On The Radar – Our weekly new books radar is blipping loudly this week with a heart-stopping thriller, two serial killers, a dangerous treasure hunt in Sweden and deadly secrets in Iceland. These books play with some great ideas, such as a food critic who is also a murderer, and even though the UK weather is cold and miserable at the moment, a trip to the Nordic countries for some of their fine brand of crime fiction is always welcome…
TICK TICK TICK by GM Clark
DI Robert Downey is on the trail of a serial killer who is terrorising the streets of Manchester. The detective and his team find themselves with a sinister code to crack and a killer to face, but time is running out. This is a hard hitting story with kidnappings and an ever increasing body count.
Killer a la Carte by Gerry Galvin
Meet James Livingstone Gall, a London food critic with a side-line as a serial killer. James has romantic designs on Claudia Catalano, the daughter of a wealthy hotelier who at the time of his death, happened to be having an affair with James’ mother, Grace. Sound complicated? With a psychopath like James around there’s likely to be a trail of destruction and murder following in his wake.
Strindberg’s Star by Jan Wallentin
We journey to Scandinavia for our third book, which also happens to be the debut novel of Swedish writer, Wallentin, who has recently joined the Corvus stable. It’s a story that begins in the Taklamakan desert in 1895 where an archaeological excavation turns up some strange and wonderful things including a metal ankh and star which are covered in strange inscriptions. Two years later three men are preparing to leave on a balloon trip to the North Pole. However, there’s more to this mission than meets the eye and none of these men will be seen alive again. Move forward to present day Sweden and the discovery of a corpse in a long flooded mineshaft with a hole in its head and a metal amulet in its skeletal hand. The amulet is the key to a secret history that has been deeply buried… until now! Due out on 1 June.
Meltwater by Michael Ridpath
And finally we’re staying in Scandinavia where Detective Magnus Jonson of the Icelandic police department is about to face his toughest case yet. This is the third book in Ridpath’s Fire and Ice series and finds the Icelander investigating the murder of an internet activist who was part of a group known as FreeFlow. They are committed to the freedom of information and are preparing to unleash their greatest coup on the world’s media from their Icelandic HQ, but in the process they’re racking up plenty of enemies making Magnus’ investigation even harder. With a long list of suspects to deal with the situation becomes further convoluted when a newly qualified priest who has uncovered a scandal within the church returns to Iceland. Due out on 3 June.
