On the Radar – Last week we featured a good selection of American authors in our books news, but today we have honour Team GB and their medal-tastic achievements. This week’s collection of new and forthcoming crime fiction from our sceptre’d isle includes a collaboration between some of the very best names in classic British crime fiction, plus releases by some relatively new kids on the block.
Stark Warning by James Raven
Jessica Lee is the undisputed Queen of Trash TV but someone has started to take murderous exception to her brand of programming, and issues her with a stark warning: “Every time you appear on screen someone will die.” To prove his point and to make sure Jessica will take his threat seriously, a young woman is found with her throat slit. However, when Jessica and her bosses decide not to acquiesce to the killer’s threat, they soon find that there are dire consequences.
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Baptism by Max Kinnings
7.45am and the body of a monk with a knife in his throat is found on Snowdonia. Meanwhile, in a house in Wimbledon, a young family is being held at gunpoint. An hour later, a tube train is stuck in a tunnel with 400 passengers trapped inside. Attempts are made to contact them, bu there’s no response. By 9.15am, DCI Ed Mallory, the Met’s top hostage negotiator, has just turned in for work and finds himself assigned with the case. Are the above mentioned events related? Watch for a review soon here on Crime Fiction Lover.
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Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson
When DI Bill Reid is killed with a crossbow in the grounds of a police rehabilitation centre with compromising photos discovered in his room, it falls to DCI Banks to look into the matter. But his task is far from an easy one, especially as Professional Standards insist on shadowing his investigation. Could the disappearance of an English girl in Estonia six years ago have any bearing on the case?
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Ask a Policeman by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Helen 
Simpson, Gladys Mitchell and Anthony Berkeley
What do you get when five of the best names in classic British crime fiction swap their detectives? Ask a Policeman.
Newspaper magnate Lord Comstock is far from popular, so when he’s found murdered in the study of his country home there are plenty of high profile suspects who could be guilty of the crime. With impartiality called into question over the police investigation, the home secretary is left with only one choice: invite four famous detectives to look into the affair. Enter Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey and Mr Roger Sheringham.
Ask a Policeman is your classic murder mystery with one or two rather interesting twists in its writing style. First published in 1934, it was the second collaboration between the authors, known as The Detection Club, following The Floating Admiral. Harper Collins is set to reissue Ask a Policeman on 13 September.
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