For this week’s book report we thought we’d fix ourselves firmly in the present – after four historical releases last week -and these new releases will definitely satisfy any crime fiction habit. Big authors here too – Ace Atkins, Nora Roberts and to add to the mix you’ll also find a mention of Howard Marks’ new crime novel…
To the outside world, Eli Landon seems to have the perfect life – a beautiful wife, a lovely home and he’s something of a star in the legal profession. All that changes when his wife is brutally murdered having recently confessed to having an affair. Named prime suspect, his world begins to crumble. Friends desert him and he’s hounded by the press, and a detective with a grudge. After a year fighting to clear his name, Eli decides to start a new life in Whiskey Beach and moves into Bluff House, the home his family have owned for generations. But danger is lurking in the shadows, and just as Eli begins to feel he might be able to think of a future with someone else, a determined enemy re-emerges with one aim in mind – to ensure that Eli never attains the perfect life, whatever the cost. Whiskey Beach hits the shelves on 16 April.
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The Ranger by Ace Atkins
The last 12 months have been a busy time for crime noir writer Ace Atkins. He was one of the contributors to Otto Penzler’s homage to Robert B Parker’s famous PI, In Pursuit of Spenser, and he released two of his own Spenser novels – Robert B Parker’s Wonderland, and Robert B Parker’s Lullaby. Now Atkins is back with a modern day crime novel with a dash of classic western. Army Ranger Quinn Colson is newly returned from Afghanistan, but his northeast Mississippi home town is very different to the place he left behind. His uncle, the county sheriff, is dead. The official line is suicide but there are rumblings that it may have been murder, and the town is overrun with corruption. As he starts to investigate, he finds himself turning over stones and making discoveries that can’t be unfound and there’s no way back. The Ranger is out today.
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Our third book is an intriguing little debut from Brisbane based writer, Christopher Currie. Eleven-year-old Simon arrives at the Ottoman Motel with his parents. While they head off to visit the nearby lake, Simon stays behind to watch cartoons. When they don’t come back, everyone tells him they’ll return, but the scars on his legs are hurting again. Reception is an unusual town and as Simon discovers, its inhabitants have secrets to hide and riddles that he just can’t understand. The most sinister of which… he may not be the first child whose parents have mysteriously disappeared. The Ottoman Motel is a YA mystery, out on 21 March.
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On the Run with Bonnie and Clyde by John Gilmore
A little different from our normal fare, but John Gilmore’s latest true crime study takes an in-depth look at the short but violent lives of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, characters whose exploits during America’s Great Depression caught the public’s attention. Gilmore recounts how they moved from town to town robbing banks, small stores and isolated rural gas stations, until they were killed in an ambush in Louisiana on 23 May 1934. On the Run with Bonnie and Clyde is out now.
We’re sure Howard Marks is a name that is familiar to readers. In he shot to literary fame with his 1997 debut, Mr Nice, telling his own extraordinary story of a career as a drug smuggler that ended with a 25-year prison sentence at the Terre Haute Penitentiary in Indiana, and his eventual release after serving seven years. In 2011, he turned his hand to crime fiction with Sympathy for the Devil, and introduced us to DS Catrin Price. Now he’s back with The Score and a new case for his Cardiff detective, Price, who is still recovering from the trauma of her last investigation. When an old school friend starts sending her cryptic messages, she decides to track him down. What she finds is a man distraught with fear over his missing daughter – a promising young singer who has disappeared. All Price has to go on is video footage of the girl’s performance at a local talent contest. Other girls have gone missing in the area, but when the body of one is found dead in an abandoned mine shaft, she fears the worst. The Score is out on 4 April.
Pre-order now on Amazon
