On the radar – This week our radar has picked up a strong signal from a publisher with a growing crime stable – Constable & Robinson. They’ve got a great selection from July and going forwards. We start the ball rolling in medieval Glasgow with a new investigation for notary sleuth, Gil Cunningham. Then it’s 1920s Chicago with aristocratic siblings, Blotto and Twinks. Agatha Raisin is back for a new murder mystery too, but first take a peek at a book that’s up for a CWA Dagger in the Library award…

Split Second by Cath Staincliffe
Have you seen Blue Murder on ITV? One of its creators is Cath Staincliffe, and in addition to screenwriting she saw her police novel Witness hit the number one spot on the Kindle crime chart last summer. She’s back and the premise here is that a split second decision can change things forever. When Jason Barnes steps in to help a teenage boy being attacked by a gang on a bus, it costs him his life. For Jason’s parents, his actions spark conflicting opinions – his mother wants justice and his father is looking for meaning in his son’s sacrifice. Split Second unpacks the human impact resulting from a violent crime and the differing responses to the fallout.
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The Fourth Crow by Pat McIntosh
The setting is 15^th century Glasgow and a young woman has been tied to the cross of St Mungo outside the city’s cathedral to cure her of madness. However, the next morning, she is found beaten and strangled, but there is more to this victim than meets the eye, and Gil Cunningham must first uncover the truth about the victim’s identity, if he is to discover who would be so willing to flout the protection of the saint by killing her. This promises to be a mystery full of puzzles and before Gil can solve it, there’s another murder. Can he unravel the threads and find the solution?
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Blotto, Twinks and the Bootlegger’s Moll by Simon Brett
With the family finances in a less than healthy state, the Dowager Duchess has decided that nephew Blotto needs to acquire a wife with enough dosh to right the coffers at Tawcester Towers. However, Blotto feels more like the condemned man as he boards the ship with his sister Twinks to meet his doom in Chicago. They arrive to find that his prospective father-in-law Hiram P Chapstick III is up to his eyeballs in a bootlegging racket run by mobster Spagsy Chiaparelli and decide to do something about it, but do they really know what they’re getting themselves into?
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Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers by MC Beaton
Agatha’s back and once again she’s on the prowl, but her luck with men is about to hit another stumbling block. The latest object of her affections is local gardener George Marston, but she’s not the only one with her eye on him, and competition to win him is fierce. However, her  pursuit hits a very large stumbling block when he fails to turn up at a charity ball. Agatha decides to hunt him down, only to discover he’s been dispatched by snake bite and buried in a compost heap. This leaves Agatha with no alternative but to investigate…
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