Book Club

Elizabeth is Missing

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The industry buzz that preceded this release was more than justified. To say that the main protagonist is unusual, is an understatement. Maud is an 80-year-old woman on the fringes of dementia. Her memory is fallible, but she is convinced of one thing. She has…
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Book Club

The Hunting Dogs

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“Where have you been all my life?” asked our reviewer Jeremy Megraw when he discovered this Glass Key winning novel by Jorn Lier Horst. The Norwegian detective William Wisting is shocked when he hears that his own department is implicated in a corruption scandal. His…
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Book Club

The Last Refuge

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When Scotsman John Callum arrives in the Faroe Islands, he discovers a place that’s as forlorn and remote as he is. Callum is running from something, but it’s not clear what. For a while, it seems like he might just achieve the quiet solitude he…
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Book Club

The Investigation

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Korean crime fiction is something of a rarity, so this translation by Chi-Young Kim is a find. It is 1944, and a mixture of criminals, anti-war activists and Korean partisans are being held in Fukuoka Prison, a Japanese POW camp. The guards have a particularly…
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Book Club

Dog Will Have His Day

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The Three Evangelists appeared in English in 2006, and this is the long awaited sequel by Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau, AKA Fred Vargas. The story opens with the bizarre discovery of a human toe bone in a random dog turd. Louis Kehlweiler is the sharp-eyed observer. He…
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Book Club

Necropolis

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If you are amused by cruel humour, then a word to the wise – don’t read this book on the bus or the train, as you will be reduced to fits of giggles. Main character Dyson Devereux is an acerbic and savage commentator on the…
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Book Club

Land of Shadows

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There’s certainly no shortage of fictional LA cops and PIs. Marlowe, Rawlins, Bosch and Cole, to name but four, have all trodden the mean streets. Elouise Norton is the new kid on the block in this taut procedural. Her new partner, Colin Taggart poses a…
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Book Club

The Lying-Down Room

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“I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles”, goes the old song. Certainly, the August heat is a trial for Chief Inspector Serge Morel as he tries to solve a puzzling and brutal series of murders. Not only is Morel finding the temperature a…
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