nothing, but there is an interesting connection with the mother's past: when she was a child, her twin brother went missing, never to be found.   However, Striggio is finding it difficult to concentrate on the case. He is waiting for his father, Pietro, to come and stay. The idea of the visit is torturing him. He fears having to reveal that he is gay - most of all he fears that his partner, Leo, will reveal his sexuality to his father. Pietro, however, has other matters on his mind: he has news of a devastating diagnosis to share with his son.  And when his life with Leo unexpectedly collides with his investigation into Michele's disappearance, it seems that in the complicated web of the small town of Bolzano, the truth behind the mystery cannot hide for long.

Pamela, a criminal lawyer struggling to balance work with family, is torn with guilt after her bereaved father suffers a domestic accident. Desperation sets in and her brother draws on the help of Maggie - a live-in carer.  A stranger.  Pamela is impressed by Maggie, who nursed both her own parents at home and now wants to help other families by taking the load. But Pamela soon suspects that Maggie has an alternate agenda.   For her father has a secret, long-buried. As past and present mingle, she begins to question whether he is the man she thought he was. And what she learns will have a devastating impact on everyone...  The Haunted Shore is by Neil Spring.

November 2020

Dog Island is by Philippe Claudel.   When three bodies wash up with the morning tide, the initial reaction of the islanders is that this tragedy must be covered up, lest any association with the drownings damages their tourism industry . . .   But when a detective arrives on the island and starts asking awkward questions, it becomes clear that the deaths indicate something far more sinister and rotten at the heart of this insular fragment of sea-bound land. 

Books to Look Forward to From Quercus, Riverrun and Maclehose Press

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July 2018

Captain Damian Seeker has gone north. Charged with preparing the way for the rule of the major generals, he is now under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne at York. But when Lilburne orders him to a small village on the North York moors with details of the stringent new anti-Royalist laws, Seeker finds that what should be a routine visit will reveal a plot to rival anything in scheming London.  An invitation to dinner at the house of local businessman Matthew Pullan lifts the lid on the bubbling cauldron of grudges and resentment that is Faithly village. The local constable, drunk on the tiny bit of power he holds, using it to avenge old resentments. The hated lord of the manor, the last of a staunchly Royalist family who has managed to avoid suspicion of treachery - for now. The vicar on trial for his job and his home, accused of ungodly acts. And the Pullans themselves, proudly Puritan but disillusioned with Cromwell's government, respected and despised in Faithly in equal measure. The man for whom this unlikely gathering was organised - The Trier, the enforcer of Puritan morality for the local villages - hasn't shown up. And by the end of the night, on of those gathered around Matthew Pullan's table will be fatally poisoned.  Seeker must find out the motive behind the death - mushroom misidentification, petty revenge, or part of a larger plot against Cromwell's government in the north? But who in Faithly, if anyone, can he trust? And when the most painful part of his past reappears after eleven years, will the Seeker meet his match? Destroying Angel is by S G Maclean

Believe Me is by J P Delenay.  I'm just an actress. I wanted to stand on a stage and have people applaud. How on earth did I get into all this?Claire Wright likes to play other people. A struggling British actress, in New York without a green card, Claire needs work. She takes the only part she's offered: as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, hired to entrap straying husbands, catching them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules?  Never hit on them directly. Make it clear you're available, but they have to proposition you, not the other way around. The firm is after evidence, not entrapment. The innocent should have nothing to hide.  Then the game changes.  When the police start investigating one of Claire's targets for murdering his wife - and potentially others too - they ask her to help lure their suspect into a confession. Claire can do this. She assumes a voice and an attitude, something from an old film noir. A master class in deception. But who's deceiving who?  And that's when Claire realises she's playing the deadliest role of her life. 

