On the Radar — We’ll start this week with Laura Lippman’s latest release in which old crimes are unravelled after four decades when, finally, someone starts asking the right questions. There’s a return to Hull with David Mark, and Chris Pavone follows up his hit The Expats with a new tale of former spies and double dealing. Things heat up in Mississippi with the latest 800-page epic from Greg Iles as he rakes over the coals of a town’s racist past. There are several more fascinating releases for you too, so enjoy…
After I’m Gone by Laura Lippman
A man disappears. In 1976. Those who depended on him put their lives back together. Ten years later, his extra-marital squeeze also disappears. When her remains are discovered, another dozen years later, slowly, and very much after the fact, questions are being asked. Roberto Sanchez is a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, and as he becomes involved in the case he uncovers a trail of deceit, deception and duplicity dating back over 40 years. Out in Kindle on 4 March, and as a paperback on 3 April.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Sorrow Bound by David Mark
The Yorkshire port of Hull has been reinvented over the last few years, not only by commercial regeneration, but as the base for some of the sharpest knives in the modern British crime fiction drawer. Last year we interviewed David Mark about how Hull is essential to his writing (link here). Sorrow Bound is the third story featuring Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy and his long-suffering boss, Detective Superintendent Patricia Pharoah. Expect a bare-knuckle journey along mean streets, where decent coppers are struggling to keep up with ever more resourceful criminal low-lifes. Oh, and wrap up warm – the wind blowing in from the North Sea will chill your bones, as will the nastiness of the criminals of Humberside. Sorrow Bound is out on Kindle on 27 March, and as a hardback on 3 April.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
Penn Cage is the mayor of Natchez, the historic town perched on a bluff above the swirling muddy waters of the Mississippi. However, some chapters in the town’s history book are perhaps best left unread, like the one about the murdered civil rights activists. And then there’s the grim tale of young black men taken out into the Louisiana swamps and crucified. Cage was formerly the town’s DA, and also a best-selling novelist, but he faces a life changing challenge when faced with allegations that his own father – a widely admired retired physician – was a key player in the town’s violent and racist past. In 2011 Iles was seriously injured in a road accident, but has recovered to write this, the first of a new trilogy featuring Penn Cage. Put 13 March into your diary and book a week off – this one’s 800 pages long!
Pre-order now on Amazon
Murder in Pigalle by Cara Black
When a writer gets to number 14 in a series featuring an individual detective, you have to reckon she’s doing something right. Despite being based in the distinctly un-Gallic city of San Francisco Cara Black is a confirmed Francophile and has created an enduring heroine in the shape of Aimée Leduc. Madame Leduc is a PI, and also five months pregnant, so she’s trying to slow things down a little as she prepares for the birth of her child. However, she hasn’t reckoned with the explosive atmosphere of a Paris in the summer of 1998 as the football World Cup prepares to kick off. A rapist is terrorising the city, so Aimée reluctantly abandons her maternity leave when the daughter of a close friend disappears. The Kindle version will be available on 4 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
The Accident by Chris Pavone
Chris Pavone is a New York based publisher who has previously specialised in cookery books. Last year, we took a look at The Expats, but here Pavone provides the ingredients for a thriller set in a world he knows all too well. A New York publisher reads through an unpublished manuscript and realises that it contains potentially explosive revelations about the CIA, multinational companies, and important political figures. With both the author and the CIA operative at the heart of the exposé in hiding – in Switzerland and Denmark respectively – Isabel Reed must make decisions which may threaten not only livelihoods, but actual lives. Out on 13 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Skewered and Other London Cruelties by Benedict Jones
These six short stories are set in the sometimes tawdry, often criminal, but always deeply human world of the kebab shops, dodgy taxi firms and Indian restaurants of South East London. Don’t expect Big Ben, Beefeaters, or Buckingham Palace. This is a London that tourists seldom see. Much of the crime is petty, but deeply affecting, and more substantial crime essentials such as murder, kidnap, robbery, torture, femme fatales and double crosses put in an appearance. Benedict J Jones is a writer of crime, horror and western fiction. He lives in the area he writes about, so one essential ingredient – authenticity – should be guaranteed. Out now.
Buy now on Amazon
The Front Seat Passenger by Pascal Garnier
Garnier died at the age of 60, in 2010. He wrote crime stories, literary novels and stories for children. Based in the Ardèche in southeast France, before his untimely death his writing had become a byword for bleak, ironic and witty explorations of the darker side of human nature. In this book, Fabien has mixed emotions when his wife is killed in a road accident. Despite their frosty relationship, he still feels regret. Regret turns into curiosity, and curiosity turns into a desire for revenge when he realises that Sylvie died alongside her lover. Available in all formats from 10 March.
Buy now on Amazon
Three Steps Behind You by Amy Bird
Amy Bird has certainly led a busy life. Having lived all over the UK in her younger days, she has now settled in North London, where she lives with her husband while juggling a career as both a writer and a lawyer. Can effective crime fiction be imagined, or for sheer authenticity, does the writer have to have been there, done that, and got the proverbial T-shirt? Dan believes that inspiration for his next book can only come from his embedding himself in the lives of two of his oldest friends – Adam and Nicole. What follows promises to be a taut psychological thriller, with unexpected twists. Available digitally on 13 March.
Pre-order now on Amazon
Black + White
Finally, an international collaboration of comic book writers and artists has produced a 28-page noir comic that explores both colours. Yes, there’s black, and there’s white. The anthology of stories within takes in themes such as suicide, crime and post-apocalyptic dystopia, with some of the stories more tongue in cheek than others. The talent includes Canadians Drezz Rodriguez and Michael Grills, American Nathan St John, British artist Andrew Chiu and Argentinian Vergara alongside the Australians Bergen and Matt Kyme. It’s available for pre-order now here, but goes on sale 15 March at only $1.
