On the Radar — Every Thursday we bring you a list of new crime fiction releases for you to add to your TBR pile. Today On the Radar includes some French crime fiction, a Scottish novel with a Swedish victim, 18th century Leeds and plenty more. Read on, take note, and tune in again next week when Spriteby will be back with more new releases!
Alex by Pierre Lemaitre
The premise of this novel is that when a kidnapping occurs, unless the victim is recovered in the first few hours they’ll likely meet their end. So when a girl is bundled into a white van and taken from a street in Paris, the heat is on for Commandant Camille Verhoeven. The enigmatic Alex Prévost is beautiful, resourceful and tough, but will her time run out? If you liked the selection offered in our recent list of French crime fiction books, you’ll enjoy this one. It’s done very well in France. Click the ad to the right to receive an excerpt by email.
Buy now on Amazon
The Swedish Girl by Alex Gray
Can this really be the 10th outing for Alex Gray’s Glaswegian detective DCI Lorimer? With echos of the case of Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox, here young Kirsty Wilson moves into a luxury flat owned by rich Swedish student Eva Magnusson. When Kirsty finds Eva murdered, suspicion falls on their male flatmate. Like Kirsty, Lorimer doesn’t believe it was him and, it appears to become a serial killer case when another woman just like Magnusson is also brutally murdered. It’s out 7 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Scent of Death by Andrew Taylor
Back in 2003 Andrew Taylor won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger for The American Boy. He’s kept his fans waiting a decade, but next week sees the release of The Scent of Death. Here, we’ll be taken back to Manhattan in 1778. The War of Independence is raging, and loyalists fleeing the patriots are pouring into the city. Edward Savill arrives from London to investigate loyalist claims for compensation and finds himself in the middle of the case of a murdered gentleman. A runaway slave is hanged for the crime, but Savill thinks they got the wrong man.
Pre-order now on Amazon
At the Dying of the Year by Chris Nickson
Following The Constant Lovers, where he solved the murder of a young woman near an abandoned old abbey, Richard Nottingham is back for another mystery set on the dingy lanes of 1730s Leeds. This time, street urchins are being murdered, and while some of the richer members of the community seem to know what’s behind it, these people of privilege are closing ranks and protecting their own. Sounds like something that could have happened just yesterday. It’s released by Creme de la Crime at the end of February.
Buy now on Amazon
Desolation Row by Kay Kendall
Debut author Kay Kendall has written a book set in more recent times – it’s the late 1960s and Austin Starr’s husband decides the Vietnam War is not for him. He breaks for Canada, but once north of the border he finds himself accused of murdering a US senator. The Canadian authorities didn’t hassle draft dodgers but in this case they’re under heavy political pressure to make an exception. Can Austin Starr exonerate her husband?
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