July 1983, Essex. Fox Farm is, thanks to two corpses, neither picturesque nor peaceful. The body in its kitchen belongs to eminent historian Christopher Cliff, who has taken his own life with an antique shotgun. The second, found on the property boundary, remains unidentified.  DI Nick Lowry's summer is neither sleepy nor serene. And the two deaths are just the half of it. The fact County Chief Merrydown was a college friend of Cliff's means Lowry is now, in turn, under scrutiny from his severely stressed and singularly unsympathetic boss, Sparks.  To catalyse his investigation, Lowry enlists the services of DC Daniel Kenton and WPC Jane Gabriel. Gabriel needs direction, if she is to begin a career as a detective. While Kenton, who appears solely focused on beginning a relationship with Gabriel, needs distraction.  Both the heat and the investigation soon intensify. The team find themselves interrogating enigmatic neighbours, antiques merchants, jilted lovers and wronged relatives; all the while negotiating the caprices of Sparks - whose attitudes remain as dated as Fox Farm's antiques.  Only when they fully open their eyes and minds will they begin to unpick a web of rural rituals, dodgy dealings and fragmented families - and uncover not just one murder, but two.  Yellowhammer is by James Henry.

Stick Together is by Sophie Hénaff.  After their successful solving of three cold cases exposing corruption at the very highest level of the Paris police force, Anne Capestan's squad of misfits and no-hopers should be in a celebratory mood. However, now despised by their colleagues at 36 quai des Orfevres and worried for their future, morale has never been lower among the members of the Awkward Squad.and  Capestan does her best to motivate her troops, but even she cannot maintain a cheerful facade when she has to investigate the murder of Commissaire Serge Rufus, the father of her ex-husband. Worse, it soon appears that his murder is linked to two other victims, both of whom were warned by the killer before they struck . . .

August 2018

After an attempted assassination of a prominent minister goes spectacularly wrong, No sooner has Akyl Borubaev been reinstated as an Inspector in the Bishkek Murder Squad than he's suspended for alleged serious crimes against the state. Akyl is a fugitive from his former colleagues and involved with one of Kyrgyzstan's most dangerous criminals.  On the run, caught up in an illegal scheme that can only end badly, it's time for Akyl to take a stand for everything he believes in.  An Autumn Hunting is by Tom Callaghan.

A Summer of Murder is by Oliver Bottini.  When the fire brigade is called to a burning shed in the Black Forest idyll of Kirchzarten, a volunteer is killed as a weapons cache beneath it explodes. Louise Boni, back with Freiburg Kripo after treatment and recuperation for her alcoholism, is assigned to the task force dealing with this case. The meagre evidence they have points to a possible connection with German neo-Nazis or illegal arms dealers from the former Yugoslavia, while the arrival of secret service agents suggests more is at stake. For Louise to solve the riddle she needs to overcome the ghosts of her past that continue to haunt her.

September 2018

'Island of the Lost was the isle's name long before the hospital was built. In winter, they say the fog falls so heavy there that you can't see your hand in front of your face. Storms rage so forcefully you can be blown from the cliffs. Once St. Christina's was built, the name took on a new meaning. Very few who went into that place ever left.'

Christmas day, and DCI Tom Reynolds receives an alarming call. A mass grave has been discovered on Oilean na Caillte, the island which housed the controversial psychiatric institution St. Christina's. The hospital has been closed for decades and onsite graves were tragically common. Reynolds thinks his adversarial boss is handing him a cold case to side line him.  But then it transpires another body has been discovered amongst the dead - one of the doctors who went missing from the hospital in mysterious circumstances forty years ago. He appears to have been brutally murdered.  As events take a sudden turn, nothing can prepare Reynolds and his team for what they are about to discover once they arrive on the island . . . The Darkest Place is by Jo Spain. 

Alain Delambre is a 57-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment.  All he is offered are small, demoralizing jobs. He has reached his very lowest ebb, and can see no way out.  So when a major company finally invites him to an interview, Alain Delambre is ready to do anything, borrow money, shame his wife and his daughters and even participate in the ultimate recruitment test: a role-playing game that involves hostage-taking.  Alain Delambre commits body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity.  But if he suddenly realised that the dice had been loaded against him from the start, his fury would be limitless.  And what began as a role-play game could quickly become a bloodbath. Inhuman Resources is by Pierre Lemaitre.

