On the radar – This week we’re feeling quite festive here at CFL as it’s the Diamond Jubilee weekend in the UK. Our bunting is already out and we certainly envisage overflowing teacups, cream cakes and a plentiful supply of crime fiction to keep us entertained over the next four days. It’s a hard life…

Among our selection this week are a couple of Amazon treats as part of the site’s Jubilee Sale and some of the latest Nordic Noir to arrive in our bookshops.

August Heat by Andrea Camilleri
Bank holiday weekend may not be looking good weather wise, so our first stop is Vigata in Sicily where the heat is stifling. Inspector Montalbano’s girlfriend, Livia, has invited friends to stay nearby, but he soon finds himself with a case on his hands when their child goes missing. A search of the house proves fruitless until he discovers a tunnel leading into an underground level of the building.  He quickly finds the child but then makes a more gruesome discovery in a trunk in a subterranean room – the naked body of a young girl wrapped in plastic. Her throat has been slashed and her killer may be responsible for the underground rooms.
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Murder on a Midsummer Night by Kerry Greenwood
Melbourne 1929, and the year starts with a heat wave which private investigator, Phryne Fisher, is finding somewhat trying. She has two cases on her hands – the apparent suicide of a man on St Kilda beach and the hunt for a lost illegitimate child who could be heir to a wealthy old woman’s fortune. With the thoroughly unpleasant Bright Young Things doing their very best to hamper her investigations, Phryne will need her wits about her if she is to solve both cases.
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With both of these books priced under £1.50, they’re definitely worth considering.

Disgrace by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Kimmie lives by her wits on the streets of Copenhagen. She’s learnt to live by stealing and that she has to keep moving, but she’s being hunted. She knows things that make her a threat to some powerful people, and her pursuers won’t stop until they’ve stopped her, for good.

Detective Carl Mørck of the cold case department is passed the file of a brother and sister murdered 20 years earlier. A group of boarding school students was suspected at the time and one of them was convicted of the crime, so why has the case re-surfaced? Does Kimmie hold the key? This follows Adler-Olsen’s popular book Mercy, which gained five stars here on CFL.
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Killer’s Island by Anna Jansson
A brutal and disturbing murder has taken place in the mythic town of Visby on the Swedish island Gotland. Legend tells of a bride who drowned on her wedding night and returns to lure men to their deaths in the sea. Early one morning, a nurse is found murdered, her body placed on public display in a pavilion at the local botanical gardens. She’s been dressed as a bride holding flowers. Detective Inspector Maria Wern is tasked with investigating but it soon becomes clear that the killer is observing them and has technical knowledge that surpasses that of the police. The killer taunts and provokes them, making it apparent that he is becoming more of a danger as each day passes.
Buy now on Amazon