On The Radar — This week’s selection of new book releases challenges readers to look beyond what they’re being told in order to solve the crimes in these four investigations. We start with a disappearance and a worried husband who may not be as innocent as he looks… or is he? We also have a debut novel from a crime writer who hails from the same Swedish publishing stable as Steig Larsson. For all this and the rest of this week’s offerings, carry on reading…
On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary Nick Dunne’s wife Amy suddenly disappears and he finds himself marked down as the prime suspect. Amy’s friends say she was scared of him and that she kept secrets from him. Despite his protestations of innocence, the case against him seems to be mounting. The police find strange searches on his computer and he’s getting persistent calls to his mobile phone. So what really happened to Amy and what’s in the half-wrapped box that was casually left on the marital bed?
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The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen
Brought to you by the same publisher and editorial team that originally released The Millennium Triology, The Gingerbread House is the first in the Hammarby series. Here several bestial murders take place within a short period of time in central Stockholm and criminal investigator Conny Sjöberg is asked to head the Hammarby police team handling the case. However, when the team begin to suspect that there may be a link between the deaths, Sjöberg goes cold. There’s a killer out there with a personal grudge and a determination not to be stopped.
Our third book is something of a curve ball, as we take you back to the 17th century and a village in the Bavarian Alps where the local priest has just been found murdered. As death claimed its victim, he managed to scratch a cryptic clue into the frost. Following the clues is local hangman Jakob Kuisl, his daughter Magdalena, the local physician’s son, and the priest’s arstocratic sister. Little do they realise that their search will take them further back to the time of the Crusades when the church was going through inner turmoil. Their path seems to be leading them on a treasure hunt, and they aren’t alone on their journey. Mysterious monks are following them and diversionary tactics are thrown in Jakob’s path. Will they solve the clues and find the killer? The Dark Monk is relesed in the UK on 12 June 2012.
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Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi
African peace activist Joshua Hakizimana is about to create a stir in Madison, Wisconsin. To the people of Rwanda he’s the man who saved hundreds from genocide, and he’s just accepted a teaching position at the local university to teach about ‘genocide and testimony’. Then the body of a young woman is found on his doorstep. Local detective Ishmael is an African-American in a predominantly white town and when he’s assigned the case, he believes it to be racially motivated. The Ku Klux Klan still holds rallies in the area, but the real answer may lie further afield… in Nairobi. Ishmael goes on an eye-opening journey through its dangerous streets to discover a truth that can get you killed.
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