October 2018

Leave No Trace is by Mindy Mejia. Ten years after a boy and his father went missing in the wilderness of Minnesota's Boundary Waters, the boy - who is no longer a boy - walks back out of the forest. He is violent and uncommunicative. The authorities take him to Congdon Mental Institution in Duluth, on the edge of mighty Lake Superior.There, language therapist Maya Stark is given the task of making a connection with this boy/man who came back from the dead. But their celebrity patient tries to escape and refuses to answer any questions about his father or the last ten years of his life. In many ways he is old far beyond his years; in others, still a child.  But Maya, who was abandoned by her own mother, has secrets, too. And as she's drawn closer to this enigmatic boy, she'll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world - but at what cost to herself?

The Burning House is by Neil Spring.  It was a victimless crime...  Estate Agent Clara is struggling to make a sale. With her abusive ex-husband on the brink of finding where she's hiding, she needs to make a commission soon or lose her chance to escape.  Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness has remained unsold for years, and Clara is sure that an 'innocent' fire will force the price down. But the perfect crime soon turns into the perfect nightmare: there was a witness, a stranger in the village, and he's not going to let Clara get away with it…. 

When one Israeli citizen disappears from Charles de Gaulle airport with a woman in a red dress, you could put it down to youthful indiscretion.   When a second from the same flight is disappeared from his hotel room by a girl with a gun, you might just have a diplomatic crisis on your hands.  Enter Colonel Abadi, recently appointed head of the special branch of Unit 8200, Israel's most secretive intelligence service.  His only allies are his deputy back in Israel, the dazzling and hot-headed Lieutenant Orianna Talmor, and a hungover French detective, hung out to dry by his superiors.  Together they face a squad of ruthless Chinese commandos who have no qualms about leaving Paris littered with bodies.  And then there are their enemies in the Paris establishment and the labyrinthine, back-stabbing Israeli intelligence community.  All in all, it could be a long night.  A Long Night in Paris by Dov Aflon.

November 2018

Bloodline is by Nigel McCrery. When Isabel, a British university student, travels to a remote Spanish town it isn't only to enjoy the atmosphere. It's also to trace how and why her family name might have derived from the town, a quest her father, Sebastian made nine years ago, not long before his death in a car accident. But as Isabel, aided by local guide Mauricio, starts digging into her family's possible links with Alarcon, she's unprepared for the dark secrets uncovered; secrets that the current ruling nobility of Alarcon are keen to keep buried.Ten days into her stay in Alarcon, Isabel mysteriously disappears, presumed dead. Inspector Mark Lapslie and DC Emma Bradbury are sent out to investigate alongside the local Spanish police. A possible gangland link is suspected - Isabel's stepfather in Valencia is a retired British gangster and a mob-hitman from Malaga is identified in Alarcon at the time of Isabel's disappearance. But Mauricio, suspects the Mayor's son, Dario, is the real culprit - to uncover the truth, Lapslie and Bradbury must delve into the murky, chequered past of Isabel's gangland stepfather while also following in her footsteps through Alarcon's dark and tempestuous history.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer RM Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an RM Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case.  Not knowing who to trust, and afraid that the killer is someone she knows, Clare confides her darkest suspicions and fears about the case to her journal. Then one day she notices some other writing in the diary. Writing that isn't hers...  The Stranger Diaries is by Elly Griffiths.

December 2018

Village of Lost Girls is by Augustín Martínez.  Five years after their disappearance, the village of Monteperdido still mourns the loss of Ana and Lucia, two eleven-year-old friends who left school one afternoon and were never seen again. Now, Ana reappears unexpectedly inside a crashed car, wounded but alive and next to the body of a man.While the people of the village struggle to comprehend the startling turn of events, the case reopens and a race against time begins to discover the identity of the dead man and who was behind the girls' kidnapping. Most importantly, where is Lucia and is she still alive? Inspector Sara Campos and her boss Santiago Bain, who are called in from Madrid's head office, are forced to work with the local police. Five years ago fatal mistakes were made in the investigation conducted after the girls first vanished, and this mustn't happen again. But Monteperdido has rules of its own.